February 2013, Northwich, Cheshire – Kane Computing Ltd (KCL) have announced the availability of the D.Module2.C6657, the latest processing module in the D.Module2 series of next generation high performance stackable processing and interface modules.
The D.Module2.C6657 takes advantages of the performance and flexibility of the Texas Instruments 1.25GHz fixed and floating point dual core DSP with Viterbi and Turbo co-processors, providing 40 GMAC / 20 GFLOP per core processing power.
The module includes 3M bytes internal DSP RAM, 512M bytes DDR3 RAM, Gigabit transceivers (SRIO, PCIe) and a high-speed parallel peripheral interface, providing adequate processing power and bandwidth for the most demanding applications.
Communication interfaces are I2C, USB, a UART with RS232 and RS422 line drivers, 1000Base-T Ethernet with on-board magnetics or external fiber transceivers, a PCIe and a SRIO link operating up to 5 GBaud, and 16 bit-programmable I/O ports. High-speed data converters can be directly interfaced to the parallel peripheral interface. Data rates up to 120M bytes/sec are supported for higher speed devices.
An 8M byte non-volatile Flash Memory stores program code, data sets, and configuration settings. The Flash can be conveniently (re-)programmed in-field via the resident D.Module2.BIOS functions.
The module is ideally suited as a main building block for ultrasonic and eddy-current material inspection, machine vision, software defined radio (SDR), radar applications and surveillance and security.
The self-stacking design allows the building of complete signal processing systems by stacking the required DSP, I/O data acquisition, and networking modules. If data preprocessing is needed the FPGA module can be inserted between the data acquisition interface and DSP.
Based on more than 8 years’ experience with the D.Module family of modular DSP systems, the development of the new D.Module2 family was motivated by the continually increasing speed and complexity of DSP systems. Today’s DSPs now include more and more specialized built-in peripherals and communication interfaces. New algorithms and applications are hungry for I/O and memory bandwidth and often require DSP-FPGA co-operation.
The D.Module2 DSP board generation addresses these needs with a significantly increased pin count to make the additional DSP peripherals and I/O channels accessible. The bus interface now supports asynchronous and synchronous operation with 500 Mbyte/s bandwidth, ideally suited to exchange data with FPGAs. Additional high-speed communication peripherals are available on the D.Module2: a 3 Mbit/s dual-channel UART and a USB 2.0 peripheral controller.
The D.Module2 family maintains the same form factor and self-stacking design as the D.Module boards. Two modules or module stacks can be mounted side-by-side on a Eurocard base board (160 x 100 mm), leaving ample space for connectors and control elements. Connectors are the widely available industry standard IEEE1386 connectors, which are also used on PMC mezzanine boards. The module spacing in a stack is 10mm.
D.Module2 boards use a controlled impedance PCB to guarantee signal integrity and minimize radiation of the high-speed busses and interfaces. The external bus interface is configurable to asynchronous and synchronous mode, and is fully buffered with (registered) bus drivers to make the system more robust against external capacitive loads, excessive signal trace lengths, and missing line termination.
Programming support for all on-board peripherals is provided by the D.Module2.BIOS, a set of functions resident in the module’s Flash Memory, covering initialization, configuration, and data transfer. Hardware dependencies are encapsulated by the BIOS, hence no software adaptations due to peripheral component or silicon revision changes are required in the user and application programs.
About D.SignT
D.SignT (www.dsignt.de) was founded in 1998 in Kerken, Germany. Their corporate goal is to provide off-the-shelf solutions for high-end, standalone DSP systems, particularly for industrial applications – a market requiring reliable, easy to maintain, and long-term available solutions. Their main product line is the D.Module family of DSP and Peripheral boards, which has recently been extended with the new D.Module2 family of cutting-edge, ultrahigh performance DSP boards. These products are in use worldwide in demanding applications like material inspection, automation, robotics, machine vision, and high-end measurement systems. Based on this proven technology they also offer custom designs which integrate additional peripherals or application specific interfaces, and reduce overall system costs. D.SignT products are fabricated in Germany using highest quality and environment-friendly manufacturing processes. Their association with DSP manufacturers and Spectrum Digital Inc., a leading manufacturer of development tools, allows them to provide complete tool chains for code development and debugging, and guarantees first-class support for our customers.
About Kane Computing
KCL (www.kanecomputing.co.uk) has been providing Image Processing, DSP and high performance computing products for use in industry, education and research since 1987 and is a Texas Instruments Third Party Partner specialising in consultancy and advice on TI development tools/platforms and image processing applications. KCL have extensive knowledge and experience of providing video compression solutions for many industries particularly for digital video security and high quality broadcast applications.KCL has a policy of continual improvement and operates its business in accordance with the requirements of ISO9001:2008.
