SOSA aligned LVDS XMC module with optical I/O

The Model 71813 is also the industry’s first such XMC to implement an optional front panel optical interface supporting four 12Gbps lanes to the FPGA.

The Model 71813 routes 28 pairs of LVDS connections from the FPGA to the XMC P16 connector for custom I/O. When mounted on a compatible single board computer, the Model 71813 provides a customisable I/O signal status and control interface. In the case of a VPX implementation, the I/O is routed to the backplane where it can handle control and command signals to the chassis being defined in the evolving SOSA initiative.

“The Jade Model 71813 directly addresses I/O needs called out in the emerging SOSA standards,” said Paul Mesibov, Pentek’s Chief Technical Officer and SOSA Standard Contributor. “Pentek is working with other SOSA members and is committed to lending our experience in meeting open system architecture challenges.”

The Model 71813 can be optionally configured with a front panel MPO optical connector for supporting four lanes of 12Gbps to the FPGA. With user-installed FPGA IP, the Model 71813 can be used as an optical interface for 10GigE, 40GigE, Aurora or custom protocols.

The Model 71813 is being used by Kontron, with their new VX305C-40G 3U VPX single board computer (SBC). These products were developed in alignment with the SOSA technical standard and designed specifically to meet the needs of the US defence community in their drive for Open System Architecture (OSA) computing platforms.

“Herrick Technology Laboratories, of Germantown, MD, and another major US system integrator have received shipments of this Kontron SBC for US defence community applications,” said Mark Littlefield, Kontron’s Vertical Product Manager for Defense and SOSA standard contributor. “Herrick is integrating the VX305C-40G SBC with a Model 71813 XMC board from Pentek which will provide customisable I/O signal status and control for their new SOSA C4ISR demonstrator system for the US Army.”

The Pentek Jade architecture is based on the Xilinx Kintex UltraScale FPGA, which raises the digital signal processing (DSP) performance by over 50% with equally impressive reductions in cost, power dissipation and weight. Its PCI Gen.3 interface allows access to control and status registers for controlling algorithms, state machines and data flow across the LVDS SOSA I/O port and the optional front panel optical port. A five GB bank of DDR4 SDRAM is available for additional functions. The factory-installed DMA controller can sustain 6.4GB/s data transfers across PCIe.

Pentek’s Navigator Design Suite was designed from the ground up to work with Pentek’s Jade architecture and Xilinx’s Vivado Design Suite providing an unparallelled plug-and-play solution to the complex task of IP and control software creation and compatibility. Graphical design entry for Xilinx and Pentek AXI4-compliant IP modules using the Xilinx IP Integrator greatly speeds development tasks. 

The Navigator Design Suite consists of two components: Navigator FDK (FPGA Design Kit) for integrating custom IP into Pentek sourced designs and Navigator BSP (Board Support Package) for creating host applications. Users can work efficiently at the API level for software development and with an intuitive graphical interface for IP design. The Navigator BSP is available for Windows and Linux operating systems.

Designed for air-cooled, conduction-cooled and rugged operating environments, the Model 71813 XMC module with 5GB of DDR4 SDRAM starts at $8,995. The front panel optical interface is available as an option. Delivery is eight to ten weeks ARO.

The Navigator Design Suite consists of two packages. The Navigator BSP is $2,500 and the Navigator FDK is $3,500.