Dual-FPGA platform chosen for EU FP7 FlexTiles project

The SMT166 can be integrated into a standard 19 inch rack, and is designed around two Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGAs. Each FPGA is responsible for routing data to and from half the Sundance Local Bus (SLB) connections on the board. In addition, parallel and serial connections are available for inter-FPGA communications. The SMT166 supports up to four SLB mezzanine modules with a range of options available such as a multi-ADC system with 16x channels of 14-bit, 250MHz ADC inputs; an octal channel SDR platform; or a complete MIMO 8 x 8 RF transceiver setup. Further to this, the SMT166 supports Sundance’s 12-core DSP module which provides over 10,000 MIPS of fixed point DSP processing power. An optional interface to FMC modules allows users to select from a growing range of add-on modules to suit a wide variety of applications. Each FPGA on the SMT166 is coupled with two banks of DDR3 memory and also supports an identical set of peripheral interfaces, including Gigabit Ethernet, dual SATA 3.1, one lane PCIe Cable, four lane PCIe Cable and RS232. A single USB 2.0 interface facilitates FPGA programming during development phases.

Further to the release of the SMT166, Sundance have also announced that the platform has been chosen as the prototyping platform for the European Union’s FP7 FlexTiles 3D SoC project. The EU FP7 FlexTiles project is focused on the challenge of leveraging multicore technology to develop energy-efficient, high-performance compute systems. The project will define and develop a programmable, heterogeneous, many-core 3D SoC architecture. Sundance’s SMT166 will be used initially to develop, validate and verify the tools to create the FlexTiles 3D SoC. Subsequently, users will be able to utilize the SMT166 as an R&D platform to innovate and prototype products based on the FlexTiles 3D SoC.

“The complexity of the FP7 FlexTiles project demands a powerful and versatile development engine at its heart,” commented Dr. Philippe Millet, Thales Research & Technology’s High Performance Research Leader responsible for the FP7 FlexTiles project. “We are pleased to have secured Sundance Microprocessor Technology’s expertise for the FlexTiles project and in the Sundance SMT166 FPGA board we have a development engine that will enable us to drive the project forward with confidence.”

“The FP7 FlexTiles project will truly exercise the capabilities of our SMT166 FPGA as a development engine,” commented Flemming Christensen, Managing Director of Sundance Multiprocessor Technology. “However, as a powerful FPGA environment that effectively integrates two identical FPGA boards into one, it is also ideally suited to a wide variety of other applications such as large-scale embedded systems and high-performance reconfigurable computing, especially those designed with fault-tolerance in mind.”

Starting at $7,850 for a Virtex-6 LX130 version, the SMT166 is available on typical 4-8 weeks lead-time.