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FPE650 VPX Quad Virtex-5 FPGA

Quad Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA VPX Processor Board with Dual FMC Sites

  • 4x Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGAs
  • VPX/VPX-REDI format
  • Dual FMC Sites
  • Air-cooled and rugged conduction-cooled options
  • Configuration processor and crossbar switch

The FPE650 is a quad FPGA processor card which combines high performance and high bandwidth I/O in a flexible format. Provided in a 6U VPX format, the FPE650 has a large number of multi-Gigabit/sec serial and parallel data links to the backplane as well as FMC (VITA 57) mezzanine sites for direct I/O to the FPGAs without introducing data bottlenecks. Each of the FPGAs include multiple banks of memory to help maximize the capabilities of the Xilinx Virtex-5 SX95T, LX155T or FX100T FPGAs. The FPE650 is designed for the most demanding digital signal processing applications such as Electronic Counter Measures, Signal Intelligence and Electro-Optics.

Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA Nodes
Each FPE650 can be provided in different build variants depending on whether the application requires DSP or logic centric resources. The FPE650 can be built using four LX155T, SX95T or FX100T FPGAs platforms (speed grade 2, by default).

The four FPGAs are closely coupled for multiple banks of QDR2 SRAM and DDR2 SDRAM (depending on FPGA site) for increased system performance. The FPGAs are inter-connected through a network of x4 RocketIO links and parallel connections for high bandwidth, low latency data communications. There are dedicated high speed links that connect to the front panel FMC sites and VPX backplane connections.

FMC Sites
Two FPGAs are connected to an FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC) site. FMC is defined by the emerging VITA 57 specification as a mezzanine format designed to take advantage of FPGA based I/O - high bandwidth, reduced latency, simplified design and lower cost. FMCs do not require CPU busses such as PCI and consequently all control and flexibility is embodied within the FPGA directly. The FPE650 provide 68 differential parallel FPGA links to each site, x4 full duplex RocketIO link and an Ethernet port. A zero latency cross bar switch is used to determine how the FMC x4 RocketIO link is used thereby providing a flexible solution.

VPX/VPX-REDI
ANSI/VITA 46.0-2007 provides a large number of high speed serial data links and ideal for FPGA solutions. Dual x4 links to all FPGAs are made available to the backplane for high bandwidth communications to the VPX backplane. There are additional x4 links, via a cross bar switch on the FPE650, and parallel backplane connections to two FPGAs increase I/O and system bandwidth further.

Commercial air-cooled, rugged air-cooled and conduction-cooled variants are also available compliant to the VPX-REDI mechanical format. The default board pitch is 1".

Configuration Control Processor (CCP)

Embedded within the FPE650 is a CCP. This has two roles: to configure the FPGAs via FLASH or SDRAM and to setup up the cross bar switch. The CCP is accessed by an HTML browser attached to front or backplane Ethernet connections.

Software/HDL Support
The FPE650 is a pure FPGA board and intended to be used alongside a CPU system controller. Sophisticated HDL examples are provided such as DMA driven memory interfaces, FMC sites and network connected FPGAs. JTAG headers are provided for application development using ChipScope tools. Support is provided for the Xilinx ISE toolchain.


FPGA Node 1 & 3  
Devices  Xilinx Virtex-5 SX95T, LX155T or FX100T (speed grade 1 or 2) 
DDR SDRAM  2 banks of 128M x 16-bit and
2 banks of 128M x 24-bit
(can be used as 2 banks x 128M x 40-bit)
QDR SRAM  2 banks x 4M x 18-bit 
User FLASH  128 Mbytes per FPGA 
Parallel I/O  20 differential pairs per FPGA (1 & 3 only) to VPX P3/P6 connector 
FPGA Node 0 & 2  
Devices  Xilinx Virtex-5 SX95T, LX155T or FX100T (speed grade 1 or 2) 
DDR SDRAM  N/A 
QDR SRAM  4 banks x 4M x 18-bit 
Parallel I/O  102 single-ended signals between FPGA 0-1 and FPGA 2-3 
FMC Sites  
FMC site 1  FPGA Node 1 Host
- 68 differential pairs
- x4 Multi-Gbps serial port
- Ethernet (SERDES) 
FMC site 2  FPGA Node 2 Host
- 68 differential pairs
- x4 Multi-Gbps serial port
- Ethernet (SERDES) 
Configuration and System Monitoring  
FLASH  128 Mbytes (FPGA configuration) 
Control port  Ethernet (FMC site or backplane)
HTML browser interface 
VPX/VPX-REDI  
Compliance  ANSI/VITA 46.0-2007
VITA 48.0 
Board Pitch  1" (contact CWCEC for 0.8" variants) 
Power Supplies  12V, 5V, 3V3, 3V3 Aux, VBAT (used for maintaining FPGA encryption keys) 
Environmental Builds  Commercial air-cooled, rugged air-cooled and rugged conduction-cooled (see Environmental Specification for details) 
Miscellaneous  
LEDs (yellow)  - User programmable LEDs (two per FPGA) 
LEDs (red)  - FPGA not configured (one per FPGA)
- Configuration controller not configured
- Fault detection 
Software/HDL  
Host Drivers for remote host processors  Windows, VxWorks, Linux 
HTML browser  Embedded processor HTML interface for FPGA configuration, crossbar switch configuration, temperature monitors, power supply sensors and FLASH programming 
Software/HDL examples  Memory interfaces, data streaming library 


Environmental Specification

    Air-cooled   Conduction-cooled 
    Level 1  Level 3  Level 4 
Part number extension   blank  -C2H  -E4H 
Temperature  Operational1
(at sea level) 
0ºC to 50ºC
15 cfm air flow 
-40ºC to 75ºC
20 cfm air flow 
-40ºC to 75ºC
Card edge temp. 
  Non-operational  -40° to 85°C
-50 to 100ºC  -55 to 100ºC 
Vibration  Operational (Sinus)  10G peak
15-2000Hz 
10G peak
15-2000Hz 
  Operational (Random)  0.04 g2/Hz (15-1000Hz flat then 6dB/oct to 2000Hz)  0.1 g2/Hz
15-2000Hz 
Shock  Operational  30 g peak
11ms half sine 
40 g peak 
Humidity  Operational  5-95% non-condensing  5-95% non-condensing  5-95% non-condensing 
Altitude  Operational  10,000 ft2  30,000 ft2  75,000 ft 
Conformal Coat   No  Yes3 Yes3


Notes:
1. Additional airflow might be required if the card is mounted together with, or next to, cards that dissipate excessive amounts of heat.
2. Operating altitudes may be reached by lowering the inlet air temperature and/or increasing the air-flow.
3. Coated with Humiseal 1B31. (ref. http://www.humiseal.com for details.)