PMC format board with quad TigerSHARC DSP cluster

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12 March 2003 Computer/Embedded Technology

The TS-C43 features four 1,5 GFLOP DSPs and 128 Mbytes SDRAM, coupled to a Xilinx Virtex-II FPGA with up to three million gates for algorithm acceleration and a fast PCI/PMC interface for high-speed data input/output.

With high performance processing and fast I/O, the TS-C43 is well suited to software radio, radar, sonar and imaging applications. The PMC format is a widely used open standard mezzanine (IEEE P1386) which means that the TS-C43 can be used in a wide variety of host platforms including PCs, CompactPCI and VME thus offering complete system flexibility using common building blocks.

The TigerSHARC DSP at the heart of the TS-C43 is able to mix freely 1, 8, 16, 32 and 64-bit fixed-point as well as 32-bit floating-point data types natively on one device, enabling parallel operations, efficient data I/O and simplifying application development. Example benefits for telecommunications applications include being able to incorporate 8-bit data streams commonly used by Viterbi decoders, while using the increased precision of 32-bits for echo canceller algorithms and 16-bit data types to support equipment infrastructure; all on the same common platform. Four 250 Mbps bi-directional link ports allow direct data transfer between TigerSHARC DSPs, enabling data to be streamed around the system easily for optimal performance. Link ports provide a simple mechanism to smoothly scale the number of DSPs within the system without relying on bus-based structures.

The TS-C43 includes either a Xilinx XC2V1000 or XC2V3000 Virtex-II FPGA that can also be used to provide a high-speed digital interface with a choice of I/O configurations. Since one of the key advantages of a DSP is its ability to move large amounts of data quickly, high-speed input/output ports are essential for efficient operation so as not to starve the DSP of data or cause it to wait unnecessarily. Direct FPGA driven I/O is provided by the TS-C43 through both the front panel and via the PMC user I/O connector that can be routed to the backplane on VME and CompactPCI solutions.

To enable fast development of optimal performance applications, TS-Lib can also be provided. TS-Lib is a hand-optimised signal and image-processing library containing over 400 functions including FFTs, convolutions, correlation, filters, vector mathematics, linear algebra, matrix arithmetic, trigonometric operation and statistical functions. Software tools support is provided through GUI development tools such as Analog Devices' VisualDSP++ IDE, complete with C/C++ compiler, assembler, run-time DSP library, debugger and optimised libraries, JTAG emulators. Driver support is via PC and VxWorks hosts, with LynxOS support in development.

For further information contact Sean van der Walt, Systematic Designs, 021 555 3866, sean@systematic.co.za.

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PMC format board with quad TigerSHARC DSP cluster

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