Industry's First VME Board Combining 12-Bit 210 MHz A/D and Dual Virtex-II Pro FPGAs Launched by Pentek

• Single-Slot COTS Board Digitizes and Processes 100 MHz Bandwidth Signals
• Offers Multiboard Synchronization and High-Speed FPDP Ports
• Compatible with GateFlow IP Cores and Custom FPGA Design Tools
• Large Local Memory Supports Digital Delay Applications
• Designed for Radar, Signal Intelligence and High-Frequency Data Acquisition and Signal Processing Systems

Pentek, Inc., the industry pioneer of VME board-level technology, today launched a new single-channel, 6U VMEbus board featuring one of the fastest 12-bit analog-to-digital (A/D) converters in the market with sampling rates to 210 MHz. Targeting extremely high-performance DSP tasks, the Pentek Model 6821 couples this high-speed A/D to two new Virtex-II Pro FPGAs by Xilinx. The board excels in acquisition, demodulation, convolution, filtering, processing, and analyzing operations critical for many real-time, high frequency applications.

The Model 6821 accepts one front-panel analog input and delivers digital output samples over two or four front panel data port (FPDP or FPDP II) connectors. A front panel low-voltage differential signaling (LVDS) bus supports synchronous, triggered data acquisition across multiple boards. This capability is essential for multi-channel applications such as radar and direction finding.

Rodger Hosking, vice president of Pentek, Inc. explained, “With the new Analog Devices AD9430 A/D connected directly into both Virtex-II Pro FPGAs on a single board, Model 6821 customers can now digitize a 100 MHz bandwidth signal and process it in real time!” He went on to say, “Our new 6821 can be used as a stand alone system or as a powerful front-end preprocessor for Motorola G4 PowerPC and Texas Instruments C6000 DSP boards. Four FPDP ports deliver tremendous throughput to a wide range of third-party products, while two 128 MB local memories handle real-time buffering for tracking, transient capture and recording applications.”

Flexible Design with Robust I/O Features
The Virtex-II Pro FPGAs represent the latest FPGA offering from Xilinx. The 6821 features two XC2VP20 or XC2VP50 devices, each with up to 6 million system gates and as many as 232 hardware multipliers. These multipliers along with generous on-chip configurable RAM make these FPGAs ideal for handing real-time DSP algorithms at the 210 MHz A/D sampling rate.

The two FPGAs are optionally equipped with 128 MB of SDRAM for data delay and buffering capacities, critical for many real time applications where a digital delay is essential such as radar and signal intelligence. Two 16 MB flash memories support boot operations for optional use of the embedded FPGA microcontrollers.

The A/D converter sample clock can be sourced from an internal crystal oscillator or from an externally supplied sinusoidal clock at a maximum frequency of 210 MHz. This clock is accepted through a front panel SMA connector terminated in 50 ohms.

Four FPDP output ports, two for each FPGA, support data transfer rates of 320 MB/sec each. One port per FPGA is located on the 6821 front panel, while the second is available on an optional second-slot panel. Additional LVDS data I/O is available through either the VMEbus P2 connector or the optional second-slot front panel.

FPGA Development Resources
Pentek’s GateFlow FPGA Resources include the GateFlow FPGA Design Kit supporting user-defined FPGA algorithms; the GateFlow IP Core Library for high-performance FFTs (Fast Fourier Transform), digital receivers and radar pulse compression algorithms; and GateFlow Factory Installed IP Cores so customers can take immediate advantage of FPGA technology with zero FPGA development effort.

One GateFlow offering, the Wideband Digital Receiver IP Core 422, offers a complete FPGA-based digital down converter function for the Model 6821 with user programmable filter coefficients, tuning frequency and decimation.

For the latest pricing and availability information, please contact Mario Schiavone by phone at (201) 818-5900 ext. 229, or by email to mario@pentek.com.

Media contact:
Barbara Stewart, Patterson & Associates
9549 East Covey Trail, Scottsdale, AZ 85262
(480) 488-6909, Fax: (480) 488-8909
Email: barbara@patterson.com