CommAgility upgrades AMC for 4G and LTE with latest Xilinx Virtex-7 FPGA

High performance AdvancedMC module also provides two TMS320C6670 DSPs and SRIO/Ethernet/PCI Express I/O

Loughborough, UK – 20th January 2014

CommAgility today announced the AMC-V7-2C6670, a high performance Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) module with the processing power of a Xilinx Virtex®-7 FPGA and two TI TMS320C6670 multicore DSPs. The new AMC is designed for wireless processing applications including 4G, LTE, LTE Advanced and beyond.

The AMC-V7-2C6670 provides a high density XC7VX415T-2 Virtex-7 FPGA as standard, with other FPGA options available on request. It includes Serial RapidIO (SRIO), Gigabit Ethernet and PCI Express to give maximum I/O flexibility.

Edward Young, managing director at CommAgility, said, “With the Virtex-7, Xilinx has delivered the DSP performance and I/O bandwidth that’s required for high performance wireless baseband processing – while simultaneously reducing power consumption.”

An IDT CPS-1848 Gen2 SRIO switch provides flexible, high-bandwidth off-board communications, and supports Serial RapidIO at up to 25Gbaud per port. Flexible high-speed optical links, suitable for a range of applications, are provided by three front panel SFP+ optical interfaces at up to 10.3Gbaud, which link to the FPGA or DSPs.

A Gigabit Ethernet interface uses on-board switches for maximum flexibility and access to all main devices on the module. Two fast 10Gbaud PCI Express links are provided to connect the FPGA with each of the two DSPs. For applications that require timing and synchronisation, this is achieved via the front panel or backplane clock I/O, or an optional GPS receiver.

The new AMC also includes two TMS320C6670 fixed- and floating-point quad core DSPs from Texas Instruments (TI), based on TI’s KeyStone multicore architecture. With 8 DSP cores running at 1.2GHz and shared memory, the new module delivers high DSP performance to meet the demands of wireless applications.

The module includes up to 2Gbyte of 64-bit wide DDR3-1600 SDRAM for each DSP. The FPGA has two banks of DDR3 SDRAM: 1Gbyte of 32-bit wide and 512Mbytes of 16-bit wide memory. 256Mbytes of Flash memory is also provided for non-volatile storage of multiple FPGA configurations and DSP and FPGA software. CommAgility glue logic provides board control and FPGA configuration via local SPI interfaces or over SRIO, leaving the main FPGA completely free for customer application code. Full Board Support Libraries are also provided to speed customer application development.

Available software includes a full MicroBlaze board support library for the FPGA, and full board support libraries for the DSPs. Additional debug support is provided via on-board serial port connectors, plus RS-232 and JTAG debug via the CommAgility AMC-BB Debug Breakout Board.

The new module is a compact full-size, single width PICMG AMC.0 R2.0 AMC, and is suitable for use in both ATCA carriers and MicroTCA chassis. It can also operate standalone, with suitable power and cooling. A range of build options is available, and further customisation is possible in volume, to enable the best technical and commercial fit to a customer application to be achieved.

The AMC-V7-2C6670 is available now. For pricing, please contact CommAgility.

Note to editors:

High resolution photos are available at www.commagility.com/press

About CommAgility:

CommAgility is a leading manufacturer of signal processing AMC modules for wireless and other signal processing applications, combining flexible interfaces including analogue RF, the latest Texas Instruments DSPs and Xilinx FPGAs, and high bandwidth on and off-card communications using Serial RapidIO and Ethernet. Customers around the world use CommAgility products to develop a wide range of high performance applications, and recent designs include test equipment, trial systems and base stations for a wide range of wireless standards especially WiMAX, LTE and LTE Advanced. CommAgility was honoured with a Queen’s Award for International Trade in 2013, and has featured in the Deloitte UK Fast 50 list of fastest growing technology companies in 2012 and 2013. See www.commagility.com.

 

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