RapidIO Connections Newsletter - Summer 2005RapidIO Product News:AdvancedIO Systems Inc. announced the industry's first configurable 10 Gigabit solution bridging parallel RapidIO interconnect architecture and 10 Gigabit Ethernet: the V1010™ Switched Mezzanine Card (XMC) module. The V1010 module's industry standard I/O can be used in existing systems, and is aimed at embedded systems providers serving defense, aerospace and telecom markets. Altera Corporation announced the HardCopy® II family, its next-generation structured ASIC solution. HardCopy II devices are among the industry's most compelling structured ASICs, featuring a unique FPGA front-end design methodology and cost as low as $15 for 1 million ASIC gates. Built on a new fine-grained architecture designed for low cost, HardCopy II structured ASICs deliver a level of gate densities, performance, and low power consumption that makes them one of the best solutions for a broad range of ASIC and ASSP implementations. HardCopy II devices also support 1-Gbps differential I/O and high-speed interfaces including RapidIO technology. Fabric Embedded Tools (FET) Corporation announced that RapidFET Network Management/Diagnostic Tool fully supports the industry's latest Serial RapidIO devices. Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. revealed an expanded AdvancedTCA ecosystem with modular reference designs featuring Serial RapidIO and Ethernet backplane support and the industry's first Advanced Mezzanine Cards using PowerQUICC™ III processors and multi-core DSPs. Integrated Device Technology Inc. has started developing switching devices designed to switch, buffer and accelerate the processing of data among DSP clusters in applications such as wireless base stations and media gateways. The devices - optimized for board level applications - are expected to be sampling in early 2006. The range of devices under development for the wireless sector will leverage the Serial RapidIO interconnect, based on its inclusion in newer generation DSP devices. Jennic Ltd. announced it has successfully demonstrated the industry's first complete Serial RapidIO endpoint implemented in silicon. Using its extensive Serial RapidIO IP portfolio, Jennic has developed a Serial RapidIO to PCI Bridge as a test chip that supports the Serial Physical, Transport and Logical Layers of the RapidIO specification. Jennic has successfully implemented the bridge in both an NEC Electronics ISSP Structured ASIC and an Altera Stratix-GX FPGA. A complete Serial RapidIO evaluation platform has been developed, consisting of a Hardware Interoperability (HIP) compliant PCI expansion card and a comprehensive software package. Using this platform Jennic has successfully validated their IP with Tundra Semiconductor's Serial RapidIO Switch (Tsi568A) and Altera's. The company also announced that it is to provide its RapidIO® Interface IP product line through the LSI Logic (NYSE: LSI) RapidChip Platform ASIC Partner Program. The RapidChip Platform ASIC Partner Program reduces time-to-revenue, design risk and system costs by providing Platform ASIC designers with third-party development tools including intellectual property (IP), which is a key component for delivering the value proposition of RapidChip. In addition to giving designers access to critical IP, LSI Logic also offers design services and design tools that combine quality and flexibility for consumer, communications, storage and other markets.
Mercury Computer has won a radar contract in the next generation UAV with their PowerStream 7000 box. This box contains 120 PowerPC processors and it is all connected with a very high performance RapidIO mesh fabric. The result is a 1 TeraFLOP box in the size of a mini-fridge. Crossing the TeraFLOP milestone in this size package in an airborne platform is quite an accomplishment. For the full story, visit: Micro Memory®, LLC, a sponsoring member of the RapidIO ® Trade Association, announced CoSine, a highly integrated, completely preconfigured System-on-Chip for real-time FPGA-based signal processing. Bridging two high-speed interfaces (Serial RapidIO, PCI-X TM, or PCI-Express TM) through a multi-port DDR controller, the elegant design enables non-contentious access to a User Programmable Logic (UPL) block and QDR II SRAM controller. MontaVista Software Inc. noted that it will announce boards featuring upgraded RapidIO support in late 2005 and early 2006. By providing an open implementation for RapidIO in Linux, and by supporting leading hardware implementations of RapidIO, MontaVista is laying the groundwork for next generation communications systems designs. Pentek, Inc. claims that their customers can now boost signal bandwidth by nearly an order of magnitude with the release of model 6826 VME A/D converter board. To support high-bandwidth data capture, the board includes several high-speed I/O channels to move the raw data off-board for storage or processing. Two or four channels of FPDP-II data ports, operating at up to 400Mbytes/s each, deliver processed and de-multiplexed data through legacy connections to other VME cards. In addition, the board offers two serial switched-fabric VXS connections, each running full-duplex at 1.25Gbytes/s to support the new Xilinx Aurora, Serial RapidIO and PCI Express protocols. QNX Software Systems announced that its QNX® Neutrino® real-time operating system (RTOS) was named by Dedicated Systems Experts as the undisputed performance champion for Freescale Semiconductor processors based on PowerPC® cores, including its collaboration with Freescale to be the one of the first to support the MPC8548E communications processor enabled by RapidIO interconnect technology. Texas Instruments announced the TMS320C6455 digital signal processor (DSP), offering improved performance, reduced code size plus more on-chip memory and high bandwidth integrated peripherals including the Serial RapidIO bus for inter-processor communications. Using the new C6455 DSP, developers of telecommunications, network and video infrastructure end-equipments and high-end imaging systems will see a system performance gain due to 2x -12x boosts in performance and I/O bandwidth, allowing them to integrate more high-bandwidth channels, achieve higher image definition, and produce more efficient software easily for faster time-to-market. Tundra Semiconductor Corporation announced the availability of the Tundra Serial RapidIO development platform. Continuing its commitment to provide comprehensive design support tools, Tundra has partnered with Silicon Turnkey Express (STx) to supply the reference design platform using the Tsi568A Serial RapidIO switch. Already, a member of the Tundra Third Party Partner Program and a supplier of the Tundra Hardware Interoperability Platform (HIP), STx will manufacture and distribute the Serial RapidIO development platform. This development platform combined with other easily accessible design support tools for the Tundra RapidIO System Interconnect product family will facilitate the flexibility and rapid prototyping capability needed to design next-generation systems faster. The company also announced the Tsi564A Serial RapidIO switch marking another milestone in the ongoing development of the RapidIO ecosystem. The Tsi564A builds on the patent-pending technology of the Tundra Tsi568A launched in February, enabling reliable and high-performance RapidIO interconnect in a smaller footprint for cost-effective systems. |