BittWare S43X | Altera Stratix IV GX FPGA | 10GigE | VITA 57 FMC | VPX | Serial I/O-based Applications

BittWare’s S4-3U-VPX (S43X) is a commercial or rugged 3U VPX card based on the high-density, low-power Altera Stratix IV GX FPGA. The Stratix IV GX is designed specifically for serial I/O-based applications, creating a completely flexible, reconfigurable VPX board. The board provides a configurable 25-port SerDes interface supporting a variety of protocols, including Serial RapidIO, PCI Express, and 10 GigE. The board also features 10/100/1000 Ethernet, and up to 4 GB of DDR3 SDRAM. Providing enhanced flexibility is the VITA 57-compliant FMC site, which supports 10 SerDes, 60 LVDS pairs, and 6 clocks.

The FMC (FPGA Mezzanine Card) site provides 8 high-performance SerDes, 60 LVDS pairs, 6 clocks, I2C, JTAG, and reset to the Stratix IV GX. The connector is compliant with the VITA 57 mezzanine standard for FPGA I/O, enabling designers to customize the S43X to their individual needs with optional FMC I/O boards.

The Altera Stratix IV GX was specifically designed for serial I/O-based applications requiring high-density, reconfigurable logic. The Stratix IV GX provides 23 high-performance, full-duplex, multi-gigabit transceivers, supporting PCI Express (Rev 1.0/2.0), 10 GigE, GigE, Serial RapidIO (Rev 1.0/2.0), and SerialLite II standards. It contains up to 530k equivalent LEs, over 20 Mbits of embedded memory, and 1,024 embedded 18×18 multipliers.

BittWare’s FINe III Host/Control Bridge (see Figure 2) implements a complete control plane interface for the S43X, facilitating separate control and data planes, and greatly simplifying the development of data plane I/O and processing. BittWare’s BittWorks software tools provide extensive software support and are tightly integrated with the FINe. The FINe provides GigE via the rear panel, along with 10/100 Ethernet and an RS-232 monitor port via a utility header, and it is connected to the FPGA via a local control bus.

Features

• High density Altera Stratix IV GX
• BittWare FINe™ Host/Control Bridge provides control plane processing and interface
• Fully connected to VPX: GigE, 15 SerDes, 32 LVDS
• Additional I/O: 10/100 Ethernet, RS-232, JTAG
• VITA 57 FMC site for processing and I/O expansion

I/O Interfaces

A debug utility header provides 10/100 Ethernet, RS-232, and a JTAG port for debug support. The rear panel VPX interface includes GigE to the FINe, and 15 SerDes channels and 32 LVDS pairs (16 in, 16 out) to the Stratix IV GX FPGA.

Development Tools

BittWare offers complete software support for the S43X with its BittWorks II software tools. The BittWorks II Toolkit is a collection of libraries and applications for BittWare’s Stratix IV and V FPGA-based boards. Designed to make developing and debugging the applications for BittWare’s boards easy and efficient, the Toolkit provides the glue between the host application and the hardware. The Toolkit supports 32-bit, and 64-bit Windows and Linux platforms.

Product Data

• Product Overview: S43X (S4-3U-VPX) Commercial & Rugged Altera Stratix IV GX 3U VPX Board with Optional VITA 57 FMC for I/O
• Software Specifications: BittWorks II Toolkit. Application Development Software for BittWare FPGA Boards