September 3, 2002
Innovative Integration announces Quixote DSP card, combining 600MHz C6416, 6Million gate Virtex-II FPGA and 105MHz 14-bit I&Q input/output.
Quixote provides unprecedented bandwidth for cPCI-based software-defined radios, Wireless IP Development & Hardware Testing, Ultra-Fast Flexible Data Acquisition, Vector Signal Generation, Signal Identification, RADAR, and Electronic Warfare.
Forget about multi-card troubles and limitations and move your design to a performance-oriented platform. Quixote combines a TMS320C6416 DSP with an extremely large Virtex-II Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to provide amazing bandwidth and flexibility for cutting edge signal processing apps. The analog front features 105MHz 14-bit I/Q input and output channels tightly coupled to the FPGA for ultra high-speed hardware-assisted processing. The flexible 6416 DSP handles high-end signal processing challenges like multi-threaded programs, adaptive algorithms and communication with the host layer. The FPGA provides ultra-high speed, hardware-assisted processing for channel spreading/despreading, channel coding and downconversion.
Quixote offers several advantages over competitive architectures such as the tight integration of the analog front-end with the FPGA, an FPGA processing core with high speed private memory, a 1GB/s burst bus from the FPGA to the DSP, and high speed connectivity to the system using 64-bit PCI or ChannelLink interfaces. Private ZBT SBSRAM for the FPGA allows for complex processing of large blocks of data. With the power and flexibility of these resources on Quixote, developers have the ability to implement in software a wide variety of radios, communications testers and other high-speed applications to add new capabilities to their products, or customize their application without developing new hardware.
The Pismo Development Software and logic framework provided with Quixote simplifies hardware integration allowing developers to immediately channel efforts towards their application. With many logic cores available for the Virtex II, including free Xilinx cores for digital receiver/transmitter, engineers can build complex signal processing schemes by integrating these reusable logic designs with their specific application code. Quixote is scheduled for release Q4 of 2002.
Conejo goes to production, exceeds specifications in analog performance on 10MSPS input and output channels
Conejo recently earned design innovation recognition when it was selected as EETimes Product Of The Week. Final engineering validation tests now also confirm excellent analog performance, moving this powerful analog+DSP design to production and making it a real winner for leading-edge high-speed applications. Conejo is a 64-bit PCI DSP board, featuring 4 simultaneous 14-bit input channels up to 10MSPS. In-system A/D Signal-to-Noise exceeds 75dB with Spurious Free Dynamic Range above 88dB and Total Harmonic Distortion below -84dB. Conejo also provides 4 simultaneous 16-bit D/A output capable of delivering extra-pure signals, with Signal-to-Noise above 95dB, SFDR at 90dB and THD below -83dB. With extreme triggering flexibility, high-end converters and world-class software tools, Conejo is an unmatched board-level solution for today's new challenges like wireless and broadband hardware testing, real-time frequency/phase-agile waveform generation, RF power control, RADAR development, custom video capture, spectroscopy, laser-based processes, semiconductor equipment control and IC testing, photonic switches and any field requiring complex, high-speed data acquisition, co-processing and waveform playing.
Conejo provides ultra-fast servo-control for optical devices, MEMS, photonic switches, lasers, scanners, stimulus-response testing.
Numerous engineering fields rely on the advance of better and faster closed-loop control systems capable of ultra low latency response. Conejo opens new doors to systems engineers with a record performance of in-system closed-loop latency of 2.2 microseconds while running 4 simultaneous analog I/O! Want more details how this time budget was achieved? Give us a call at ++1 805-520-3300 and ask for a sales engineer.
Software Protection HASP Key removed from all board development packages.
Until now, developers using our Zuma and Pismo Toolsets were required to install a hardware HASP key on the parallel port of their PC. This device provided security to protect our software from piracy. This feature has now been eliminated in an effort to facilitate installations, multi-station development and field deployment. Software toolkits are now available, free of charge, via web download to all registered users. This means that all our customers can download software updates for unlimited time, after a quick verification of their registration. Please contact Innovative Integration sales department for assistance.
Real Time Solution of the Month: Neutron Beam Chopper Simulator on SBC67 / A4D4
This month's "Real Time Solution" is a DSP-based neutron chopper simulator running on our SBC6x stand-alone, with an A4D4 OMNIBUS Module. Neutron choppers are rotating devices that are precisely phased to chop a neutron beam. They consist of a power amplifier, an AC servo-motor and a rotating mass of blades housed in a vacuum vessel. Depending on mass, inertia and angular velocity, these systems can store a large amount of kinetic energy. For safety and logistic reasons, control and behavior of such an apparatus is modled on a simulator prior to hardware implementation. These models were first developed using Simulink and then coded for uploading to the DSP. The simulator receives an analog input command signal on the A4D4 Module and outputs a digital top-dead-center pulse train. The DSP implements a complex s-parameter model and appears, to the controller, to be a real life chopper. It can be programmed to have all the characteristics of specific chopper designs, and operate in either torque or velocity modes. Sampling and calculation is done at 4kHz. Excellent correlation was obtained between the Simulink model and DSP simulator, and also between simulator and actual chopper data.
