VMETRO unveils Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGAs in an XMC module

HOUSTON, Texas, 4 Oct. 2008.VMETRO, maker of embedded computing solutions based on standards such as VXS, VPX, XMC, and FMC that utilize multi-gigabit serial interconnects, announced a new-generation, user-programmable FPGA XMC/PMC module with fiber-optic transceivers.

The XMC-FPGA05F, a follow-on to the PMC-FPGA03F, combines the Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA with four front-panel, fiber-optic transceivers in air- or conduction-cooled versions.

The XMC-FPGA05F is well suited to demanding real-time applications, such as remote sensor interfaces, data recorders, and embedded real-time distributed computing.

The XMC-FPGA05F features a Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA, high-speed, fiber-optic transceivers, DDR2 SDRAM memory, DMA controllers, and a choice of interfaces. The XMC-FPGA05F supports the Virtex-5 SX95T and LX155T FPGAs in the FF1136 package. Alternative FPGAs can be provided on request.

Fiber-optic links are enabled by four single- or multi-mode, front-panel, fiber-optic transceivers that support speeds such as 2.015, 2.5, and 3.125Gbps.

An IP core for fiber-optic protocols such as Aurora, Serial FPDP, Serial RapidIO, or Ethernet can be loaded into the FPGA to handle data flow through the transceivers.

The XMC-FPGA05F has four 128MB banks of DDR2 SDRAM memory with bandwidth approaching 1GB/s. The PMC/XMC form-factor board supports both PCI-X/PCI and x8 PCI Express 1.1 host interfaces.

The XMC-FPGA05F has onboard FLASH to store multiple FPGA images and a "FLASH bypass mode" for secure applications to enable direct FPGA configuration by PCI, PCI-X, or PCI Express host interfaces.