Model 78670 is a member of the Cobalt® family of high performance PCIe boards based on the Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA.
This 4-channel, high-speed data converter is suitable for connection to transmit HF or IF ports of a communications or radar system. Its built-in data playback features offer an ideal turnkey solution for demanding transmit applications. It includes four D/As, four digital upconverters and four banks of memory. In addition to supporting PCI Express Gen. 2 as a native interface, the Model 78670 includes optional general purpose and gigabit serial connectors for application-specific I/O.
The Cobalt Architecture
The Pentek Cobalt Architecture features a Virtex-6 FPGA. All of the board’s data and control paths are accessible by the FPGA, enabling factory-installed functions including data multiplexing, channel selection, data packing, gating, triggering and memory control. The Cobalt Architecture organizes the FPGA as a container for data processing applications where each function exists as an intellectual property (IP) module. Each member of the Cobalt family is delivered with factory-installed applications ideally matched to the board’s analog interfaces. The 78670 factory-installed functions include four D/A waveform playback IP modules, to support waveform generation through the D/A converters. IP modules for DDR3 SDRAM memories, a controller for all data clocking and synchronization functions, a test signal generator, and a PCIe interface complete the factory-installed functions and enable the 78670 to operate as a complete turnkey solution, without the need to develop any FPGA IP.
Extendable IP Design
For applications that require specialized functions, users can install their own custom IP for data processing. Pentek GateFlow FPGA Design Kits include all of the factoryinstalled modules as documented source code. Developers can integrate their own IP with the Pentek factory-installed functions or use the GateFlow kit to completely replace the Pentek IP with their own.
Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA
The Virtex-6 FPGA site can be populated with a variety of different FPGAs to match the specific requirements of the processing task. Supported FPGAs include: LX130T, LX240T, or SX315T. The SXT part features 1344 DSP48E slices and is ideal for modulation/demodulation, encoding/decoding, encryption/decryption, and channelization of the signals between transmission and reception. For applications not requiring large DSP resources, one of the lower-cost LXT FPGAs can be installed. Option -104 connects 20 pairs of LVDS signals from the FPGA on PMC P14 to a 68-pin DIL ribbon-cable header on the PCIe board for custom I/O. Option -105 connects two 4X gigabit serial links from the FPGA on XMC P16 to two 4X gigabit serial connectors along the top edge of the PCIe board.
Features
■ Complete radar and software radio interface solution ■ Supports Xilinx Virtex-6 LXT and SXT FPGAs ■ Four 1.25 GHz 16-bit D/As ■ Four digital upconverters ■ Programmable output levels ■ 250 MHz max. output bandwidth ■ 2 GB of DDR3 SDRAM ■ Sample clock synchronization to an external system reference ■ Dual-µSync clock/sync bus for multiboard synchronization ■ PCI Express (Gen. 1 & 2) interface up to x8 ■ Optional user-configurable gigabit serial interface ■ Optional LVDS connections to the Virtex-6 FPGA for custom I/O
