BittWare’s S5-6U-VPX (S56X) is a rugged 6U VPX card based on the high-bandwidth, power-efficient Altera Stratix V GX/GS FPGA.
Designed for high-end applications, the Stratix V provides a high level of system integration and flexibility for I/O, routing, and processing.
An ARM® Cortex™-A8 control processor provides a complete control plane interface; and a configurable 48-port multi-gigabit transceiver interface supports a variety of protocols, including Serial RapidIO, PCI Express, and 10GigE. The board features up to 8 GB of DDR3 SDRAM as well as Flash memory for booting the FPGAs. Providing additional flexibility are two VITA 57 FMC sites for enhancing the board’s I/O and processing capabilities. The S56X also features a Board Management Controller (BMC) for advanced system monitoring, which greatly simplifies platform management. All of these features combine to make the S56X a versatile and efficient solution for creating and deploying high-performance FPGA computing systems.
VITA 57 FMC Sites for Processing and I/O Expansion
The S56X features two FMC (FPGA Mezzanine Card) sites, which provide multi-gigabit transceivers and LVDS, along with clocks, I2C, JTAG, and reset connected to the Stratix V. The sites are based on the VITA 57 mezzanine standard for FPGA I/O, enabling designers to customize the S56X to their individual needs with optional FMC I/O boards.
Altera Stratix V GX/GS FPGA
The Altera Stratix V FPGA is optimized for high-performance, high-bandwidth applications with integrated transceivers (up to 14.1 Gbps) supporting backplanes and optical modules. It supports 1.6 Tbps of serial switching capability and up to 3,926 18 x 18 variable precision multipliers. The Stratix V also provides PCI Express via a hard IP block and supports configuration by PCI Express using the existing PCI Express link in your application. For additional flexibility, the Stratix V supports transceiver and core reconfiguration on-the-fly while other portions of the design are running. TThe FPGA is supported by BittWare’s FPGA Development Kit, which provides board support IP and integration.
I/O Interfaces
The S56X provides a variety of interfaces for high-speed serial I/O as well as debug support. The rear panel VPX interface includes GigE and 32 multi-gigabit transceiver channels to the Stratix V FPGAs. In addition, a Cyclone III FPGA is used to interface 48 LVDS and 20 GPIO from the VPX backplane to the Stratix V FPGAs. A utility header provides access to USB, RS-232, JTAG, and Ethernet interfaces for debug and programming support.
ARM® Cortex™-A8 Control Processor
An ARM® Cortex™-A8 control processor provides a complete control plane interface for the S56X, facilitating separate control and data planes, and greatly simplifying the development of data plane I/O and processing. This is implemented in a 800 MHz TI AM3871 ARM processor running Linux. The ARM runs BittWorks server for full remote access via the BittWorks II Toolkit.
Board Management Controller
BittWare’s S5 boards feature an advanced system monitoring subsystem, similar to those typically found on today’s server platforms. At the heart of the board’s monitoring system lies a Board Management Controller (BMC), which accepts Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) messaging protocol commands. The BMC provides a wealth of features, including control of power and resets, monitoring of board sensors, FPGA boot loader, voltage overrides, configuration of programmable clocks, access to I2C bus components, field upgrades, and IPMI messaging. Access to the BMC is via PCIe, USB, or serial port. BittWare’s BittWorks II Toolkit also provides utilities and libraries for communicating with the BMC components at a higher, more abstract level, allowing developers to remotely monitor the health of the board.
Development Tools
BittWorks II Toolkit
BittWare offers complete software support for the S56X with its BittWorks II software tools. Designed to make developing and debugging applications for BittWare’s boards easy and efficient, the Toolkit is a collection of libraries and applications that provides the glue between the host application and the hardware. A variety of features allow developers to take full advantage of the Stratix V FPGA capabilities on the BittWare board, including FPGA control via PCIe, Flash programming, custom ISR scripts, and convenient control of FPGA loads. The Toolkit supports 32-bit, and 64-bit Windows and Linux platforms and can connect to the board via PCIe, Ethernet, or USB, providing a common API no matter the connection method.
Board Architecture
VITA 57 FMC Sites
- Two VITA 57 FMC sites
- 8x multi-gigabit transceivers per site
- 80 LVDS pairs per site
- Clocks, I2C, JTAG, and reset
FPGAs
- 2 Altera® Stratix® V GX/GS FPGAs
- 48 full-duplex, multi-gigabit transceivers @ up to 14.1 GHz
- Up to 952,000 logic elements per FPGA
- Up to 62 Mb on-chip memory (per FPGA)
- 1.4 Gbps LVDS performance
- Up to 3,926 18×18 variable-precision multipliers (per FPGA)
- Embedded HardCopy Blocks
External Memory
- Four banks of up to 2 GByte DDR3 SDRAM configured as x64
- Two 128 MByte banks of Flash memory for booting FPGA and ARM
ARM® Cortex™-A8 Control Processor
- 800 MHz ARM® Cortex™-A8 processor (TI AM3871) running Linux
- Control port interface to Stratix V FPGAs
- GigE, PCIe, and SATA interfaces
- Supports host- and Flash-based booting of Stratix V FPGAs
- Runs BittWorks server for full remote access via the BittWorks II Toolkit
Rear Panel I/O
- 4 GigE (2 1000BaseT and 2 1000BaseX)
- 16 multi-gigabit transceivers from rear panel (VPX) to each Stratix V (32 total)
- 48 LVDS pairs (24 Tx and 24 Rx) and 20 GPIO from VPX backplane to the Stratix V FPGAs via a Cyclone III FPGA
Debug I/O (Utility Header)
- RS-232 ports to Stratix V and ARM
- Ethernet interface (10/100)
- JTAG debug interface to the Stratix V
Size
- VPX 6U single slot
Board Management Controller
- Voltage, current, temperature monitoring
- Power sequencing and reset
- Field upgrades
- FPGA configuration and control
- Clock configuration
- I2C bus access
- USB 2.0 and JTAG access
- Voltage overrides
Development Tools
System Development
- BittWorks II Toolkit – host, command, and debug tools for BittWare hardware
- BittWorks II Porting Kit – source code and prebuilt ports for porting the BittWorks II Toolkit to other operating systems
FPGA Development Kit
- Physical interface components
- Board, I/O, and timing constraints
- Example Quartus projects
- Software components and drivers
FPGA Development
- Altera Quartus® II software
Accessory Boards
- BittWare BWBO breakout board for USB, JTAG, RS-232, and Ethernet access
- BittWare ACC-S56X-BORT rear transition module with QSFP, SFP, RJ-45, JTAG, PCIe x1, SATA, and Ref Clk input
