FPGA Engine supports Wind River Linux 3.0.

Press Release Summary:




Suited for signal and image processing applications including radar, sonar, and signal intelligence, Model VPX3-450 combines Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA node, 1 GHz dual-core Freescale 8640D processor node, and on-board PCI Express switch. Device includes sensors for monitoring board temperatures and FPGA power consumption, multi-board synchronous clock, and support for ChipScope Pro and JTAG processor debug interfaces. With compact 3U form factor, VPX3-450 is suited for UAVs and land vehicles.



Original Press Release:



Curtiss-Wright Controls Adds Wind River Linux 3.0 Support to VPX3-450 3U VPX FPGA Engine



Leesburg, VA -- July 17, 2009 -- Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, a leading designer and manufacturer of rugged deployed commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) VME, VPX and CompactPCI products for the Aerospace and Defense market (A&D), has announced that its VPX3-450 3U VPX FPGA engine now supports Wind River Linux 3.0, a leading Linux operating system for embedded device development. Using the same firmware and board support package (BSP) provided with Curtiss-Wright Controls' standard Linux packages, the VPX3-450 Linux BSP has been optimized to add specific FPGA-related features such as FPGA reconfiguration and DMA engine device drivers.

"The addition of Wind River Linux 3.0 support is an important enhancement to our small form-factor VPX3-450 FPGA engine," said Lynn Patterson, vice president and general manager of Curtiss-Wright Controls' Modular Solutions group. "We are seeing a growing interest within the defense and aerospace market in using Linux for tough, embedded real-time applications."

About Wind River Linux 3.0

Wind River Linux is the industry-leading, commercial-grade Linux platform for embedded device development. Based on Linux kernel 2.6.27 and GCC 4.3.2, Wind River Linux 3.0 provides a flexible and pervasive development environment. Its real-time extension support includes Wind River Real-Time Core for Linux. In addition, it contains more than 500 software packages, virtualization based on KVM (kernel-based Virtual Machine), and multicore offload capabilities to enable system developers to utilize the potential of high performance embedded multicore hardware. To ease and speed application development Wind River Linux 3.0 also supports Wind River's Eclipse-based Workbench development suite.

"The use of Linux in the aerospace and defense industry is gaining momentum as the benefits of the Linux ecosystem, the rich development community, and technology transparency are realized," said Nithya A. Ruff, senior director, Product Management and Marketing, Linux Product Division, Wind River. "Wind River and Curtiss-Wright Controls have raised the bar by offering additional COTS and commercial-grade support to meet the specific requirements of the aerospace and defense industry."

The VPX3-450

The VPX3-450, Curtiss-Wright Controls first Xilinx Virtex®-5 FPGA-based 3U VPX (VITA 46/48) compute engine, is designed for demanding, high performance signal and image processing applications including radar, sonar, and signal intelligence. Its small, compact 3U form factor makes it ideal for space, weight and power (SWaP) constrained applications on platforms such as UAVs and land vehicles.

The VPX3-450 combines the flexibility of a Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA (LX110T or SX95T) and the high performance general processing of a dual-core Freescale 8640 Power Architecture processor with a PMC/XMC mezzanine site and the VPX architecture's support for high bandwidth serial switched fabrics such as PCI Express and Serial RapidIO (SRIO) and built-in ESD protection.

VPX3-450 Features:

o User-programmable Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA node (LX155 or SX95T):

- One bank of DDR2 SDRAM (256 MB). Up to 2.2 GB/sec

- Two banks of QDR-II+ SRAM (36 MB total). Up to 4.4 GB/sec

- Two 4-lane 3.125 GHz serial links to the backplane

- One 4-lane PCI Express link to the on-board switching fabric

- 18 pairs (36 pins) of discrete LVDS signals to the backplane

o One Dual-core Freescale 8640D processor node

- 1 GHz

- Up to 1 GB of DDR2 with ECC

- 256 MB of flash with write protection for user code, data, or FPGA bitstreams

- Protected backup flash

- Two Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, factory configurable to either

- 1000 Base-T or 1000 Base-X

- Two EIA-232 serial ports

- Connections to the FPGA configuration bus and command/control bus

o On-board PCI Express switch

- 8-lane port to the 8640 processor node

- 4-lane port to the FPGA node

- 8-lane port to the XMC site

- Two 4-lane ports to the backplane. One is factory-configurable to be Serial RapidIO

o XMC site

o Sensors for monitoring board temperatures and FPGA power consumption

o Support for ChipScope Pro and JTAG processor debug interfaces

o Multi-board synchronous clock

o Continuum FXtools for the VPX3-450

- FPGA design kit with highly-optimized IP Blocks, development environment, reference designs, scriptable simulation test benches and software libraries

- Continuum Firmware and BSP for VxWorks and Linux and systems library kit for the 8640 processor

o Continuum Vector subroutine library available

o VITA 48 1" pitch format

o Range of air and conduction-cooled ruggedization levels available

Inquiries: Please forward all Sales and reader service inquiries to Jerri-Lynne Charbonneau, Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, Tel: (613) 254-5112; Fax: (613) 599-7777; e-mail: sales@cwcembedded.com.

About Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing

Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing is the industry's most comprehensive and experienced single source for embedded solutions, ranging from Processing, Subsystems, Data Communication, DSP, and Video & Graphics to the most advanced board level components and fully integrated custom systems. The Embedded Computing group serves the defense, aerospace, commercial and industrial markets and is part of Curtiss-Wright Controls Inc.

About Curtiss-Wright Controls, Inc.

Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Curtiss-Wright Controls is the motion control segment of Curtiss-Wright Corporation (NYSE: CW). With manufacturing facilities around the world, Curtiss-Wright Controls is a leading technology-based organization providing niche motion control products, subsystems and services internationally for the aerospace and defense markets. For more information, visit www.cwcontrols.com.

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