HPE640 6U VPX Hybrid Processing Engine with dual MPC8641D and dual Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGAs

The HPE640 high performance hybrid processing engine coupling two dual-core Freescale Power Architecture™ MPC8641D with two latest generation Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGAs. With its combination of dual high performance CPU and latest generation twin FPGAs, this DSP product provides leading edge performance with flexible high-bandwidth I/O. This 6U VPX board is available in both air-cooled or conduction cooled versions with VxWorks or Linux board support packages.

Processing
Architecturally, the HPE640 is a hexa-processor Digital Signal Processing engine for VPX/VPX-REDI (VITA 46/VITA 48). Each Freescale MPC8641D CPU incorporates 2 of the processing elements. The other two processors are the dual Xilinx Virtex-5 (LX155T or SX95T) FPGA devices. This clustering of CPU/FPGA nodes makes the HPE640 so powerful by leveraging the advantages of each technology. The FPGAs also maintain the VPX/VPX-REDI multi-gigabit serial communications. Both FPGAs are user programmable and VMETRO provides tools, examples and utilities to simplify code development.

Memory
Each of the two MPC8641D processors has 2GB of DDR2 SDRAM available as well as 128MB of FLASH. The HPE640 utilizes four independent banks of QDR II for each FPGA that are each 9MB in capacity. Each of these QDR II memories are 18-bits wide. The HPE640 also has two independent banks of 128MB DDR II per FPGA, and each bank is 16-bits wide.

Connectivity
Input/output is provided through a number of channels including gigabit Ethernet ports, FMC (VITA 57) site or VPX serial I/O for interboard communications. The HPE640 provides flexible front panel I/O with support a FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC/VITA 57) site connected to one of the Virtex-5 FPGAs. Direct FPGA I/O is also provided through a parallel backplane-connected port for very high I/O speed. High-speed PCI Express^® links can be utilized for efficient data movement between the two MPC8641D processors as well as between the Virtex-5 FPGAs and the PowerPC processors. In addition, an on-board PCI Express switch supports high-throughput data movement to and from the board via the VPX backplane. An on-board gigabit Ethernet switch provides Gb Ethernet links to each processor as well as four Gb Ethernet links to the backplane.

Software
The HPE640 has Board Support Package (BSP) support for VxWorks 6.5 and Linux 2.6.x with associated APIs for ease of customer development. The HPE640 is fully supported by the FusionXF FPGA design suite. FusionXF is a set of software libraries and associated FPGA IP targeted at reducing the design time and optimizing the performance of complex FPGA and PowerPC processing systems.

Ruggedization
Designed for rugged deployment, the HPE640 can be used in commercial, extended-temperature convection-cooled, conduction-cooled, and liquid-cooled (LFT) environments.


* VME & Critical Systems Magazine. Copyright OpenSystems Publishing, 2008. All rights reserved; used with permission.