HPE720 6U VPX Hybrid Processing Engine with a MPC8641D and Dual Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGAs

The HPE720 high performance hybrid processing engine coupling a dual-core Freescale Power Architecture™ MPC8641D with two latest generation Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGAs. With its combination of 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. The HPE720 also supports the FusionIPC Inter-Processor Communication software stack for Distributed Multi-Processing (DMP) systems.

Processing
Architecturally, the HPE720 is a quad processor Digital Signal Processing engine for VPX/VPX-REDI (VITA 46/VITA 48). Two of these processor elements are combined into a single, highly integrated Freescale Power Architecture MPC8641D CPU. The other two processors are the two Xilinx Virtex-5 (LX110/220/330T, SX240T or FX200T options) FPGA devices. It is this CPU/FPGA combination that makes the HPE720 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
The MPC8641D PowerPC processor supports 2 GB of DDR II SDRAM. The HPE720 utilizes four independent banks of QDR II SRAM for each FPGA that are each 9MB in capacity. These banks of memory are each 36-bits wide. The HPE720 has two independent banks of 256MB DDR II SDRAM per FPGA. Each bank of DDR II is 32-bits wide. The HPE720 has up to 128MB of NOR FLASH.

Connectivity
Input/output is provided through a number of channels including gigabit Ethernet ports, FMC/XMC/PMC for a wide choice of I/O options, RS232 ports or VPX serial I/O for interboard communications. The HPE720 provides flexible front panel I/O with support for either two FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC/VITA 57) site connected to the FPGAs or one FMC site and one XMC/PMC site. The XMC/PMC site supports PCI-X, and PCI Express, and Serial RapidIO (sRIO) options. Direct FPGA I/O is also provided through a parallel backplane-connected port for very high I/O speed. A sRIO fabric switch provides the quad Serial RapidIO x4 connectivity to the backplane. When fitted with Xilinx FX200T FPGAs, the HPE720 supports baud rates of 6.25Gb to the FMC sites and backplane.

Software
The HPE720 has Board Support Package (BSP) support for VxWorks 6.x and Linux 2.6.x with associated APIs for ease of customer development. VMETRO’s FusionIPC, Inter-Processor Communication software stack for Distributed Multi-Processing (DMP) systems, is supported on the HPE720.

Ruggedization
Designed from the ground up for rugged deployment, the HPE720 can be used in commercial, extended-temperature convection-cooled, conduction-cooled, and liquid-cooled (LFT) environments.