Avionics: FPGA-based VME processing card

VMETRO Transtech in Houston is offering the VME64x/VXS processing card, which combines two Xilinx Virtex-II Pro XC2VP70 field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), two 1-GHz PowerPC 7447 microprocessors and a multichannel VITA-41 based communications fabric in a rugged VME/VXS board. The VPF1 couples FPGAs and PowerPCs on one VME board to lighten payloads in applications like unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The V FPGAs provide the primary off-board communications as well as process data. The uses a high-bandwidth P-zero connector defined in the VITA-41 VXS Specification. This connector supports eight 3.125-gigabit-per-second serial channels. The VXS serial channels come from the FPGAs, which enable the VPF1 to perform in a variety of switch fabric implementations. VXS introduces multichannel high-bandwidth point-to-point data links for switch-packet interfaces, and allows systems to be scaled smoothly and easily. For more information contact VMETRO online at www.vmetro.com.