Posted by John Keller
UPPER SADDLE RIVER, N.J., 14 April 2010 Pentek Inc. in Upper Saddle River, N.J., is introducing 14 3U VPX boards for data acquisition, software-defined radio, and digital signal processing that offer backplane fabric connections supporting maximum data rates as fast as 4 gigabits per second with PCI Express (PCIe) Generation 2 (Gen 2) and 2.5 gigabits per second with other protocols.
Each of the 3U x8 VPX modules features a PCIe Gen 2 interface, which includes a bridge that provides PCIe lane-width negotiation for x1, x4, x8 or x16 data transfers over the VPX backplane.
All modules feature a fabric-transparent crossbar switch that allows assignment of the PCIe interface lanes to backplane connector pins so system integrators can match backplane topologies, and that supports other gigabit serial protocols for moving data, such as Xilinx Aurora and Serial Rapid I/O.
The switch passes the gigabit serial traffic from one port to another, independent of any particular protocol. Several data streams can be sent through the switch simultaneously. Lastly, the switch allows all modules to act as a VPX switch, to manage serial fabric connections to and from other modules across the backplane.
"Pentek's VPX modules fully support the OpenVPX standard (VITA 65) for improved interoperability among vendors and long-term availability," says Rodger Hosking, vice president of Pentek. "The latest embedded system designs have shifted strongly towards serial-fabric based architectures for faster board-to-board data transfers to handle higher signal bandwidths, and more powerful FPGAs and processors. Our product line represents the industry's highest performance and most comprehensive VPX offerings."
For more information contact Pentek online at www.pentek.com.
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