Accessably Secure and high-performance security solutions.

A collaboration to combine Xiphera’s advanced cryptographic solutions with iWave’s extensive portfolio of Altera FPGA-based boards and solutions has been announced. Through this partnership, Xiphera will leverage iWave’s modules, development kits, SmartNIC solutions, and COTS modules to implement hardware-based cryptographic security solutions for scenarios such as secure network connectivity. This enables customers to build secure, high-performance hardware solutions on Altera FPGAs, powered by Xiphera’s optimized IP cores and iWave’s FPGA platforms.

Xiphera specializes in hardware-based security solutions implemented as pure digital logic for FPGAs and ASICs. The company provides standardized and quantum-resistant security solutions designed for industries where reliability, high performance, and minimized attack surface are critical. Xiphera solutions include implementations of security protocols such as MACsec and IPsec, as well as the latest Post-Quantum Cryptography standards.

iWave is a global leader in high-performance FPGA System on Modules (SoMs), COTS modules such as 3U VPX and PCIe cards, and a growing portfolio of SmartNIC solutions. Our products are built around cutting-edge FPGAs including Agilex™ 3, Agilex™ 5, Agilex™ 7, Agilex™ 9, Arria® 10, and Stratix® 10—enabling innovation across a wide range of applications. This includes technical support during evaluation, ODM design services such as system design, carrier card development, thermal simulation and certifications.

“Xiphera’s cryptographic IP, combined with iWave’s boards and solutions on the extensive portfolio of Altera FPGAs, enables developers to build and accelerate secure, high-performance solutions on Altera FPGAs. This collaboration highlights the strength of our ecosystem and demonstrates how Altera technology can accelerate innovation in these applications,” says Mark Moran, Director of Dev Kits and Partners at Altera.

Both Xiphera and iWave serve industries such as industrial, automotive, aerospace and IoT, where security, performance, and long product lifecycles are essential. This shared industry focus creates clear synergies: Xiphera’s advanced cryptographic IP cores complement iWave’s boards and solutions, offering customers integrated solutions that are both secure and practical to implement.

“Working with iWave supports our mission to deliver secure and high-performance security solutions in an accessible format. iWave’s extensive experience in FPGA platforms perfectly complements our expertise in security,” says Tommi Lampila, CRO of Xiphera Ltd. He continues, “By leveraging Altera technology alongside iWave’s platforms, we are able to offer even more robust and secure solutions. We are excited to deliver high-value solutions based on this collaboration to our customers.”

“This partnership between iWave and Xiphera enables our customers to adopt advanced security solutions with confidence,” says Tawfeeq Ahmad, Director of Marketing at iWave. “Xiphera’s extensive expertise in security and cryptography adds strong value to iWave’s Altera FPGA–based boards and solutions, especially with the growing need for robust edge security.”

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@xiphera @iwave_systems @AlteraFPGA_ #PAuto #Cybersecurity #TandM

FPGA machine vision.

Innodisk has announced its latest step into the AI market, with the launch of EXMU-X261, an FPGA Machine Vision Platform. Powered by AMD’s Xilinx Kria K26 SOM, which was designed to enable smart city and smart factory applications, Innodisk’s FPGA Machine Vision Platform is set to lead the way for industrial system integrators looking to develop machine vision applications.

Automated defect inspection, a key machine vision application, is an essential technology in modern manufacturing. Automated visual inspection guarantees that the product works as expected and meets specifications. In these cases, it is vital that a fast and highly accurate inspection system is used. Without AI, operators must manually inspect each product, taking an average of three seconds per item. Now, with the help of AI solutions such as Innodisk’s FPGA Machine Vision Platform, product inspection in factories can be automated, and the end result is not only faster and cheaper, but can be completely free of human error.

Innodisk’s FPGA Machine Vision Platform comes with 1GbE LAN, 4 USB 3.1 Gen1 ports, 2 M.2 slots, and a series of other expansion and connectivity options. Thanks to the platform’s 0° to 70 °C operational temperature support, and optional industrial temperature support from -40° to +85°C, EXMU-X261 is tough enough for the harshest of industrial environments. In addition, EXMU-X261 features support for Innodisk’s InnoAgent out-of-band remote management module, allowing the platform to be remotely managed from anywhere, even during a system crash or an in-band network failure. This is important for any automated system, as it allows for it to be completely unmanned, which further reduces manpower and maintenance costs.

Customers can take advantage of AMD’s Xilinx Kria K26 SOM’s ability to quickly get applications to market thanks to EXMU-X261’s full support for Innodisk’s AI Suite SDK. The suite includes an FPGA Model Zoo, as well as Innodisk’s in-house software solutions, such as iCAP (Innodisk Cloud Administration Platform), and iVIT (Innodisk Vision Intelligence Toolkit). iVIT for example, provides a deep learning environment for efficient development and deployment of “no-code-operation” solutions.

@Innodisk_Corp @mepaxIntPR #PAuto #Smart

Closed, but service continues!

Computer Solutions (COMSOL) has decided to close after 42 years. In a message to customers and supporters principal Chris Stephens says that it is time to "relax and fulfil other ambitions."

In order that PEmicro products (Multilink and Cyclone development tools and device programmers) continue to be served he was anxious that his customers should not be completely left without support. Someone who could provide the sort of Engineer to Engineer support that COMSOL have always been proud to supply.

eVision are PEmicros German distributor that can offer the level of service required. So after some discussion he entered into a marketing arrangement with eVision run by Werner Schoeppner. They have been selling PE in Germany for four years long enough to put together a comprehensive Web site and to really get to know the products. They hold good stocks and they have EU, Great Britain and rest of the world sales and shipping covered. Chris says, "Next time you need a cyclone or USB multilink please give them a try and tell them COMSOL/Chris sent you!"

Those currently using the USB multilink but need something with a bit more Oomph then the Cyclone range  is suggested. It can be used both for development and also for production where it supports a wide range of features including batch and even secure remote operation.

In the engineering tradition (Engineers never completely disconnect!!!) he will continue to get mail at sales@computer-solutions.co.uk but "will only look for it daily rather than every 10 mins as previously. So feel free to have a chat and to ask any general microprocessor based questions"

The information-packed website will continue on-line. It will be kept live providing technical insights on the products and then redirecting viewers to sites where they can purchase the items they used to be available from Computer Solutions Ltd. The "Information zone" consists of articles produced as background tutorials on subjects of interest to those designing new products. 

CFO for FPGA pioneers.

Xilinx has appointed Brice Hill to the position of executive vice president and chief financial officer (CFO), effective immediately. Hill will be responsible for all aspects of the financial management of Xilinx and, as a key member of the executive management team, he will add substantial financial expertise and leadership to the company’s transformation to adaptable platforms and sustained growth.

Brice Hill

He is a veteran technology executive with more than 30 years’ experience in finance, mergers and acquisitions, global operations, and strategy. He joins Xilinx from a 25-year tenure at Intel Corporation, where he most recently served as the CFO and COO, Technology, Systems and Core Engineering Group, managing all financial aspects of the company’s manufacturing, research and development, and product engineering operations. Prior to that, Brice Hill was Corporate Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Business Unit finance, including the Data Center, PC, and IoT business units. Hill had also previously held senior finance roles in capacity strategy, PC desktop and chipsets, and the data center at Intel.

“Brice brings tremendous operational and strategic experience and leadership to our executive team. His knowledge of the data center, client computing, and IoT industries is a perfect match for our growth strategy in the data center, our broad core markets, and adaptive computing,” said Xilinx President and Chief Executive Officer, Victor Peng. “We are thrilled to have him join the Xilinx leadership team.”

“Xilinx has impressed me with its leadership team, vision, long-term growth strategy, and broad portfolio of differentiated technologies in adaptive computing, from the cloud, to edge, to endpoint devices,” said Hill. “I can’t imagine a more exciting time to join Xilinx. I look forward to the opportunities ahead.”

Prior to Intel, Hill worked at General Motors Corporation where he held various finance positions. He holds an MBA in finance and strategy from the University of Michigan, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, and a bachelor’s degree in finance and economics from the University of Washington, Michael G. Foster School of Business.

#TandM #PAuto @XilinxInc @NeeshamPR

FPGA or ASIC? New online tool.

HardwareBee has a new tool that helps engineers make quicker and more accurate decisions on whether to choose FPGA or ASIC technology in their electronic product.

This online tool, FPGA vs ASIC Calculator,  enables analysing and comparing the costs of each of the technologies based on the target application and making more informed decisions.

In today's market, where FPGAs increasingly provide wider and broader capabilities and ASICs are becoming more accessible in lower production volumes, developers are often unsure which technology to select for their product. The new tool helps engineers to clearly evaluate the overall costs of each technology, starting from the design phase and all the way to volume production.

• See also FPGA vs ASIC – What is the Difference?

@HardwareBee #FPGA #ASIC

Direct RFSoC Processing System.

Abaco Systems has announced that, not only have they begun full production of its newly-announced VP430 Direct RF Processing System – first customer shipments occurred in September - but that it is actively creating inventory for those customers needing short-turn delivery before the end of the year.

“We’re seeing enormous demand for the VP430 - beyond even our expectations – with numerous enquiries as to whether we can deliver by the end of December,” said Peter Thompson, Vice President, Product Management at Abaco. “I’m delighted to say that our answer to that question is that we can indeed. We’re getting excellent service from Xilinx, providing all the production parts we need in order to manufacture boards and provide our customers with the fast-turn shipment they say they need.”

As well as having comprehensively characterized the performance of the VP430 (the data is available upon request), Abaco has published a white paper designed to help developers understand the capabilities of the system. ‘Technologies for responding to rapid developments in cognitive RF and EW’ describes strategies to address emerging EW threats by leveraging reconfigurable hardware in a multi-processor system architecture, employing a low latency processing powerhouse with FPGAs and RFSoCs, and how to select the right processor architecture for the job.

The VP430 is capable of enabling the most advanced electronic warfare applications, as well as many others. Examples of the applications either under development, or planned for development, include a real time passive optical network, a next generation direction finding system for battlefield communications and a new electronic attack system. 

Designed for advanced electronic warfare applications requiring MIMO (multiple input/output), beamforming, sensor processing and radar signal processing capabilities, the VP430 is a major step forward in performance and density, enabling the use of fewer boards and much less power while delivering increased processing throughput. In fact, for comparable capability, it occupies one fourth of the slots that earlier generation solutions would require.

The VP430 includes the option to be built with a FireFly™ 8-channel VITA 66.4 fiber optic interface for transfers of greater than 12 GBps for applications in which the throughput of the native VPX PCI Express® Gen3 data plane is inadequate or when a remote client requires streaming data.

Responding to the cost- and complexity challenge of RF systems with multiple channels - more channels means more expensive and large RF signal up/down conversion and signal conditioning - the VP430 enables direct RF sampling which can be implemented in the digital domain, bringing greater flexibility to the signal processing chain. Additionally, simplified integration with RF sampling devices removes the complexity of JESD204B high speed serial interfaces

The new Xilinx RFSoC is a revolutionary step in integration technology bringing a combination of Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) processing capability, a multi-processor embedded ARM® Cortex-A53 Application processing unit (APU), an ARM real time processing unit (RPU) and eight input analog-to-digital converter and eight digital-to-analog converter channels. Additionally, the Zynq® Ultrascale+™ architecture integrates all this with features to enable high security IP protection. The RFSoC brings extreme analog bandwidth with a sustained throughput of 6 GSPS per channel and greater than 12 GBps per channel digital offload capability.

• Acronyms? See our Acronyms Page. 

@AbacoSys #FPGA

FPGA Board.

The VP869 high performance 6U OpenVPX FPGA processing board has been announced by Abaco Systems.  Featuring two Xilinx® UltraScale+™ FPGAs and a Zynq® 7000 Series multiprocessor system-on-chip (MPSoC), it provides a form, fit and function upgrade for the VP868, providing existing users with a cost-effective performance enhancement. The VP869 can deliver up to 3.8x more DSP resources and 2.4x more integrated memory than its predecessor.

The VP869 is designed for the most demanding mission critical applications where extreme FPGA processing and I/O bandwidth capabilities are needed. Typical applications include radar/sonar processing, software defined radio, advanced digital beamforming, multi-channel digital receivers/transmitters and satellite communications systems.

Two industry standard (VITA 57) FMC+ sites are provided on the VP869 for high performance analog I/O, digital communications or video input.

“Aerospace programs must have the latest I/O and signal processing technology available – and the VP869 delivers to that requirement, demonstrating our commitment to bringing state of the art technology to our customers as rapidly as possible,” said Pete Thompson, Vice President, Product Management, Abaco Systems. “It is flexible and cost-effective and, because it is based exclusively on industry standards, ease of integration and upgrade are assured – reducing cost and minimizing time to deployment.”

The VP869’s flexibility derives in part from the opportunity it provides to choose either of two Virtex Ultrascale+ FPGAs, allowing the optimum application-specific trade-off between performance, power consumption and price.

A key feature of the VP869 is its extreme backplane bandwidth, with over 72 high speed serial lanes routed to the backplane delivering 594 Gbps of data throughput for advanced processing and offload applications. 24 bidirectional high speed serial lanes provide up to 300 Gbps of data bandwidth to and from the FMC+ I/O modules, enabling the utilization of the latest ADC and DAC technology for next generation wideband applications.

In some applications, the VP869’s onboard Zynq 7000 device with its embedded ARM® cores can provide the control functionality that would normally be delivered by a single board computer, creating the opportunity to minimize slot usage and thus size, weight and power.

The VP869’s Zynq 7000 MPSoC also includes broad security functionality – such as encrypted bit streams and secure boot - that enables sensitive IP to be safeguarded.

Reduced time to deployment is significantly enhanced by Abaco’s provision of a comprehensive set of aids designed to simplify and speed development. These include a fully featured open board support package that provide a highly functional reference design example to simplify integration of application-specific IP. Stellar IP - an FPGA development tool – and the 4FM GUI user interface for controlling and monitoring the hardware are also provided, as are a Xilinx Vivado project and VHDL source code.

@AbacoSys #PAuto

FPGAs and high-performance data converters.

A new PXI FlexRIO architecture that integrates mezzanine I/O modules with Xilinx Kintex UltraScale FPGAs has been announced by National Instruments (NI). The first wave of products based on this new architecture includes two high-resolution PXI FlexRIO Digitizers, three dedicated PXI FlexRIO Coprocessor Modules and a module development kit that helps with custom front-end development.

The FlexRIO product line combines customizable I/O and user-programmable FPGAs into high-performance, reconfigurable instruments users can program with the LabVIEW FPGA Module. With Kintex UltraScale FPGAs, the new FlexRIO architecture offers more programmable resources than previous Kintex-7-based FlexRIO modules. In addition, the new mezzanine architecture fits both the I/O module and the FPGA back end within a single, integrated 3U PXI module. For high-speed communication with other modules in the chassis, these new FlexRIO modules feature PCI Express Gen 3 x8 connectivity for up to 7 GB/s of streaming bandwidth.

“FPGAs and high-performance data converters are essential technologies when pushing the boundaries of discovery and innovation, but implementing them in a custom design can be cumbersome,” said Steve Warntjes, NI vice president of R&D, modular instruments. “FlexRIO has consistently helped engineers and scientists bring ideas to fruition faster with an off-the-shelf solution that includes the latest FPGA and converter technology. The new FlexRIO architecture furthers this mission.”

The new FlexRIO modules take advantage of the highest-performance FPGA and A/D converter technology, which makes them ideal for applications that require advanced capabilities like remote sensing, signals intelligence, communications and particle physics. New modules include:

· Digitizer Modules – New PXI FlexRIO Digitizers deliver high-speed sampling rates and wide bandwidth without compromising dynamic range. The PXIe-5763 and PXIe-5764 provide 500 MS/s and 1 GS/s sampling rates, respectively. Both modules offer 16-bit resolution and up to 400 MHz of bandwidth on all four channels.
· Coprocessor Modules – Add real-time signal processing capabilities to a system with dedicated Kintex UltraScale PXI FlexRIO Coprocessor Modules. A chassis full of these modules delivers the highest density of computational resources per U of rack space of any NI system.
· Module Development Kit – Start with a FlexRIO FPGA back end programmable by LabVIEW and then design custom I/O modules to meet more unique application requirements.

FlexRIO instruments are an important part of the NI ecosystem that engineers can use to build smarter test and measurement systems. These systems benefit from more than 600 PXI products ranging from DC to mmWave and feature high-throughput data movement using PCI Express bus interfaces and sub-nanosecond synchronization with integrated timing and triggering. Supported by a vibrant ecosystem of partners, add-on IP and applications engineers, the NI platform helps dramatically lower the cost of test, reduce time to market and future-proof testers for tomorrow’s challenging requirements.

Read this white paper to learn more about how the new FlexRIO architecture helps engineers build smarter test and measurement systems.

@niukie #Pauto @NIglobal