PC development system for software radio apps

Pentek has announced the launch of its Model 8266 PC development system, pre-configured to speed application development for the expansive family of Pentek Cobalt® Virtex-6 and Onyx® Virtex-7 FPGA PCI Express software radio and data acquisition I/O boards. The 8266 is delivered with the selected Pentek hardware configured for either Windows 7 Professional or Linux operating systems along with ReadyFlow® BSP drivers and software examples, fully installed and tested. Upon delivery, the system allows development engineers to immediately run example applications out-of-the-box.

“The Model 8266 is offered as a standard pre-integrated platform, saving our customers valuable time and cost in selecting, assembling and configuring components for a high-performance, real-time development system,” stated Rodger Hosking, vice president of Pentek. “We resolve the typical hardware, operating system and software compatibility obstacles inherent in new PC development platforms. All hardware is installed in appropriate slots, fully configured with proper cabling, power and cooling strategies, and optimized BIOS and operating system settings. The customer simply needs to remove the system from the package and start developing. As an added benefit, the tested and proven configuration of the Model 8266 streamlines Pentek customer support.”

Pentek collaborates with customers to select from the extensive family of 786xx Cobalt® and 787xx Onyx® PCI Express modules and then evaluates system requirements to define the Model 8266 configuration most appropriate for the final application.

ReadyFlow Software
Pentek ReadyFlow drivers and board support libraries are preinstalled and tested with the Model 8266. ReadyFlow includes example applications with full source code, a command line interface for custom control over hardware, and Pentek’s Signal Analyzer, a full-featured analysis tool that continuously displays live signals in both time and frequency domains.


System Implementation
Built on a professional 4U rackmount workstation, the Model 8266 is equipped with the Intel Core i7® processor, DDR3 SDRAM and a high-performance PCIe motherboard. These features accelerate application code development and provide unhindered access to the high-bandwidth PCIe links connecting the Cobalt and Onyx analog and digital I/O modules. All necessary coaxial and timing cables are installed and tested, providing SMA connectivity for all analog I/O lines. The Model 8266 can be configured with 64-bit Windows or Linux operating systems.