FPGA-Based XMC Card Delivers DAQ/Signal-Processing/Storage Solution

Based on Xilinx’s Virtex-7, the FM788 FPGA-based commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) card features eight 16-bit analog-to-digital channels running up to 250 Msamples/s each. The module XMC form-factor module, developed by 4DSP, also integrates four 10-Gbit/s optical transceivers. As a result, it can directly connect to a remote storage system without any CPU involvement. Thanks to conduction cooling (an air-cooled version also is available), the card can synchronize signal sampling, which fits well with large-channel-count data acquisition (DAQ). Memory includes 1-Gbit FPGA-configuration onboard flash, and 128-Mbit user-defined flash ROM. Also incorporated are coaxial front panel inputs on SSMC connectors, a single-ended ac- or dc-coupled analog input, flexible clock tree with onboard or external clock, PCI Express controller, and trigger/sync input. Applications range from beamforming, direction finding, and software-defined radio, to radar/sonar, satellite communications, baseband communication transceivers, and multichannel digital receivers.

4DSP LLC