Harris Corp. has picked the Altera Stratix II GX FPGA for use in the Harris Platinum line of large-scale routing switchers. The Platinum line supports a wide range of video-signal formats, up to 1080p (3 Gbits/s) using Altera’s triple-rate 3G SDI IP core. The switchers allow signal routing of any size and support most digital video signal formats. The FPGA-based architecture ensures the flexibility to “future-proof” broadcast hardware investments.
Stratix II GX FPGAs support 3G SDI data speeds with up to 20 triple-rate SDI full-duplex transceiver channels operating across a range of 270 Mbits/s to 3 Gbits/s. Their transceiver circuitry supports data rates up to 6.375 Gbits/s and integrates hard-coded clock/data recovery (CDR) and serializer/deserializer (SERDES) functions. The devices’ I/O bank structure allows for 128 data lines between the top and bottom memory controllers (1.8 SSTL), LVTTL at 3.3 V for control, LVDS for the TDM interface, plus the 3G transceivers, which use an independent PLL per receive line. This allows multiple transceivers to be assigned per quad to easily support either the eight inputs or eight outputs offered in the Harris Platinum I/O modules. This functionality limits the number of signals that can be affected by any one module, thus increasing system reliability.
“Using Altera’s leading-edge FPGA technology, we were able to be productive right from the beginning of the project,” said Mark Sizemore, engineering manager at Harris Broadcast Communications. “Altera offers a complete 1080p development framework including IP, devices, and tools to accelerate and optimize development time, which for us helped our time to market and product success. This combined capability provides significant savings in space, power, cost, and complexity. System designs can reduce the number of modules, frames, wiring, and system integration while providing enhanced functionality.”
Harris Corp
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