Abaco Announces Industry’s First 3U VPX Solution to Feature new Xilinx RF System-on-Chip Technology

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HUNTSVILLE, Ala.— April 3 2018 Abaco Systems today announced the VP430 Direct RF Processing System, the first 3U VPX COTS solution to feature the all new Xilinx® ZU27DR RF system-on-chip (RFSoC) technology. It is also one of the densest analog FPGA DSP boards available, with eight ADC and DAC synchronized channels, and features the ability to synchronize multiple boards for even larger system applications.

Abaco is taking orders now for the VP430.

When combined with Abaco’s extensive portfolio of leading edge 3U VPX multi-architecture processing boards including single board computers and graphics processor units, the VP430 enables complete systems to be built from high performance, interoperable COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) components.

Designed for advanced electronic warfare applications including MIMO (multiple input/output), beamforming, sensor processing and radar signal processing, 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 VP430 exemplifies our commitment to delivering state-of-the-art products for DSP applications so our customers can be the first to deployment with their solutions,” said Haydn Nelson, Director of Product Management, RF and DSP at Abaco. “By reducing the RF signal chain complexity and leveraging heterogeneous processing capabilities, the VP430 empowers our customers to maximize input/output channel density and offload data more efficiently without having to sacrifice onboard signal processing capabilities.”

"Xilinx is excited to be able to offer the revolutionary RFSoC technology to our radar customers,” said David Gamba, Xilinx Senior Director of the Aerospace and Defense Vertical Market. “These devices provide unrivaled levels of system performance, flexibility and scalability – all critical factors for next generation radar systems which typically have decades-long deployments.”

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.

Product page

Data sheet

About Abaco Systems

With more than 30 years’ experience, Abaco Systems is a global leader in open architecture computing and electronic systems for aerospace, defense and industrial applications. We create innovative, modular solutions based on open standards that are characterized by outstanding price/performance, ultimate rugged reliability and minimal SWaP. Our goal is to be a significant contributor to our customers’ success, partnering with them to reduce cost, time-to-deployment and risk and supporting them over the long term.  With an active presence in hundreds of national asset platforms on land, sea and in the air, Abaco Systems is trusted where it matters most. www.abaco.com

 

For more information, contact:

 

Ian McMurray

Communications Manager

Abaco Systems

 

ian.mcmurray@abaco.com

 

Xilinx and Zynq are registered trademarks, and Ultrascale+ is a trademark, of Xilinx, Inc.. ARM is a registered trademark of ARM Limited. FireFly is a trademark of Samtec, Inc. PCI Express is a registered trademark of PCI-SIG. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.