Processing network data at 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GE) speeds is always a challenge, and minimizing power consumption is key in dense system configurations. Bringing high-performance FPGAs such as Xilinx’s Virtex-5 is one way to provide the computational power in a parallel, low-power fashion compared to power-hungry microcontrollers.
Nallatech’s PCIe-180 (see the figure) combines a pair of these FPGAs with an x8 PCI Express and a 10GE interface. It can be used in applications such as network security, signal processing, and algorithm acceleration. The board features an XC5VLX155 and an XC5VLX50T Virtex 5.
The FPGAs are supported by a memory system that includes error correction coding (ECC) support, five DDR-II SRAM memory banks with a combined bandwidth of 10 Gbytes/s, plus a DDR2 SDRAM interface with a 4-Gbyte/s bandwidth. Nallatech also includes optimized VHDL memory controller intellectual property (IP) cores and reference designs with the board. This includes driver and application programming interface (API) source code for 64-bit Linux platforms and operating systems.
Pricing for the PCIe-180 starts at $2995 for the low-profile, half-length PCI Express card.
Nallatech