RAVEN : VITA 17.3 sFPDP board

Overview

sFPDP (Serial Front Panel Data Port) is a VITA standard (VITA 17.3-2018) serial communications protocol for use in high-bandwidth systems.

RAVEN platform is a VITA 17.3 sFPDP board fully dimensioned to implement VITA 17.3-2018 standard.

Context

Our customer has been using VITA 17.1 sFPDP technology for many years. The new generation of RADARs implies a major increase in data rates between the sub-assemblies of their embedded architecture. VITA 17.3 sFPDP offers an excellent opportunity to upgrade to data rates of 10 Gbps or more over copper and fiber links.

This customer was looking for a set of tools to quickly take charge of this new protocol. He wanted to be help in the development phases of his architecture, testing and validation, as well as during the mass production and after-sales phases.

Problem

He wanted to rely on COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) products based on proven and cost-optimized solutions because he had limited resources to allocate to tooling development and production.

Solution with our VITA 17.3 sFPDP board

TECHWAY offers a turnkey solution with the RAVEN platform. Based on PFP-KX7+ boards (PCIe FPGA Kintex-7 boards) widely used on embedded applications, it integrates an sFPDP IP designed by StreamDSP, a major player and expert in VITA 17.1 and 17.3 IPs.

This packaged solution allows the implementation of a VITA 17.3 sFPDP interface without any FPGA development and without any risk-taking.

The Development Kit provided with the RAVEN includes full design examples allowing our customer to focus on his application and the development of his sFPDP interface embedded in his RADAR equipment.

Integrated in a standard PC, RAVEN allows to transmit data to the RADAR, to receive and to record them for further analysis or playback.

Our VITA 17.3 sFPDP board is the perfect solution to use copper or optical fiber interfaces at different data transfer rates, voluntarily injecting transfer errors to test and validate embedded interfaces.

Result

Our client developed a complete tooling with few resources and investments (cost and time). He created a test and validation platform based on a lightweight and transportable PC. Equipped with multiple functions, RAVEN allowed him to test and validate the different interfaces and communications within his architecture:

Testing copper and optical fiber links.
Developing internal elements of RADAR.
Developing a recorder for the customer algorithm testing and development campaign.
Production tool for unit testing of elements before integration into RADAR.
After-sales tool for system diagnostics and unit tests.

Satisfaction

RAVEN platform limits the risks related to the integration of a new protocol through its quick and easy implementation, as well as the acquisition and development costs of a complete and scalable tooling.

For this same customer, TECHWAY is in the process of defining a compact equipment based on RAVEN. The goal would be to use it in standalone mode for field deployment without integration into a PC.