Integrated RF + Linux module simplifies wireless product development

Epiq Solutions, an engineering company dedicated to developing flexible radio modules and wireless sensing solutions, has introduced Sidekiq Z2, an industrial grade highly integrated wideband RF transceiver plus Linux computer on a tiny module measuring just 30mm x 51mm x 5mm. Sidekiq Z2 radically simplifies the typical RF product development cycle, allowing engineering teams to focus their efforts on their application instead of time-consuming RF design and integration tasks. Sidekiq Z2 is ideal for small form factor radio products needing flexibility and low power consumption, such as handheld RF test and measurement, remote RF sensing, wireless security applications, CubeSat/UAS datalinks, and more.

Sidekiq Z2 combines an Analog Devices’ AD9364 wideband 1×1 RF transceiver (70 MHz to 6 GHz) and a Xilinx Zynq XC7Z010-2I System-on-Chip running Linux on its dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU. With integrated RF filtering, a high stability clock, RF shielding, and an industrial temperature rating (-40 to +85 deg C), Sidekiq Z2 has been designed from day one for deployments in harsh environments. For applications with stringent power consumption requirements, Sidekiq Z2 can boot Linux in under two seconds, with a typical system power consumption under two watts.

“Our goal with Sidekiq Z2 is to enable our customers to get to market more quickly than ever before,” stated John Orlando, CEO of Epiq Solutions. “We’ve pushed the limits of high-performance radio integration on a tiny iindustrial-gradecomputing module, and Sidekiq Z2 exceeds what we thought was possible just a few short years ago.”

“By taking advantage of Analog Devices’ RadioVerse ecosystem on Sidekiq Z2, end users can quickly scale from pure simulation of the AD9364 in Simulink, to data streaming over USB via Linux’s Industrial Input Output (IIO) subsystem to host-based GNU Radio, MATLAB, Simulink, or custom applications,” said Robin Getz, Director of Systems Engineering, Analog Devices. “Custom algorithms that target execution in the FPGA or ARM CPU can all be easily addressed, leveraging products like Embedded Coder or HDL Coder from MathWorks^® to further simplify application development.”

Customers can further accelerate their time to market by leveraging Epiq Solutions’ portfolio of software applications capable of running on Sidekiq Z2. This includes applications for embedded RF spectrum analysis as well as 2G/3G/4G cellular network survey.

Sidekiq Z2 is in production and now shipping. The Sidekiq Z2 Evaluation Kit (EVK) includes two Sidekiq Z2 cards pre-loaded and supported by Analog Devices’ open source IIO reference design, along with two simple carrier cards to kick-start initial development. An optional Platform Development Kit (PDK) is also available from Epiq Solutions with enhanced support and an optimized FPGA reference design to maximize processing capability of the FPGA. List price for Sidekiq Z2 is $649 at quantity 1,000 units.