Prototyping system holds up to 8 FPGAs

S2C announces a new class of FPGA prototyping products, the S2C Prodigy Logic Matrix family. Logic Matrix is architected from the ground up to meet today’s needs for both large design scaling and performance. Conventional FPGA prototyping systems typically host up to four FPGAs per system targeting single system deployment or limited expansion, whereas emulators are used to addressing large designs but lack sufficient performance to carry out real-world in-system testing or software verification. Logic Matrix is the perfect solution to address the ever-increasing complexity AND performance requirements found in large scale SoC designs for applications such as 5G, data center, AI/ML, and autonomous driving.

Prodigy Logic Matrix (LX) series is a high-density FPGA prototyping platform optimized for space and connectivity. Logic Matrix holds up to 8 FPGAs and it is sized for a standard 42U server rack to house up to eight Logic Matrix – for a total of 64 FPGAs per server rack. Multiple racks may be linked for further expansion. To simplify FPGA interconnect while addressing bandwidth and flexibility, Logic Matrix introduces hierarchical connectivity: ShortBridge, SysLink, and TransLink, each with different granularity to address local, Logic Matrix-to-Logic Matrix and rack-to-rack interconnect. ShortBridge provides high throughput connectivity between neighboring FPGAs, SysLink connects FPGAs over high bandwidth cables, and TransLink supports longer distance links between FPGAs with SerDes over copper or optical cables. Logic Matrix also offers server-class features such as real-time system monitors, professional cooling, and redundant hot-pluggable power supplies to ensure high reliability and robust operations. Logic Matrix’s high-density architecture also further reduces the cost of ownership by taking up less server rack space or the precious benchtop real estate.

While a new physical architecture can greatly simplify hardware deployment, an FPGA partitioning a requirement for multi-FPGA design. In October S2C already released an enhanced version of its Player Pro Compile software with a faster netlist partition engine, optimized black-box flow, and fully automated TCL scripting support. S2C will soon release RTL partitioning with hierarchical connectivity to address hyperscale designs that can easily span hundreds of FPGAs.

The first Logic Matrix series, LX1, and LX2 are based on Xilinx UltraScale VU440 and UltraScale+ VU19P respectively. LX1 offers up to an estimated 240M ASIC gates, 709Mb internal memory, 23K DSP slices, 19216 I/Os, and 384 GTH transceivers. LX2 offers up to an estimated 392M ASIC gates, 1.79Gb internal memory, 30.7K DSP slices, 12,672 I/Os, and 384 GTY transceivers.

Logic Matrix benefits from other S2C prototyping productivity tools. Player Pro Runtime software, included with the purchase of Prodigy prototyping systems, offers convenient features such as advanced clock management, integrated self-test, automatic board detection, I/O voltage programming, multiple FPGA downloads, remote system monitoring, and management. S2C’s Multi-Debug Module provides concurrent deep trace debugging and cross-triggers over multiple FPGAs. S2C’s ProtoBridge enables system-level co-modeling with a host PC and a PCIe/AXI connection to the device under test. S2C also offers a large library of off-the-shelf interface accessories as Prototype Ready IP to simplify access to real-world data and inter-system connectivity.

VU440 based Prodigy LX1 is available now for purchase. VU19P based LX2 and RTL partitioning are scheduled for Q2 2021 release.