abacosystems

6U VPX SBC follows SOSA standard

September 20, 2020 By Aimee Kalnoskas Leave a Comment

Abaco Systems announced the SBC6511, a rugged sixth generation 6U single board computer aligned with The Open Group Sensor Open Systems Architecture, or SOSA, technical standard that integrates the newest embedded CPU and FPGA technologies for rugged compute-intensive, heavy-throughput applications and gives users a technology insertion at the data plane, expansion plane, and control plane levels. It demonstrates Abaco’s commitment to continuing innovation with the latest technology and performance standards, while aligning with relevant industry standards.

The innovative design combines the latest Intel Xeon E 9th Generation CPU (formerly known as Coffee Lake Refresh) with the Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ FPGA with advanced security capabilities (ZU7EG) to yield maximum processing performance and security in a rugged, single 6U VPX slot. The FPGA is the root of trust in the new design, giving users advanced security compared to “bolt-on” solutions found in other designs. Additionally, the SBC6511 utilizes Mellanox ConnectX-5, facilitating dual 40 GigE KR4 data plane fat-pipes for increased bandwidth across the system. It supports Linux, Windows and VxWorks operating systems.

In line with Abaco’s commitment to maximizing the value of customer investments and minimizing long term cost of ownership, a full-feature variant of the SBC6511 is available to provide a robust insertion/upgrade solution for users of the SBC627, delivering substantially superior performance with minimal disruption. In addition to all features of the SOSA aligned variant, the full-feature SBC6511 provides one additional XMC site, one additional DisplayPort, and four additional USB 3.1 ports through inclusion of rear P3 and P6 connections.

Technical Overview

The SBC6511 features the Intel Xeon E six core CPU with 64GB DDR4 with ECC and up to 256 GB SSD. It includes the Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ FPGA with its advanced security features, and delivers a multi-fabric architecture on the data, control, and expansion planes. The SBC6511 provides support for the latest DisplayPort 1.4 outputs capable of 4K @ 120 Hz or 5K @ 60 Hz, in line with the latest display standards. It also provides a dual 40 GbE data plane with RDMA, plus dual 10GbE ports on the control plane. Expansion is supported by multiple PCIe Gen 3 capable XMC sites. The SBC6511 is available in SOSA aligned or full-feature variants with expanded I/O and XMC expansion. It supports Linux, Windows and VxWorks operating systems plus Abaco’s AXIS software suite and Health Toolkit. UEFI, BIT and Slim Bootloader are available on request.

6U VXS SBC sports latest NXP T2081 quad-core processor

May 18, 2020 By Aimee Kalnoskas Leave a Comment

Abaco Systems announces the DSP221. an extension of the legacy DSP220, by refreshing to the latest NXP T2081 quad-core processor. This launch lowers costs of ownership for our clients while simultaneously reducing integration work and extending the life of current projects. The DSP221 delivers a valuable solution toward achieving production lifetime.

The DSP221 is the newest NXP QorIQTM based product to join Abaco’s rugged 6U VME and VXS single board computers. It provides high-speed Ethernet fabric support with a technological refresh. This product provides an improvement from a single core processor to a modern multi-core power architecture processor. This technology refresh reduces power consumption by over half compared to the DSP220.

The DSP221 incorporates the high-performance T2081 processor and is designed specifically for harsh environments. It is ideal for a wide range of applications demanding reliability, like critical industrial, aerospace and defense applications. The DSP221 is available in air-cooled ruggedization levels, offering a clear path for new customers and existing DSP220 users looking for modernization of existing systems. This product lends itself to the success of our customers by overcoming the threat of obsolescence.

The DSP221 is a 6U VXS single board computer with Power ArchitectureTM AMP CPU with eight e6500 virtual cores (4 cores, dual threaded with AltiVec co-processing). It includes 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM with ECC Single Bank, 512MB NOR Flash, 32GB NAND Flash solid-state drive, 512 kB non-volatile nvSRAM, 2x independent PMC/XMC sites, 2x 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet, 2x RS232 ports, 4x single-ended GPIO (5V tolerant), and has a Baseboard Management Module (BMM). Standard software options including Uboot, PBIT, CIBIT, and VxWorks 7 (SR0630). Linux Yocto distribution is available on request.

Data, I/O concentrator reduces cabling for aircraft/ground vehicles

May 18, 2020 By Aimee Kalnoskas Leave a Comment

Abaco Systems is pleased to announce a new, innovative solution for our customers with the EIU1000. This product is an I/O aggregator and data concentrator that combines high-density Ethernet, Avionics databus, serial, and discrete I/O connections in a compact, rugged system powered by a high-performance System-on-Chip (SoC) to reducing wiring, overall system weight and complexity.

The EIU1000 is a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solution that enables flexible, modular and scalable designs with multi-mode connectivity in a compact, rugged enclosure complementing or even replacing existing line replaceable units (LRUs) and expensive custom-designed systems. This device allows users to aggregate signals from discrete sensors and other LRUs and subsystems through one small device. The eight port Ethernet switch is ideal for systems requiring redundancy without any additional hardware.

The EIU1000 acts as a bridge between legacy subsystems and modern backbone while trending towards a reusable, modular solution. As a COTS solution, the EIU1000 avoids high development costs and schedule delays common with custom systems. Interface flexibility, physical robustness, power, weight, and space are critical considerations in aircraft and ground vehicles, and the EIU1000 is Abaco’s lowest size, weight, and power (SWaP) system to date.

Single board computer extends life, saves cost and power for VXS-based systems

May 13, 2020 By Aimee Kalnoskas Leave a Comment

Abaco Systems announces the DSP221 an extension of the legacy DSP220, by refreshing to the latest NXP T2081 quad-core processor. This launch lowers costs of ownership for our clients while simultaneously reducing integration work and extending the life of current projects. The DSP221 delivers a valuable solution toward achieving production lifetime.

The DSP221 is the newest NXP QorIQTM based product to join Abaco’s rugged 6U VME and VXS single board computers. It provides high-speed Ethernet fabric support with a technological refresh. This product provides an improvement from a single-core processor to a modern multi-core power architecture processor. This technology refresh reduces power consumption by over half compared to the DSP220.

The DSP221 is a 6U VXS single board computer with Power Architecture AMP CPU with eight e6500 virtual cores (4 cores, dual threaded with AltiVec co-processing). It includes 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM with ECC Single Bank, 512MB NOR Flash, 32GB NAND Flash solid-state drive, 512 kB non-volatile nvSRAM, 2x independent PMC/XMC sites, 2x 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet, 2x RS232 ports, 4x single-ended GPIO (5V tolerant), and has a Baseboard Management Module (BMM). Standard software options including Uboot, PBIT, CIBIT, and VxWorks® 7 (SR0630). Linux Yocto distribution is available on request.

3U CompactPCI SBCs carry up to 2GBytes of SDRAM ECC memory

April 8, 2020 By Aimee Kalnoskas Leave a Comment

Abaco Systems today announced the PowerPact3 IMP3B 3U CompactPCI rugged single board computer. It is a successor to the PowerPact3 IMP3A, CM4R and RL4R for which it provides a straightforward, cost-effective replacement.

Designed for a broad range of demanding applications in defense, aerospace, industrial and commercial environments where rugged reliability in harsh conditions is of paramount importance, the IMP3B consumes minimal size, weight and power (SWaP).

“Many of our IMP3A, CM4R and RL4R customers are committed to the 3U CompactPCI architecture and need the functionality offered by their existing platforms – and are unable or unwilling to make a change that would be time-consuming, disruptive and expensive,” said Peter Thompson, Vice President, Product Management at Abaco. “The IMP3B gives them a way forward that allows them to avoid the necessity of doing that, providing the assurance of long term availability of a key component in their systems.”

The IMP3B features the QorIQ™ P2020 Power Architecture™ processor operating at 1.0 GHz with up to 2GBytes of SDRAM ECC memory. I/O includes a Gigabit Ethernet channel; four COM ports, and eight GPIO.

Available in conduction-cooled format, the IMP3B software support includes comprehensive Deployed Test Software (BIT and BCS) and VxWorks.

More information

Data sheet

Four-channel GbE NIC supports 1000BASE-X optical, 1000BASE-T copper connectivity

November 13, 2019 By Aimee Kalnoskas Leave a Comment

Abaco Systems today announced the XMC477RC 4-Channel SFP Gigabit Ethernet Interface, further expanding the company’s range of network interface card options. The new XMC is distinguished by its support for four SFP (Small Form Factor Pluggable) modules for maximum flexibility, allowing customers to choose between 1000BASE-X optical or 1000BASE-T copper connectivity. When paired with an Abaco single board computer, the XMC477RC delivers a high degree of functional density that can reduce the number of cards in a chassis – eliminating, for example, the requirement for a dedicated Ethernet switch – that can help minimize the size, weight, and power (SWaP) of a subsystem.

The XMC477RC also provides a simple and highly cost-effective form-, fit- and function compatible upgrade for existing users of the PMC676RC or PMC677RC who will benefit from a more configurable product with higher throughput.

Fully rugged, with the ability to operate in temperatures between -40°C to +85°C, the XMC477RC is designed for naval/marine-, land- and air platforms within defense and aerospace markets including fire control systems, airborne mission computers, radar systems, and flight control. It supports a high-speed link to the host via an x4 PCIe connection, allowing all front I/O ports to run at full line rate.

Featuring an industry-standard Intel I350-AM4 quad port Gigabit Ethernet controller that gives native support for enhanced virtualization features such as VMDq and up to eight virtual machines allocated per port, the XMC477RC is easy to set up and use. It is supported by native drivers for common operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Linux and LynxOS. Abaco can additionally provide drivers for VxWorks and Solaris.

VPX rugged video/graphics and GPGPU card target electronic warfare apps

October 24, 2019 By Aimee Kalnoskas Leave a Comment

Abaco Systems today announced the GR5 3U VPX rugged video/graphics and GPGPU card, further extending the range of options available and providing customers with the ability to choose exactly the right solution for the specific application.

The GR5 is designed to support the video, graphics and GPGPU requirements of the most demanding SIGINT, ISR, situational awareness and radar applications, among others. It is also appropriate for deployment in harsh industrial/commercial environments.

Based on the NVIDIA Pascal Quadro P2000 GPU with 768 cores, 4GBytes of GDDR5 memory and CUDA support, the GR5 offers exceptional graphics and GPGPU capability, and can deliver up to 2.3 TeraFLOPS of floating-point performance.

The GR5 supports two DisplayPort 1.2 (4K @ 60Hz) and two single-link DVI-D ports (1,920 x 1,200 @ 60Hz), or four single-link DVI-D outputs. The two single-link DVI-D ports ensure DVI pin-compatibility with Abaco’s GRA112D and GRA113D 3U VPX graphics boards, providing customers with a straightforward, cost-effective upgrade to the higher performance and increased longevity of the new board.

The GR5 supports PCI Express 3.0 (x16, x8 or x4 lane configurations) when mated with compatible Abaco single board computers.

The new platform is supported by NVIDIA’s software and library stack including NVIDIA CUDA 10, OpenCL 1.2, DirectX 12, OpenGL and H.265 (HEVC)/H.264 hardware encode/decode. Windows and Linux drivers are provided for x86-based platforms.

The GR5 is designed to withstand high temperature, shock and vibration environments and meets MIL-STD-810G standards. It is available in both air- and conduction-cooled formats.

This latest addition to Abaco’s growing video/graphics capability joins the recently-announced rugged 3U VPX GR2 and GR4 video and graphics cards. The GR4 features full video capture and output, while the GR2 provides a cost-effective alternative for customers only requiring video output. As well as graphics and video applications, both are ideal for GPGPU applications that can leverage the enormously parallel nature of the Pascal architecture, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, autonomous systems and high performance embedded computing (HPEC) applications such as ISR, C4ISR and remote sensing/analysis.

Dev kit includes 3U SGC, RF processing for electronic warfare projects

June 19, 2019 By Aimee Kalnoskas Leave a Comment

Abaco Systems today announced the VP430 Development Kit, which is designed to enable application developers to make a fast start on the creation, debugging and optimization of advanced electronic warfare applications. The VP430 Development Kit includes a VPX370 development platform, pre-integrated with a 3U VPX SBC329 single board computer, and the VP430 Direct RF Processing System.

The VP430 was the first 3U VPX COTS solution to feature the 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.

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 VPX370 is a 6-slot system developed specifically for aerospace and defense applications. Its modular architecture enables users to add high-performance FPGA and I/O to the base configuration, addressing many application requirements such as digital RF memory (DRFM), synchronous multi-channel MIMO systems, software defined radio (SDR) and more. Its flexibility means that customers can simply and quickly integrate their in-house developed 3U VPX boards.

The VP430 responds 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 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.

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.

SBC incorporates Xenon processor for handling C4ISR, industrial apps

April 10, 2019 By Aimee Kalnoskas Leave a Comment

Abaco Systems announced the SBC3511 3U OpenVPX rugged single board computer, which provides a unique combination of high performance, advanced security and leading edge thermal management. Target applications for the new platform include C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) and the most demanding industrial applications.

The SBC3511‘s high performance derives from the new, highly integrated Intel® Xeon® E-2176M 6-core/12-thread processor (formerly known as Coffee Lake) operating at 2.7GHz with TurboBoost up to 4.4GHz, 32 GBytes of DDR4 RAM and the inclusion of up to 256 GBytes of nVME SSD. It also features a 40 Gigabit Ethernet data plane, delivering not only a high speed interconnect but also alignment with the SOSA™ technical standard.

SOSA – Sensor Open Systems Architecture – creates a common framework for transitioning sensor systems to an open systems architecture, based on key interfaces and open standards established by industry-government consensus.

The new single board computer includes a range of security features designed to assist with user-defined Anti-Tamper and Information Assurance strategies. The onboard Xilinx® Zynq® UltraScale+™ MPSoC’s built-in security capabilities include a physical unclonable function (PUF), user-accessible hardened cryptographic blocks, asymmetric authentication, side channel attack protection, and other silicon-based AT features. It can be utilized to instantiate a range of Abaco-defined security features, or by customers to embed application-specific features. Support is also provided for Intel’s Trusted Execution Technology.

The SBC3511 features a unique thermal management design which allows deterministic high performance even at the extended temperatures typical of deployment on space-constrained platforms in combat zones. This is in contrast to less efficient thermal management designs that see a processor’s performance throttled back at high temperatures.

Development kits, including starter cages and accessories, are also available.

The SBC3511 also includes a x8 PCIe Gen 3 XMC site; one USB 2.0 port and one USB 3.1 port; a DisplayPort™ interface; two serial ports; a SATA port; and up to eight GPIO pins.

Also included is a rich range of software options. AMI UEFI includes support of BIOS Guard for signed image execution. Open Linux (Fedora), Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS (Linux), Wind River Linux, VxWorks 7, Windows 10 will also be available, as will comprehensive deployed test software (PBIT, CBIT and IBIT).

FACE-aligned RTOS runs on VPX SBCs

July 7, 2017 By Aimee Kalnoskas Leave a Comment

Continuing to build its safety certifiable portfolio and capability, Abaco Systems today announced availability of the LynxOS-178 2.2.4 real time operating system from Lynx Software Technologies (formerly LynuxWorks™) for Abaco’s DO-254 certifiable SBC 314 3U VPX single board computer (SBC). Because both the SBC314 and LynxOS-178 are true COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) products, customers can take advantage of the hardware/software combination to significantly accelerate a program start and ease their roadmap to certification – reducing risk, time and cost.

LynxOS-178 is also aligned to the FACE (Future Airborne Capability Environment) standard which defines an open avionics environment for all military airborne platform types, and which is of importance to many of Abaco’s customers.

Abaco also announced the first customer for the combined hardware/software offering: Ampyx Power, a Dutch company developing a disruptive next generation wind energy technology within the emerging Airborne Wind Energy sector. Ampyx Power selected the Abaco/Lynx certifiable COTS solution for their tethered autonomous aircraft that can supply 2000 households with cheap and sustainable energy in the future.

“At Ampyx Power we strive for safety and reliability to support our business case,” said Erik van der Heide, Supply Chain Manager at Ampyx Power. “Developing a new technology that is also compliant to the aviation certification regulations is a time-consuming and costly process. This combination of hardware and software in the single board computer, for our autopilot with proprietary algorithms, contributes to a robust and reliable Airborne Wind Energy system.”

With programs looking to leverage the time and cost benefits of COTS hardware and software products for safety certification, while COTS vendors seek program-specific funding to enable them to provide those benefits, Abaco has broken the deadlock by making a forward-looking upfront investment in developing the artifacts necessary to achieve DAL A DO-254 certification, considerably reducing the customer burden. Supported products include the SBC314, FORCE2 and RAR15-XMCdual avionics protocol interface.

As well as supporting FACE, LynxOS-178 2.2.4 supports Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) and ARINC 653 APplication EXecutive (APEX), and offers true portability for safety-critical software designs. LynxOS-178 2.2.4 is also offered with a full set of DO-178C DAL-A certification artifacts for systems requiring the highest level of avionics safety certification.

LynxOS-178 is also the first and only time- and space-partitioned RTOS to have obtained a Reusable Software Component (RSC) award from the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA). LynxOS-178 2.2.4 will obtain the third RSC award for the product line, building upon the success of two previous RSC awards.

The SBC314 3U VPX rugged single board computer is available with either the Qualcomm (formerly NXP/Freescale) QorIQ™ T2081 processor for maximum performance or with the QorIQ T1042 for applications where minimal power consumption is required.

The FORCE2 mission ready rugged display computer integrates the SBC314 with an AMD Radeon™ E8860 or coreAVI E8860 graphics processor and up to 8GB of DDR SDRAM.