TECHWAY develops advanced electronic solutions for signal and video acquisition and processing in real-time applications

We are delighted to announce we are now the UK distributors for Techway.  Techway run by Patrick Mechin has been leaders in signal and vision processing systems for over 20 years.  They have a unique set of products for acquisition, real time signal processing and optical communications covering signal and image processing.  These  products and design services both add to our portfolio and depth of our expertise.

In 2008, TECHWAY began designing its own products by developing a leading-edge products range for digital signal and image processing.

Our pre-integrated solutions facilitate the use of complex technologies such as FPGA and high-speed communication nodes.

Our integration of FPGA technology allows our customers to:

• Decrease their engineering time
• Reduce risks
• Shorten time to market
• Easily customize their offer

Our offer is the result of close collaboration with key players in the Aerospace, Defense and Space industries, such as Airbus Group, BAE Systems, Curtiss Wright, Dassault, European Space Agency, Thales Group, etc. Find our projects and customer references according to their applications : Avionics, Defense, Industry and Nuclear.

TECHWAY develops an R&D activity recognized by the Ministry of Research and BPI France.

Data Acquisition for ADAS

ADAS: Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

Data Acquisition Hardware and Recorders

The race to develop autonomous vehicles (AV) and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) has created unprecedented problems in the electronics that must support this technology.  From handling and processing data from multiple sensors in real-time to the reliability, cost, and size constraints necessary for mass vehicle deployment, the challenge for designers to meet these requirements is difficult.

At Innovative Integration, we understand the problems of ADAS electronics implementations, and strive to work with our customer to design fast, reliable, yet cost-effective hardware solutions.  We have expertise in sensor, LiDAR, and video processing in real-time, across multiple channels.  Our solutions are comprised of FPGA or ASIC based hardware, signal processing algorithms, and miniaturization and packaging solutions for a full prototype-to-production solution.

Capture Signals No One Else Can

Fast Prototyping for LiDAR Based ADAS

Our off the shelf prototype hardware is powerful enough to process the multiple channels necessary in an ADAS equipped vehicle.  This creates a “fast prototype” solution to test proof of concept so algorithms can be flushed out during development.  Our customers can significantly reduce design time by using the inherent ability of our FPGA based cards to adjust signal processing and functional algorithms on the fly.

Preparing for Manufacturing

During the design phase, we work with your engineering team to miniaturize and cost optimize the design.  Miniaturization can start with the die level silicon and end with connector and case sizing.  This is done in full consideration of the reliability and durability requirements necessary for a consumer automotive application.  Cost optimization is done at multiple levels from materials optimization to chip optimization.

Manufacturing Done Within Our Facilities

We have full manufacturing and quality control abilities to meet global supply chain requirements at our Camarillo CA headquarters and our parent company Molex headquarters in Lisle, Il.

The Next Step

Contact us to learn more about how we can help with your ADAS electronics needs.

Data Acquisition for SIGINT/EW

Data Acquisition Hardware and Recorders

For the most demanding applications

ISI LLC‘s hardware is designed to specific data acquisition and data recording specifications for Signal Intelligence (SIGINT), electronic warfare (EW) and Intelligent Signal Recording (ISR) applications.

On the front end, our data acquisition hardware support both transmit and receive functions on the same card, support both wideband and narrow band requirements.

The front end hardware can be coupled to our cutting-edge high-speed data recorders, to achieve over 5 GB/s transfer rates and over 10 TB of storage in a single chassis.

Our ruggedized form factors allow our hardware to be used in harsh environments for both airborne, seaborne, or land missions. The chassis can be either portable, rackmount, or luggable, depending upon the application.

Capture Signals No One Else Can

We use the latest A/D and D/A converters, and couple that with expert board design for high channel immunity. The digitized signals are processed using the latest FPGA silicon from Xilinx, giving our hardware nanosecond precision and high resolution.

Our solutions can be used with our proprietary signal processing firmware, including various DDC and decimation algorithms to produce real-time processing speeds.

Basic application software is provided. Most customers however write their own application software using our open board support packages.

Please see individual product datasheets for detailed specifications.

New Family of High Performance Data Acquisition Artix-7 FPGA XMC modules

ISI LLC have released the first board in a new family of high performance data acquisition modules that is centred around the Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA. These devices provide the highest performance-per-watt fabric, transceiver line rates, DSP processing, and Analogue Mixed Signal integration in a cost-optimized FPGA. The family is the best value for a variety of cost- and power-sensitive applications including software-defined radio, machine vision cameras, and low-end wireless backhaul. On top of that, the Vivado toolset is free to use on the Artix-7 family, including the largest device, the A700T2 which is used on the new XA family.

Each XA module has:

• Artix^®-7A200T2 with 33,650 slices, >13Mb of block ram and 740 DSP slices.
• 1GB of DDR3 memory attached to the FPGA for use as virtual FIFO’s between the analogue front end and the 4 lane Gen2 PCIe interface.
• A PLL and reference oscillator to provide the analogue front end with a high stability clock.
• Four lanes of Aurora links for communication with other XA modules.
• Flash memory for logic configuration storage.

The XA family have analogue front ends with typically a couple of channels of >100MSPS Adc or Dac or both.

Innovative’s XMC modules can be used in a variety of hosts using their adapters and standalone hosts. This includes:

• Desktop PC’s – PCI adapter, PCIe x1 adapter, PCIe x8 adapter.
• 3U chassis – cPCI adapter, PXIe adapter.
• VPX – VPX adapter.
• Standalone PC’s – ePC-nano, ePC-Duo.

All modules come complete with software drivers and examples for Windows and Linux operating systems. The libraries and example apps are written in C++ and are supplied with sourcecode. Customers who wish to customise the logic in the FPGA need to purchase the Framework Logic library.

The XA family will replace the X3 family which was released in 2007 around the Spartan3A DSP.

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Building a High Performance Data Acquisition system in a PXIe chassis using XMC modules

figure 1

When designing a high performance data acquisition system, a significant decision is what chassis form factor to use. A rackmount 19 inch chassis comes to mind as a good generic solution, and the PXIe version seems like a good candidate as it is standardized, reasonably priced, and available from multiple vendors. The only significant concern is that native PXI/PXIe modules are generally aimed at the testing market, which means they tend to have lower throughput, with less processing power than needed in high performance data acquisition systems.

This concern can be addressed by XMC modules powered by Xilinx UltraScale FPGAs that provide a universe of high performance data acquisition functions, featuring higher sample rates, and greater processing power with the on board FPGA’s, than typical PXI/PXIe modules. An XMC module can be incorporated into a PXIe chassis using an adapter which plugs into the chassis and is a carrier for the module.

PXIe to XMC Adapter
The Adapter has the normal mechanical characteristics of a PXIe module, plugging into the backplane, presenting a front panel for I/O connections, and serving as a carrier for an XMC module (figure 1). In this case, the Adapter is the ISI LLC “PXIe XMC x8 Lane Adapter” (www.isipkg.com/solutions/sensor-processing.) A block diagram of the Adapter with an XMC Module installed is shown in figure 2.
The basic function of the Adapter is to provide:

• A mechanical site for the XMC: J15 and J16 connectors to mate with the XMC P15 and P16 connectors, and a front panel that accommodates the XMC Bezel.
• Power from the PXIe backplane: 12V for XMC VPWR, 3.3V for XMC 3.3V, and PXIe 5VAUX.
• The 5VAUX supplies a 3.3V regulator that supplies XMC 3.3VAUX. PCIe Interface to the PXIe backplane: PRSNT#, WAKE#, PCIe REFCLK, PCIe PERST#, and up to 8 PCIe Lanes. These signals from the XMC correspond exactly to signals on the PXIe backplane, so they are passed through by the Adapter.
• Geographic Address information: the GA lines from the backplane are routed to digital I/O lines (DIO) provided by the XMC Module at P16.

Additional functions provided by the Adapter:

• Clock signals from the backplane: two clocks may be used from the PXIe backplane. A Clock Select circuit allows either DSTARA or CLK_100 to be selected for use as the sample rate or the PLL reference input of the XMC clock generation circuits. If the XMC Module is not equipped to use a clock at P16, its front bezel clock input can be used in the standard way.
• Trigger signal from the backplane: the DSTARB signal from the backplane may be used as a trigger. If the XMC Module is not equipped to use a trigger at P16, its front bezel trigger input can be used in the standard way.

Block Diagram
The Block Diagram shows additional functions on the front panel that are available for XMC Modules that have the appropriate high speed serial lanes and digital I/O signals available from its FPGA. These functions require additional front panel space, so this particular Adapter consumes two slot spaces. The two slot width of the Adapter allows a cooling fan that directs air to the XMC FPGA, as high performance XMCs can require extra air flow.
Two QSFP ports directly connected to the FPGA are provided to allow high speed communication with other parts of the system without burdening the PXIe system processor. Each QSFP has 4 high speed serial lanes, and 6 DIO lines for the standard QSFP control interface (the LP_MODE is strapped according to system requirements).
When “passive” metallic cables are used, the QSFP control lines are not used.
The DIO port exposes 16 digital I/O signals from the FPGA for the miscellaneous external control and status requirements of the system.

Conclusion
PXIe to XMC adapter adds a rich portfolio of cutting edge Xilinx UltraScale FPGA DAQ XMC modules and tools into the PXIe eco-system allowing customers to leverage COTS for high performance applications.

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figure 2 – Block Diagram of Innovative Integration PXIe to XMC Adapter with XMC Module installed.

FMC Modules

FMC modules are based around the VITA 57 specification and typically contain ADC’s, DAC’s, SFP ports as well as the necessary clock generators and functionality. They are designed to connect to a host with a FMC site. The signal pins of the FMC site are connected direct to a FPGA for a flexible interface to the components. Innovative make a few FMC carriers and these come with logic for interfacing to Innovative FMC modules.

Module	Adcs	Dacs	PLL	Type
FMC-250	2 x 250MSPS 16 bit	2 x 500MSPS 16 bit	Yes	HPC
FMC-310	4 x 310MSPS 16 bit	-	Yes	HPC
FMC-500	2 x 500MSPS 14 bit	2 x 500MSPS 16 bit	Yes	HPC
FMC-1000	2 x 1000MSPS 14 bit	2 x 1000MSPS 16 bit	Yes	HPC
FMC-SFP+	-	-	Yes	HPC
FMC-10GE	-	-	N/A	HPC
FMC-QSFP+	-	-	Yes	HPC