Newport, UK- RF Engines Limited (RFEL),
the supplier of high performance FPGA-based design
solutions, now has available a new datasheet on its
'HyperSpeed' range of high-performance FFT cores on its
website www.rfel.com. The cores are factory
scalable in terms of transform length and processing
parallelism and can be built to optimally process complex
data streams with very high sample rates from 400MS/s to
several GS/s. The cores use a parallel pipelined
processing architecture, which allows continuous real time
data to be processed with no gaps between frames.
HyperSpeed FFT cores are intended for use in
applications where processing speed is critical and optimum
use of available silicon is required. Targeted at Xilinx
Virtex 4 and Virtex5 families of FPGA, they can deliver
continuous real time processing of complex data to several
Giga Samples per second.
The FFT pipeline is built from 'M' individual FFTs, each
with a transform length of 'N'-points. Common resources
are shared between the individual FFTs (such as twiddle
factor generation, control etc). Frequency-domain outputs
from the N-point FFTs are 'twiddled' and combined using an
M-point DFT, which is implemented as a fully parallel
pipelined FFT. The HyperSpeed architecture can support
transform lengths that are integer powers of two using
existing 'off-the-shelf' building blocks. Other transform
lengths can be built using RFEL's Matrix FFT prime-length
building blocks.
The ability to perform spectral analysis at such high
sample rates in real time opens up significant
opportunities in a number of key market areas,
including:
- Electronic warfare systems will be capable of
detecting events across wide bandwidths with
significantly reduced equipment costs.
- Instrumentation manufacturers can use the cores to
develop spectrum analysers with GHz bandwidths that
allow real-time detection and analysis of very wideband
signals, such as Ultra Wideband (UWB), in the frequency
domain for the first time.
- In the rapidly growing Software Defined Radio (SDR)
area, the cores will allow a receiver to encompass more
communications standards and frequency bands,
increasing the flexibility of the radio.
- Radio astronomy applications will also benefit from
the increased bandwidth and finer frequency
resolutions, allowing spectrometers to be built that
cover a wider signal detection range or with greater
sensitivity, improving the systems for probing deep
space.
The cores are available for licence in netlist macro
form as a component ready to be combined with customer's
own IP or as part of an integrated design from RFEL.
RF Engines Ltd.
For further information, please see the website at
www.rfel.com or contact RF Engines at Innovation Centre, St Cross Business Park, Newport, Isle of Wight, PO30 5WB, Great Britain. Tel +44 (0) 1983 550330. E-mail
info@rfel.com
Press information and illustrations can be obtained from Nigel Robson, Vortex PR, Island House, Forest Road, Guernsey, GY8 0AB, Great Britain. Tel +44 (0) 1481 233080. E-mail
nigel@vortexpr.com