The FPGA (or ACAP) universe gathered at the San Jose Fairmount last week during the Xilinx Developer Forum. Engineers, data scientists, analysts, distributors, alliance partners and more came to learn about the latest hardware, software and system level solutions from Xilinx.
Xilinx CEO Victor Peng set the theme of the event with his keynote. Xilinx (and thier partner’s) business strategies revolve around three key growth drivers: Data Center, 5G and Automotive.
The Samtec team demonstrated next-gen interconnect solutions that complement Xilinx silicon products. High-performance interconnect is a must to achieve the system performance demands of AI, 5G and Automotive applications.
Scalable Test Platform for AI in the Data Center
AI hardware systems are highly-complex. Samtec and its partners have developed a configurable, next-generation AI-focused system combining a cable mesh backplane (AcceleRate® Slim Body Cable Assemblies) and next generation High-Speed Edge Card Connector topologies.
The demonstration incorporates an AI/ML style interconnect based on the Gen-Z PECFF form factor. The topology incorporates up to eight add-in cards (emulating Xilinx® Alveo™ Accelerator Cards) that include PCIe® Gen 5 AI usage models and the Samtec Flyover® concept.
The system provides scalability of the PCB and cable interconnect via configurable add-in cards and cables, all operating within PCIe® Gen 3, Gen 4, and Gen 5 performance requirements.
The system can support PCIe® Gen 5 data rates of 32 GT/s. At XDF, the scalable test platform was driven with a Xilinx GTM test chip. It generated one port of PRBS-31 data at 56 Gbps PAM4 data rates. Results included a BER of ~ 8e-14.
Explosive Global 5G Growth
Commercial 5G networks are now reality in the US and South Korea. Other regions across the globe are close behind. Japan is especially focused on delivering the 5G experience during next year’s Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
As 5G networks continue to grow across the world, Xilinx® Versal™ACAP technology is ideally suited to meet the unique demands to 5G. From Massive MIMO and distributed units to the central unit and core network, Xilinx technology is increasing density and optimizing network performance.
While Xilinx helps eases the digital design of 5G, RF is still an analog world. With 5G carrier frequencies ranging from 30 – 300 GHz, a number of RF front ends are required.
The Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC ZCU111 Evaluation Kit offers a comprehensive RF signal chain protoyping platform. In addition to the RFSoC, it contains expansion connectors for 5G modular system design.
The new Differential Breakout card for Zynq® UltraScale+™ RFSoC (P/N AES-LPA-502-G) complements the ZCU111. A completely passive board with no filtering or baluns, the AES-LPA-502-G expands the RFSoC device on the ZCU111 to external test equipment.
Please visit www.samtec.com/5G for more information on Samtec’s suite of 5G interconnect solutions.
Samtec’s Expanding FMC/FMC+ Ecosystem
At XDF, Xilinx demonstrated several new Xilinx® Versal™ACAP chips and development platforms. ACAP stands for Adaptive Compute Acceleration Platform. Versal provides heterogeneous acceleration for any application from across the cloud, network and core.
As with previous generations of Xilinx development kits, the new Versal platforms leverage the VITA 57.4 FMC+ connector for expansion IO. Various Versal platforms even included multiple FMC+ expansion clots.
At XDF, Samtec highlighted several of their FMC and FMC+ development kits. These are designed to help engineers develop easy-to-use prototype systems. Samtec’s FMC/FMC+ modules include:
- 14 Gbps FireFly™ FMC Development Kit
- 25/28 Gbps FireFly™ FMC+ Development Kit
- FMC+ HSPC Loopback Card
- FMC+ HSPC/HSPCe Loopback Card
- FMC+ Extender Card
Please visit www.samtec.com/kits for more information.
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