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CompactPCI SBC offers eight-core QorIQ SoC

Sep 9, 2010 — by Eric Brown — from the LinuxDevices Archive — 4 views

Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) announced a Linux-ready, conduction- or air-cooled 3U cPCI single-board computer (SBC) based on Freescale's 1.5GHz, eight-core QorIQ P4080 system-on-chip (SoC). The XPedite5430 is equipped with up to 8GB of DDR3-1333 SDRAM, 16GB of NAND flash, PCI Express or Serial RapidIO expansion, plus gigabit Ethernet, serial, and USB connectivity.

The XPedite5430 is the second in a series of board-level products from X-ES based on the PowerPC-based QorIQ P4080, following the XPedite5470 3U VPX module announced in May. Whereas the XPedite5470 strictly targeted military applications, the Compact PCI (cPCI) based XPedite5430 offers a broader focus, including any compute- and I/O-intensive communication or networking applications.

X-ES XPedite5430
(Click to enlarge)

Clocked up to 1.5GHz, the XPedite5430's top-of-the-line Freescale QorIQ P4080 SoC combines eight Power PC e500 cores. Aimed at high-end networking applications, the QorIQ P4080 offers datapath acceleration, a hypervisor, and a CoreNet "coherency fabric" inter-core interconnect.

The P4080 is further equipped with a private backside cache per core, with tri-level cache hierarchy, providing 128KB L2 cache per core and 1MB L3 cache per channel. IEEE754 floating point unit support is also provided, says Freescale.

On the XPedite5430, the P4080 SoC is joined by 8GB DDR3-1333 ECC SDRAM, says X-ES. The SBC also ships with 256MB NOR flash and 16GB NAND flash, says the company.

I/O and expansion on the XPedite5430 are somewhat simpler than with the XPedite5470. Like the earlier board, however, connections are split up into two main sites — in this case J1 and J2 cPCI sites — as well as a PrPMC/XMC site and an optional front-panel I/O module.

XPedite5430 block diagram
(Click to enlarge)

The J1 site offers a 32-bit PCI interface operating at 33MHz or 66MHz, and is said to be capable of handling both peripherals and system controllers with onboard clocking and arbitration. The J2 site offers two gigabit Ethernet ports, two RS-232/RS-422/RS-485 serial ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and dual GPIO signals, says the company.

The PrPMC/XMC site furnishes a second 32-bit PCI bus with a PMC interface, says X-ES. It also supplies four-lane PCI Express (PCIe) or four-lane Serial RapidIO slots using an XMC interface.

Finally, the optional front-panel I/O module offers dual 10/100 Ethernet ports, a mini-DB9 RS-232 port, and another USB 2.0 port, says the company.

The XPedite5430 measures 3.94 x 6.3 inches (100 x 160mm), says X-ES.

All of X-ES's P4080 products are said to be available in standard air-cooled, commercial versions that operate at 32 to 131 deg. F (0 to 55 deg. C), as well as rugged, MIL-STD 810F Level 5, conduction-cooled models. The latter can operate at -40 to 185 deg. F (-40 to 85 deg. C) models, and offers appropriate shock and vibration testing, says the company.

Board support packages (BSPs) are said to be available for Linux, Wind River VxWorks, and Green Hills Integrity operating systems.

Stated Aaron Lindner, Engineering Manager for X-ES, "The QorIQ processors provide customers with superior SWaP performance along with advanced security features that many of today's military applications require. The P4080 also provides a smooth upgrade path for developers with a PowerPC code base."

Availability

The XPedite5430 is available now in limited quantities for development, with production hardware expected in the fourth quarter, says X-ES. Pricing is said to vary depending on memory configuration and ruggedization level.

More information may be found here, with a PDF datasheet available here.


This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.



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