Avnet Cilicon announced a new development kit for designing embedded Linux based systems and devices using the Xilinx Virtex-II Pro FPGA, which includes built-in embedded PowerPC processor cores. The kit is said to target embedded applications in networking, storage area networks, high-speed serial interface and digital convergence applications.

The port of the embedded Linux operating system is based on Linux kernel version 2.4 and includes a boot loader, RAM disk, serial console, and virtual memory support, and was created using the current Xilinx EDK version 3.1, the first announced port for this release, the company said.

From the hardware perspective, the kit includes a board-level platform based on a Xilinx Virtex-II Pro FPGA family device — the XC2VP20 — and can be used with a variety of compatible expansion modules for (functions such as USB2.0, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, IrDA, CAN, PCI, PCMCIA, Video and Audio processing, RLDRAM, SDRAM, FLASH, and SRAM), Intellectual Property Cores (IP Cores), and other third-party products. The kit comes with schematics, PC board layout, bill of materials, demonstration code, and a comprehensive embedded Linux board support package, the company said.

Summary of features of the Virtex-II Pro development kit . . .

• FPGA: Xilinx Virtex-II Pro XC2VP7 or XC2VP20 FPGA
• Memory:
  • 128MB to 1GB Micron DDR SDRAM SODIM
  • 32MB Micron Mobile SDRAM
  • 2MB Cypress SRAM
  • 16MB Intel StratfFlash
  • Compact FLASH card
• High-speed Serial Communication
  
• Two HSSDC2 connectors (Infiniband or Fibre Channel)
  
• Pads for XPAK module (10Gb Ethernet, OC-192)
  
• Receptacles for 2 SFP modules (Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel, Infiniband)
  
• Expansion:
  • PCI Bridge (3.3V and 5.0V, 32-bit or 64-bit) implemented in Xilinx Spartan-IIE
    
  • 32-bit PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC connectors)
    
  • Four 140-pin general purpose I/O expansion connectors (AvBus)
• Software:
  • Board support package with Linux source tree
    
  • Xilinx EDK 3.1 tools
• Documentation:
  • Users Guide
    
  • Bill of Materials
    
  • Schematics
    
  • Downloadable VHDL source for sample applications

 
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.