Birmingham, England — (press release excerpt) — Equator Technologies Inc. today announced the immediate availability of 'Tetra' — a new hardware platform powered by its BSP family of high-performance Broadband Signal Processor chips, which includes the MAP-CA and BSP-15 processors. The new Tetra hardware platform provides a low cost, compact, and modular hardware reference design that allows rapid development and deployment for a range of applications such as IP smart cameras, digital video recorders, or IP-based Internet streaming video appliances. The Tetra reference platform comes with support for Linux and VxWorks.

The Tetra hardware platform is a modular design, which includes the Tetra CPU board, an open peripheral interface for add-on modules, and a growing list of add-on `personality' modules. All common CPU board core features, including the BSP family of chips, memory sub-system, Ethernet interface, and power circuitry, are consolidated on the Tetra CPU board. The resulting design can be used from product to product without modification. Extremely compact in size, the Tetra CPU board measures in at 2.75 x 4.00 in., making it an ideal hardware reference design for applications that require a small footprint, such as IP cameras.

Application-specific I/O functionalities can be rapidly prototyped as add-on personality modules to the Tetra CPU board in a fraction of the time required to design a system from the ground up. The Tetra AV module provides additional I/O functionality such as audio/video input/output, compact flash and serial interfaces, and it is the first add-on card to the Tetra CPU board.

Highlights of the Tetra CPU board include:

• Support for both the BSP-15 and MAP-CA chips
• 64MB SDRAM; 4.0MB Flash
• Support for Digital RGB and analog RGB display
• Analog audio out and SPDIF audio in/out
• 10/100BaseT Ethernet
• Consumer IR, GPIO
• Unregulated 8-21V or Regulated 5V, 1.4A power
• Support for Linux and VxWorks

The Tetra AV Module features:

• Video input/output, audio input/output
• 4 digital alarm input, 1 relay output
• 2 Serial ports
• Southbridge SuperI/O chip that provides IDE, compact flash and RS232 interfaces
• Real-time clocks

The Tetra hardware platform is available now from Equator.

 
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