FPGA-based baseband processor

ICS (Interactive Circuits & Systems) – part of

– has released details of its ICS-1580 baseband processing engine.

Launched at UDT Europe 2005 last month, the ICS-1580 is designed for the high data rate, computationally intensive applications common in software defined radio systems.

Featuring a user programmable Xilinx Virtex II Pro FPGA surrounded with memory and high-speed data I/O, it includes four banks of SDRAM memory, four banks of high-speed QDRII SRAM, and two 128 Mbit flash memory devices.

For data I/O, legacy systems can rely on the 64/66 PCI interface, while more modern applications can make use of the ICS-1580A’s high-speed serial switched fabric capabilities, which provide aggregate bandwidth of 25 Gbits/second.

Built in the industry standard PMC form factor, the ICS-1580 allows FPGA-based processing power to be added to any host equipped with a PMC site. Alternatively, data acquisition and processing systems can be quickly deployed by combining the ICS-1580 with existing SDR modules such as the ICS-554, 564, or 572.

The 400 MHz Power PCs (embedded in the Virtex II FPGA) run a pre-installed TimeSys Linux kernel, allowing remote systems to operate autonomously, and the ICS-supplied EDK/HDK enable rapid development and shorter time to market.