Date: 16/09/2011

Micro/sys uses Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA to build COTS SBC

Xilinx, Inc. has announced that Micro/sys, Inc. has built commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) single-board computer (SBC) with a small, low-power, rugged board using an integrated Spartan-6 FPGA with MicroBlaze processor sub-system and ARM Cortex-A8 processor.

"As CPU designs and FPGA technology have evolved, it has become increasing more appropriate to combine these two technologies onto a single board computer," said Susan Wooley, President of Micro/sys. "The marriage of the Cortex-A8 processor with the Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA on a PC/104-sized board represents a significant advance in embedded board-level products. Our customers gain I/O flexibility with the on-board FPGA and low-power, extended temperature performance of the Cortex-A8 RISC processor, allowing them to implement embedded systems that offer very sophisticated multimedia user interfaces."

"Xilinx's easy-to-use development tool chain coupled with the flexibility to choose from standalone IP cores or to implement simple I/O in a distributed-control-like application makes it ideally suited for our COTS customers requiring custom or proprietary I/O," added Wooley. "In addition, the performance and innovative low-power design of the Spartan-6 FPGA provide Micro/sys the competitive edge, with performance gains of 200 percent and power reduction of 30 percent when compared to similar Intel/x86 solutions. In the future, we look forward to leveraging next-generation 28nm Xilinx FPGAs to expand our portfolio of FPGA and ARM processor single-board computer products."

According to Xilinx, new Micro/sys SBC1651 allows OEMs to efficiently configure boards to their exact I/O requirements, tailoring the SBC to address the embedded I/O requirements in markets such as automation, medical, transportation, energy, military, and communications. With the on-board FPGA, OEMs are able to configure the board to their specific I/O requirements, including simple I/O such as UARTs, DIO, CAN and more as well as higher-level features such as DSP, gigabit Ethernet, SATA, or dual video.