VISUALIZATION

BEEcube has announced the immediate availability of BEE4-W. Specifically designed to address rapid system level prototyping of Wireless and Digital Communications designs, the BEE4-W is BEEcube's latest generation FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) Berkeley Emulation Engine (BEE) platform.

BEE4-W Meets Dynamic Mission Critical Prototyping Needs

With four (4) integrated ADC and DAC solutions, the Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA based BEE4-W enables a wide range of high-performance, real-time implementations in multiple military and defense applications.  

BEE4-W allows for flexible algorithm and feature set definitions and as a result excels as a true real-time development and deployment platform for:

• Radar applications
• Signal Intelligence
• MIMO communications
• Software defined radio (SDR)
• Wireless (Digital Based RF) Algorithm Applications

"The latest signal processing algorithms can now be rapidly prototyped and deployed on the BEE4-W system, running at clock rates of hundreds of MHz, which directly interface to multi-GHz and integrated A/D and D/A converters," announces Chen Chang, BEEcube's founder.  

BEE4-W Hardware Description

The BEE4-W is a commercial, stackable full speed multi-FPGA based prototyping platform, integrated with DAC/ADC modules for mixed signal and digital communications designs.  The FMC DAC/ADC Module is 4 sets of a single width FMC mezzanine card providing both a 12-bit, 2.3- GSps multi-Nyquist digital-to-analog converter and a 12 Bit, 1-GSps analog-to digital converter. BEE4-W DAC/ADCs are based on Maxim MAX19692 and Texas Instruments ADS5400 components.

Each BEE4-W system or module consists of 4 Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGAs based on a unique HPC (High Performance Computing) Honeycomb architecture. BEE4 modules can be stacked or clustered to increase capacity without losing speed. Using Sting I/O and depending on the design, users can run prototype logic up to 500 MHz and digital interface communication at 640 Gbps per BEE4-W module, including optical interfaces and multiple Digital to Analog and Analog to Digital components.     BEE4-W supports the latest FMC and QSPF+ interface standards.

BEE4-W modules support of a variety of high-end Virtex-6 FPGAs, including LXT 240/365/550 and SXT 315/475, allowing BEE4-W to support 20 MGate designs per module, or 400 MGates per rack.  

A single BEE4-W has a maximum capacity of 20M ASIC gates, and the quad FPGA design is interconnected with a ring bus and integrated DDR3-800/1066 memory. Each BEE4 FPGA follows a symmetrical design, including identical memory and independent I/Os. Multiple high-speed data interfaces include: 160 Gbps QSFP+, x8 Gen2 PCI Express, Quad 1000BASE-T Ethernet, and Quad FMC expansion slots. The system has a capability of buffering 128GB of data in DDR3 memory.

BEE4-W is bundled, with:

• Our unique cluster-able Honeycomb symmetrical architecture.
• The industry's highest available inter-FPGA and BEE4 module to module communication via Sting I/O,  
• Provides unprecedented programmable application access to your FPGA code, via our distributed Nectar OS ,
• And a powerful algorithm development and IP library environment with BEEcube Platform Studio (BPS).

BEE4 capabilities include:

• Fully Scalable Full Speed interconnected Modules, up to 80 Modules per cluster.
• Integrated Flexible PC x86 based Environment, for BEE4 control, setup and management.
• Multi-user and remote access capabilities.
• Full speed network I/O up to 640 Gbps per module.
• Massive amounts of built-in Memory capability, expandable from 16 GB to 128 GB per module.
• Large designs can be handled, up to 20 MGates per module.
• Flexible Expansion Options, including SFP/SFP+, ADC/DAC, and FMC based peripherals.

BEE4 Features include:

• Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGAs , Up to 500 MHz
  • LXT240/365/550 and SXT315/475
• QSFP+, 20 Gbps (8x)
• FMC (HPC) Expansion Slots (4x)
• Gen2 PCI Express 8-lane (4x)
• DDR3-800/1066 ECC RDIMM (8x)
• Gigabit Ethernet (4x)
• Independent Globally Synchronous Clock Trees (4x)
• Integrated Atom PC Module
• 2U Rack-Module