Opal-RT Technologies Launches New Family of FPGA I/O Products

FPGA Product launch builds on Opal-RT's extensive experience in PC-based real-time simulation

DETROIT, March 8 -- Opal-RT Technologies Inc. (www.opal-rt.com ), the world leader in distributed real-time simulation on PC-based platforms, today announced a new range of Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) I/O products for use in PC-based real-time applications.

Based on the Xilinx Virtex II processor, Opal-RT's FPGA product family is designed to address I/O performance and channel density limitations, particularly in applications where time steps of less than 10 microseconds are required.

"There is a growing trend towards the use of FPGA-based processors for I/O applications," said Paul Goossens, Opal-RT's Vice-President of Marketing. "The lower cost-per-channel of FPGA technology, coupled with the superior performance, reconfigurability, and distributed processing capabilities of our FPGA product family make it an ideal complement to our existing real-time products. We were the first to deliver true distributed hard-real-time simulation on the PC platform, and we have been able to build on our extensive experience to give our customers the performance they need for the most demanding applications, while tightly integrating this pioneering technology with our core product line."

FPGA technology offers many advantages for real-time simulation of dynamic systems, particularly when detecting and generating pulse edges, such as PWM signals on electric drives, at high frequencies. In addition to the FPGA product family's increased performance, channel density, and potential for cost savings, these new additions to the Opal-RT product lineup are also programmable, enabling the engineer to use VHDL to configure the product to the engineer's specific requirements.

Opal-RT's FPGA-based IO boards can use distributed processing for scheduling and management, as well as for direct memory transfer from and to the main processor memory, relieving the main processors from IO-intensive tasks. High-end processors can then be dedicated to complex mathematical calculation, which increases overall system efficiency and increases the model sampling frequency.

Opal-RT's FPGA product family is optimized to run on PCs operating under the QNX(TM) or RedHawk(TM) Linux Real Time OS. They are available for either PC/104, for embedded and mobile applications, or PCI, for desktop and industrial applications.

Support for SignalWire

Opal-RT's FPGA product line includes support for SignalWire(TM) -- a next- generation serial data link that Opal-RT has developed to complement IEEE 1394 in high-performance real-time applications. (See press release "Opal-RT Technologies Introduces SignalWire" dated March 8, 2004). For a lower cost, SignalWire provides very fast serial connectivity -- up to 1.25 Gbits/s (full duplex), 3 times faster than IEEE 1394 -- with a latency of 200 ns, about 10% of the latency of IEEE 1394.

Opal-RT's FPGA product family includes the following:

High-Speed Digital I/O Interface (HSDIO) with High-Precision Event Capture and Generation

The HSDIO is designed to install in either a PC/104 or a PCI bus, depending on the target computer form-factor. The PC/104 version has 64 user- programmable Digital I/O lines, while the PCI version has 128. Each group of 8 lines can be software-configured as inputs or outputs, and are capable of sampling up to 100 MHz.

Most off-the-shelf Digital I/O boards provide good performance when digital events occur in synchronization with the simulator cycle times. However, precision problems can arise when events occur between time steps. The HSDIO allows up to 512 rising and falling edges per group to be generated and captured between simulator time steps, at a resolution of 10 ns, thus eliminating timing errors inherent in such applications as PWM and discrete events modeling.

Passive Data I/O Carrier

This is a simple mounting board that supports two mezzanine modules for digital I/O and analog signal acquisition. The modules can either be DIO, ADC or DAC, and the passive carrier connects to the HSDIO directly through a 64- line digital interface. This configuration is ideal for relatively simple hardware-in-the-loop applications where the passive carrier is mounted in the same casing as the HSDIO.

Active Data I/O Carrier

This high-performance carrier is similar to the Passive Data I/O Carrier but incorporates an on-board FPGA processor that extends it capabilities to include a SignalWire interface port as well as a 16-line DIO interface. The Active Carrier board provides a flexible, low-cost solution for interfacing different types of data acquisition/signal conditioning modules to the existing system. It supports up to two data acquisition modules for signal I/O and transmits the data via a SignalWire real-time link to an HSDIO on a target PC.

High-Speed Digital & Analog I/O Modules

The Opal-RT FPGA product family also includes Digital & Analog Input & Output modules. The Analog Input & Output Modules support up to 16 I/O channels each, while providing on-board signal conditioning and simultaneous output on all channels eliminating skew errors inherent in multiplexed channels. The Digital I/O Modules also support on-board signal conditioning with up to 16 input or output lines.

Pricing & Availability

Opal-RT's FPGA product line is now available directly from Opal-RT Technologies and the company's worldwide network of distributors. Special pricing is available where systems are to be used in academic research projects.

About Opal-RT Technologies Inc.

Opal-RT provides software, hardware, and related solutions for real-time simulation applications, with the aim of enabling real-time parallel processing through flexible and affordable technologies.

The company offers a full range of engineering simulation products -- from enabling technologies to turnkey engineering simulators -- and consulting services that include systems integration, software development, simulation and modeling, problem-solving, and training. Opal-RT's core expertise is in distributed hard-real-time simulation, with experienced engineers designing real-time simulators for automotive, electrical power, aerospace, robotics, and other industries where fidelity and fault tolerance requirements push rapid prototyping and hardware-in-the-loop testing to their limits. Opal-RT's unique approach integrates parallel, distributed computing with commercial- off-the-shelf technologies. The resulting RT-LAB product range enables customers to develop simulations quickly, easily, affordably, and competitively. For more information about Opal-RT's range of Engineering Simulators and Distributed Processing Tools, see www.opal-rt.com .

About RT-LAB

RT-LAB is the real-time technology that revolutionizes the way model-based design is performed within the engineering organization. Through its openness, RT-LAB has the flexibility to be applied to any simulation and control problem, and scalability to provide a low-risk entry point for any application, allowing the developer to add computation power where and when needed -- whether to dramatically speed up simulations or for real-time hardware-in-the-loop applications.

RT-LAB and SignalWire are registered trademarks of Opal-RT Technologies Inc.

QNX is a registered trademark of QNX Software Systems

RedHawk is a registered trademark of Concurrent Computer Corp.

NOTE TO EDITORS: 2004 SAE World Congress, Booth #1222, Cobo Hall, Detroit, Michigan