The military and aerospace market has long relied on generic processing boards, using standard bus protocols and connectors. Historically, these processing boards used a general-purpose processor (GPP), a digital signal processor, and a small FPGA to assume the bus interfaces and integrate specific logic (glue logic).
Today, these processing boards are relying more and more on high-performance Stratix® series FPGAs to progressively replace the digital signal processor. FPGAs easily achieve the performance-to-power board requirements and provide a more efficient performance-to-dollar ratio. FPGAs, together with the system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) methodology, offer additional value. You can upgrade commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) boards by downloading new SOPC versions of avionics, radar, sonar, and electronics warfare applications. To extend COTS board product lifetimes, other important features and enhancements can be incorporated into the design:
- Complementary security
- Higher performance
- Lower power dissipation
- Single-event upset (SEU) immunity
- Space saving (die use)
- Instant “on”
Altera COTS Computer References
The following leading COTS computer manufacturers use Altera® solutions extensively to power their COTS boards:
- BittWare Inc.
- Mercury Computer Systems
- GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms
- Curtiss-Wright Embedded Control Systems
- GiDEL
Altera Solution for COTS Computer Applications
Altera's solution for COTS computer applications includes:
- Stratix series FPGAs
- A seamless conversion to HardCopy® ASICs
- Unique features such as cyclic redundancy check (CRC) and advanced encryption standard (AES) bitstream encryption
- Altera’s popular Nios® II embedded processor
- Tools to enhance productivity, such as:
- DSP Builder, which provides simulation and digital signal processing (DSP) hardware generation in conjunction with MATLAB.
- SOPC Builder, which integrates DSP modules and other customer hardware modules to create dedicated hardware acceleration units that extend the control processing power of the FPGA beyond the most powerful stand-alone processors or digital signal processors available today.
