Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy 1 Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th 2014 DSP & UniBoard Astron Hajee Pepping
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th Making discoveries in radio astronomy happen! Mission Astron
© ASTRON
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th Why do we need DSP in radio astronomy applications?
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th
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Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th From single signal to multi signals
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th From single signal to multi-signals
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th Yes nice cables, but what about DSP?
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th Phased Array Principle
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th Board history How did we master the phased array principle?
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th Prototype 2002: THEA Beamformer in FPGAs
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th DSP engineers in earlier projects 2002: Debugging…
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th Overview of processing boards in earlier projects 2008: LOFAR Remote Station Processing board
Current platform in operation: UniBoard1 Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th 8x Altera Stratix IV 40nm FPGA Standard DDR3 SODIMM Standard 10GbE interfaces 160 Gbps throughput ~400W
20 UniBoard in a system Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th 2014
UniRack Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th Board future What is next?
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th Current platform in design: UniBoard 2
UniBoard Comparison Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th UniBoard1 (Stratix IV) UniBoard 2 (Arria10) UniBoard 2 (Stratix10) Throughput rate160 Gbps960 Gbps2400 Gbps Processing2 TMAC/s4.8 TMAC/s20 TMAC/s Nof PCB layers1418 MemoryDDR3DDR4 Technology40nm20nm14nm SerDes3.125 Gbps10 Gbps25 Gbps Operational
Firmware Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th What is the Astron approach towards efficient firmware development?
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th One Click One Click ASTRON and SKA-SA Goals: Descrease development time Simplify the workflow Be prepared for huge complex FPGA designs
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th One Click: more free time
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th Current flow vs Envisioned flow
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th One Click: Reuse Coding standard Modular design approach Standard busses Common infrastructure
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th One Click: Automation Future: Automatic generation of MM bus and busmaster. Automate procedures (e.g. simulate, compile) Regression tests (self-checking testbenches) Generic project files
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th One Click: Simulation using VHDL and Python. Verification is as important as the design itself, they go hand in hand. 1.Test benches with stimuli and verification in VHDL 2.Test benches with stimuli and verification in Python
Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th Conclusion FPGA and DSP design have a key role in radio astronomy Astron has rich heritage in: Multi FPGA boards High speed board design Manifesting a modular and automated firmware design flow
Onder de motorkap van LOFAR! Bits & Chips - Smart Systems, November 20th Vragen?