Current News

Alpha Data Announces Support for Xilinx Virtex-5

The successful ADM-XRC series of PCI Mezzanine Cards is being extended to include platforms based on the exciting new Xilinx Virtex-5 family. The ADM-XRC-5LX and ADM-XRC-5T1 are based on the XC5VLX110, LX110T and SX95T devices and features 333MHz DDR-II memory and PCI-X 133MHz. Supported form factors include PCI Express, PCI/PCI-X, CompactPCI, PMC and XMC. Flexible I/O via front panel adapters provide support for applications including:

* Radar and Sonar Processing
* Software Defined Radio (SDR)
* Reconfigurable Computing
* Telecommunication Encryption/Compression
* Image Processing
* Electronic Intelligence (ELINT)

Alpha Data Press Release >>
Xilinx Press Release >>

High Definition H264 Video Codec Demonstration

Alpha Data and 4i2i demonstrate the world's first high definition H264 Video Codec in a single FPGA at GSPx 2005. The demonstration uses the ADM-XRC-4 and XRM-CAMERALINK front panel adapter together with 4i2i's H264 baseband Codec IP. Target applications include broadcast, video conferencing, video surveillance, aerospace and defense.

Xilinx XCELL article on Virtex-4 H264 Codec >>
Click here for More details >>

Alpha Data powered computer in Chess Grand Master Tournament

A computer based on 32 Alpha Data ADM-XP FPGA cards has comprehensively defeated one of the world's top grandmasters in a 6 match tournament. Michael Adam's, ranked 7th in the world, took on Hydra in London, UK from June 21st to 27th. Hydra's ADM-XP cards are capable of searching 200 Million chess moves per second making Hydra the world's most powerful chess computer. Hydra uses 32 ADM-XP cards with XC2VP70, 256MByte DRAM and 16MB SRAM to perform an Alphabeta search algorithm with 56 states.

Xilinx XCELL article on Hydra >>
Hydra vs Adams Tournament details >>

FPGA processing solutions for DARPA Grand Challenge Vehicle

Alpha Data are sponsoring of the University of California, Berkeley’s “Blue Team” to support their quest to win the DARPA 2005 Grand Challenge. Alpha Data’s ADM-XP platform featuring the Xilinx Virtex-II Pro XC2VP100 FPGA and XRM-CAMERALINK will provide image acquisition and image processing functions for the Ghost Rider UGV.

Click here for More details >>

FHPCA Launch in Edinburgh May 25th 2005

Alpha Data are delighted to be involved in the launch of the FPGA High Performance Computing Alliance (FHPCA). Xilinx CEO, Wim Roelandts, launched the Alliance on May 25th 2005 in Edinburgh founded by class-leading organizations from the worlds of FPGA and high-performance computing. The FHPCA will provide a platform for the implementation of HPC applications on FPGA based computers.
The partners of the FHPCA are Algotronix, Alpha Data, EPCC, ISLI, Nallatech, Scottish Enterprise and Xilinx.

Click here for More details >>

System Generator 6.3

Applications Blockset 2.1 , provides interface blocks for the PCI interface, SRAM and DRAM memories. The PCI interface block provides a selection of I/O options: simple
registers, a memory mapped address space and even Demand Mode DMA FIFOs. Background access is provided from the PCI interface to the SRAM and DRAM memories to allow the System Generator designer to concentrate on the DSP Application, without worrying about getting the data between the host and off chip RAM. VHDL wrapper, UCF wrapper and ISE Project Navigator project files are generated automatically from within System Generator to simplify the generation of the bitstream.
Example models with host control applications in Matlab and C are provided.

Cosimulation Blockset 1.5, provides full support for the Hardware-in-the-loop Cosimulation features of System Generator 6.3. This now includes DMA access to shared block RAMs to accelerate the verification of DSP modules further.

Click here for More details >>

Chess

A chess computer based on 16 Alpha Data FPGA cards has won the 13th International Paderborn Computer Chess Championships. The system programmed by Chrilly Donninger defeated the world's top chess computers en-route to the title. The FPGAs are used as co-processors to allow rapid parallel searches.

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Innovation Award

Alpha Data have won the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 Innovation award for 2002. Awarded to the most innovative unquoted technical company in the UK, Alpha Data is delighted to have received this recognition.

Other recent awards include listing in the Deloitte & Touche FAST50 and European FAST500.

"Alpha Data's focus on reconfigurable logic systems has allowed many diverse applications to benefit from FPGA technology." Bill Blyth, Development Director commented "leading-edge, flexible COTS solutions and high level interfaces allow innovative designers to concentrate on their applications"

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Xilinx PAVE Framework support for ADM-XRC

Alpha Data have been announced as the first OEM to offer integrated solution for field upgradability to system developers.

ADM-XRC-PAVE is the first integration of an off-the-shelf field upgradable solution into embedded systems. Specifically, the Xilinx PAVE™ interface, which supports the Internet Reconfigurable Logic (IRL™) design methodology, has been ported to Alpha Data’s ADM-XRC PC-board allowing developers to create FPGA based upgradable embedded systems in the Wind River’s Tornado® integrated design environment.

System designers are now able to embed the industry’s largest FPGA, the Xilinx® Virtex® and Virtex-II FPGAs, into their CompactPCI, VME, and PCI systems in order for remote hardware upgrades to be safely handled via the Internet or other networks. Upgrades, bug fixes and self-test designs can be downloaded to target systems under the control of the Xilinx PAVE software. Systems can even be shipped to the field prior to release of the final FPGA designs.

“This combination of the ADM-XRC and the Xilinx PAVE Framework will give our customers’ embedded solutions a faster route to market and a longer time in that market,” said Graham Smart, managing director of Alpha Data. “Essentially, this solution addresses that ten percent of the design work that requires 90 percent of the design effort— preparing the installed system for a longer shelf life.”

“Providing PAVE with the ADM-XRC provides a complete solution for an IRL design environment using the VxWorks RTOS,” says David Vornholt, IRL Solutions Strategic Manager.

Click here for XCELL article >>

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Star Gazing

Alpha Data have developed a radio spectrometer for the Coldrick Observatory to carry out the first large-scale survey of water maser emission in the Milky Way. The survey should trace a population of very young sites of active star formation and a population of highly evolved stars.

Alpha Data will provide a high performance FFT processor implemented in an ADM-XRC using a single Virtex-EM device. The ADM-XRC will process an 8192 point complex FFT with 16-bit data at 50MHz and replaces the proposed cluster of 64 CPUs.

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