FPGA-based NVMe data storage supports HPC
For high performance computing (HPC) applications, TySOM embedded systems development platforms and stackable non-volatile memory express FPGA mezzanine cards can be combined for applications that require high-bandwidth, low-latency access to SSDs within a reprogrammable system architecture.
Aldec has launched the versatile and time-saving FPGA-based NVMe data storage to help in the development of HPC applications such as high frequency trading and machine learning.
An Aldec TySOM embedded prototyping board is combined with up to eight high-bandwidth, low-latency FMC-NVMe daughter cards and a reference design (including source files and binaries).
“NVMe SSDs are very popular in a wide range of high-performance computing applications, as are FPGAs because of their ability to handle parallel processing, their speed and programmability, plus the fact MPSoC FPGAs also feature ARM processor cores,” commented Louie De Luna, director of marketing at Aldec. This combined is aimed at engineers developing systems that will combine the power and benefits of NVMe and FPGAs.
The FMC-NVMe is the latest addition to the company’s range of FPGA mezzanine cards. It provides four non-volatile memory express (NVMe) interfaces which are connected to a Microsemi PM8532 PCIe switch for connection-to-carrier-card via the PCIe x8 GEN3 interface using a standard FMC connector. The FMC-NVMe daughter card supports board stacking (up to eight deep – which means up to 32 NVMe SSDs slots are accessible).
Aldec has prepared a reference design that can be used with either its TySOM-3A-ZU19EG or TySOM-3-ZU7EV embedded development board. Both boards are based on Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC technology, which incorporates high-performance application processor (APU) with DDR4 system memory controller and hardened configurable PCIe GEN3 blocks in the programmable logic part.
Aldec is headquartered in Henderson, Nevada, USA. It specialises in electronic design verification and offers a patented technology suite including RTL design, RTL simulators, hardware-assisted verification, SoC and ASIC prototyping, design rule checking, CDC verification, IP cores, requirements lifecycle management, DO-254 functional verification and military/aerospace solutions.
