Main Feature
In addition to updated information means instant reconfiguration of headsfrom ground sensors, the pilot needs to up displays, weapons and so forth—at a make quick decisions on things like a single touch. weapons mix for changing situations. In addition to the ability to work The data can be quite complex, including with general-purpose processors, certhings like g forces and GPS coordinates, tain FPGAs, such as those from Xilinx, yet the pilot needs to choose simple com- contain hard-wired PowerPC cores onmands and have12/16/05 everything quickly while others can use “soft” proceslayout.qxd 5:21 PMconPagechip, 1 figured to meet those requirements. This sors defined in the programmable logic Figure 2
The CHAMP-FX from Curtiss-Wright Controls harnesses the computing power of two Xilinx Virtex-II Pro FPGAs for DSP applications such as radar, sonar and signal intelligence. The FPGAs are complemented with more than 10 Gbytes/ s of I/O capability, implemented with an array of technologies including highspeed differential serial RocketIO, XMC/ PMC sites and StarFabric interfaces. With both large DDR SDRAM and fast DDRII SRAM memory, the FPGAs have more than 8 Gbytes/s of memory bandwidth to service memory-intensive algorithms. Mark Littlefield of Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, for example, notes that his company is “putting a great deal of engineering effort into the problem of integrating the FPGA computing with the rest of the multi-computer and how one would naturally spread the application—putting a portion on the FPGA, a portion on the microprocessor and have them work together naturally and seamlessly.” Figure 2 shows an example of a board that harnesses the benefits of FPGA computing and a PowerPC general-purpose processor. One big advantage of COTS hardware, according to SBS’ Frank Willis, is “the common use of electronics in diverse applications.” A fire control computer for an F-16 might have essentially the same box and cards as a flight management system for a UAV. Or, for example, an aircraft’s mission computer may be uploaded with mission data at the same time the pilot is being briefed, but that does not mean the enemy is going to sit still by the time he gets over the target. January 2006 COTS Journal [ 19 ]