Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions division today announced that it has begun shipments of its family of rugged Digital Signal Processing (DSP) engine modules based on the Intel® Xeon® processor D (code-named ‘Broadwell-DE’).
The open architecture compute engines, designed for use in very compute-intensive C4ISR aerospace and defence applications, are the industry’s first to deliver supercomputing-class processing to rugged 3U and 6U VPX architecture COTS environments.
8-core and 12-core versions of the Xeon processor D-based small form factor 3U OpenVPX™ CHAMP-XD1 and Early Access Unit versions of the 6U OpenVPX CHAMP-XD2 DSP modules have already been delivered, and are currently under evaluation by almost all of the aerospace and defence market’s leading Tier 1 and Tier 2 Prime Contractors.
The CHAMP-XDx module family delivers unprecedented intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) processing capabilities to embedded systems deployed in airborne and ground, manned and unmanned programmes. The CHAMP-XDx module family is designed for the most demanding deployed high-performance embedded computing (HPEC) systems, including next-generation Radar, EW and a wide range of C4ISR applications.
"We are very proud to announce that we have begun shipping our CHAMP-XD1 DSP modules, the industry’s first Intel Xeon processor D-based 3U VPX module, and EAU versions of our CHAMP-XD2, to leading system integration customers, from whom this product has generated tremendous interest," said Lynn Bamford, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Defense Solutions division.
"These rugged boards enable ISR system designers to deploy supercomputing levels of compute performance in a single slot, unleashing the full power of the Intel Xeon processor D family to drive applications that require very high throughput, low latency requirements."
Announced in Q2 2015, the first members of the CHAMP-XDx family, the 3U OpenVPX™ CHAMP-XD1 and 6U OpenVPX CHAMP-XD2, are designed to enable designers of HPEC systems to take full advantage of the unmatched performance of today’s leading-edge Xeon processor D architecture, Intel’s first third generation 64-bit SoC based on Xeon processor technology.
These open architecture COTS modules feature high-speed DDR4 memory, as well as high bandwidth PCIe Gen 3 data paths on both the data plane and the expansion plane.
The new board family makes it easy for customers to extend their applications across different platforms, enabling system designers to fully leverage their investment in software development. To maximise system configuration flexibility, these size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) optimised modules also feature XMC card expansion and a combination of one gigabit and ten gigabit Ethernet (GbE) interfaces. In addition to its extremely fast DDR4 memory and support for 1/10 GbE, the CHAMP-XD1 also provides PCIe Gen 3 on the OpenVPX 3U Data Plane.
Both the CHAMP-XD1 and the CHAMP-XD2 are offered in a range of ruggedised configurations, including air-cooled and conduction-cooled versions, to deliver optimal performance in the harshest deployed environments. Leveraging Curtiss-Wright’s extensive 3U OpenVPX ecosystem, the CHAMP-XD1 forms the centrepiece of new small-form factor HPEC system architectures.
The dual-processor CHAMP-XD2 brings together the performance of two independent Xeon D processors to a single 6U chassis slot. It also supports either 40 GbE or InfiniBand on the Data Plane in addition to its 1/10 GbE interfaces.
Combined with other high-performance Curtiss-Wright modules, such as the VPX3-125x and VPX6-195x family of single board computers, CHAMP-AV9 Intel Core i7 fourth generation DSP engine, and VPX6-6802 Ethernet Switch, all of which are supported by the OpenHPEC™ Accelerator Suite™ of software development tools, the CHAMP-XDx family of DSP modules speeds and simplifies the design and deployment of complete, interoperable solutions for sophisticated ISR applications.