Fidus Solution Portfolio

A client requested Fidus to integrate their proprietary technology into a unique product. Fidus was responsible for the full development, including electronic hardware design, FPGA coding, mechanical and thermal design, and embedded software architecture. Using a Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoC, the project included signal conditioning, clock recovery, FMC interface, signal conversion, optical QSFP communications, and PRBS-based error detection.

The embedded application ran on Linux hosted on the quad-core Arm Cortex-A53. Deliverables included bootloader/BSP, IP over PPP, support for various USB peripherals, and data gathering from a Cortex-M4 for ADC and sensor information. We provided a Yocto build environment and Jenkins automation for future builds. The project concluded on time, within budget, and with a cohesive embedded software solution.

This rigid flex design was destined for high-end computer use. There were numerous signal integrity concerns related to a large number of high-speed multi-drop buses and the limited layer stack supported by the flex circuitry. There were also major power integrity concerns, as the overall package size and target cost could not support a generic spattering of decade capacitors; the power plane impedance was modeled, and a minimal number of capacitors were selected and precisely placed. In addition, the multi-gigabit interface and power inputs had to be proven to be extremely robust. Then, to top things off, a convection system was unacceptable, so we had to deal with all of the challenges of a fully conduction cooled design.

This 133MHz, 64-bit PCI add-in card was designed to PCI Specification and is used to provide remote access control and maintenance of high-end servers. Capable of providing remote KVM services, and operation that is truly independent of the host state (including power), this card allows the remote system administrator to recover failing or failed hosts.

This product family features video capture and forwarding functions, USB, Ethernet, and PS2, interfaces. One of the highlights of this design was the power architecture which enabled the PCI card to run from PCI power or a wall adapter or battery back-up, and the ability to intelligently select and seamlessly switch between any power source. Intelligence was provided by an Intel® processor, an Intel non-transparent bridge, and a AMD/Xilinx® FPGA.