Sidewinder

Storage acceleration for AMD Zynq™ UltraScale+

Sidewinder-100TM is the world’s first AMD® Zynq™ UltraScale+™ ZU19EG Storage Accelerator PCIe card.

Don’t let the ‘Storage Accelerator’ title limit you. Sidewinder’s ZU19EG is also well suited for anything NVMe, NVMe Over Fabrics (NVMEoF, NVMF) workload acceleration, high-frequency trading, and general Zynq™ US+ development and experimentation.

Read the Sidewinder Datasheet

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Sidewinder features

AMD Zynq US+ XCZU19EG-2FFVC1760 FPGA
A huge Zynq UltraScale+ ZU19EG device is housed under the cooling system. The Zynq US+ features:
- Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A53 Application Processing Unit
- Dual-Core ARM Cortex-R5 Real Time Processing Unit
- ARM Mali™-400 MP2 Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)
- Lots of extremely high-speed peripherals
PCIe Host Connector
A huge Zynq UltraScale+ ZU19EG device is housed under the cooling system.
PCIe Expansion Port
A PCIe x8 Host Port supporting expansion SSDs or other PCIe add-in cards (you will recognize this port as a x16, but it’s wired only as a x8).
2x 100G QSFP+ Cages
Each with 25Gbps x4 connectivity to ZU19EG
M.2 Connectors
Sidewinder includes two M.2 sockets to support on board NVMe Solid State Drives (SSD). Add lots of onboard storage! One of the M.2 ports can optionally be used as a boot device for the card. Drives not included.
8643 connectors
Software Defined Radio (SDR), filters, echo-cancellation
10/100/1000BaseT LAN port
The GigE capable LAN port on Sidewinder is connected directly to the Zynq™ UltraScale+™’s PS. Use this port for management, status, debug, or data plane activities.

DDR4
Sidewinder is outfitted with two DDR4* PC4-2400 memory modules. One module is connected to the Zynq UltraScale+ PS while the other is connected to the PL (the internal FPGA fabric). With this memory the ARM processors can run extensive operating systems and execute other sophisticated instruction sets. In addition, by dedicating memory to the PL (the internal FPGA fabric), the algorithms that are being accelerated with the FPGA have plenty of buffer in which to operate. The SO-DIMMs are each 16GB, 72-bit with ECC, with a dual rank structure.*As per AMD specification, with this structure of memory, maximum achievable PS rate = 1866MT/s, and PL rate = 2166MT/s.
USB UART
A micro-USB connector (device only) backed by a USB-to-UART chip, provides access to two (2) serial port connections on the Zynq™ US+ PS. Intended for use during development.
uSD Card Slot:
Carefully hidden away on the back of Sidewinder is a uSD slot. This slot is intended for program storage.
ATX Input Power Connector
When “in-system” the ATX power connector input, in conjunction with the PCIe edge connector, work in tandem to power Sidewinder. The same is true for desktop operation – that is, the “PCIe Power and Loopback Adapter” is required as well as the ATX power connector input.

NVMEoF, NVMF it

Leveraging NVMe drive technology and NVMe Over Fabrics IP, Sidewinder can decimate the latency associated with accessing mass storage devices (e.g. SSD).
Cluster it

Make things super-fast. Cluster the Sidewinders to create massive storage arrays, leverage parallelism for workload acceleration. It’s up to you.
Accelerate It

Whether accelerating financial transactions or data center workload algorithms, Sidewinder’s Zynq UltraScale+ can be optimally partitioned to accept, crunch, and return, both data and decisions, faster than any previous model.
Develop It

Even if you don’t have a data center, put Sidewinder on a desktop and enjoy all of the benefits of having a Zynq UltraScale+ system.
Learn It

The Sidewinder is a great tool for university and college students to explore the latest technologies in programmable logic, heterogenous computing, networking , and storage.
Customize It

Not exactly what you need? You’re in luck! Fidus Systems is ready to customize Sidewinder to meet your needs. We have in-house experts in hardware, FPGA, software, signal integrity, and PCB layout. Let Sidewinder accelerate your workload, and let Fidus accelerate your product design.

Flexible enough to adapt to your development needs
Provides a great development platform for universities or colleges
Reduced latency in accessing SSDs
Ability to exercise multiple mass storage device types through the M2 or 8643 Connectors
Full Zynq™ XCZU19EG platform to develop custom applications

Sidewinder-100 Loopback Kit

The Sidewinder Loopback Kit is an invaluable tool during your development. Purchase separately from Sidewinder. Here’s what’s included in the loopback kit:

PCIe Power and Loopback Adapter

This simple, yet invaluable card allows you to not only power Sidewinder on a desktop (ATX power also required), but it also loops back the high-speed PCIe differential pairs to assist in development and debug. Card ships with banana jacks (not shown below). An onboard oscillator provides the PCIe clock.
PCIe Expansion Port Loopback

Speed up your development by looping back the PCIe expansion port.
8643 Loopback Cable

Test out the 8643 functionality by looping one 8643 connector back into the other.
M.2 Loopback

Want to confirm that your signals are correctly reaching the M.2 slots? Plug in an M.2 loopback PCB, and using Xilinx’s IBERT, check to see if you’re ready to access a real M.2 SSD. As there are two M.2 slots on Sidewinder, the loopback kit includes two M.2 loopback cards.