Altera has teamed up with BittWare to create a reference platform which they claim will simplify the development of software-defined radio (SDR) systems in military applications.
Some observers see SDR as an important
application for dynamically programmable devices in multi-standard wireless comms systems where the baseband device has to be reconfigured for different protocols such as Bluetooth, UWB or WiFi.
According to Altera, the reference platform can reduce development times for SDR and DSP-based applications by replacing multiple iterations of hardware reconfigurations with software compilations.
Based on AMC and MicroTCA system platforms, the reference design, dubbed SPR, couples the BittWare co-processor with Altera’s Cyclone III FPGA in a software-reconfigurable system.
According to Jeffry Milrod, BittWare president and CEO: “Military SDR and DSP developers can use this SPR reference platform to explore example systems cost-effectively and then port their solution to their end system of choice.”
Xilinx is also targeting military SDR designs with its Virtex FPGAs. The benefit of FPGA for SDR is reconfigurability allowing the same piece of silicon to perform different functions and, for example, to act as different radio standards.
Robert Blake, v-p of product planning at Altera, told Electronics Weekly earlier this year, that the FPGA supplier is working with US Army Navy and Air Force on compatibility for their radio communications systems.
The technology is also expected to be used in basestation designs for commercial mobile systems, although there is some uncertainty about how quickly the technology will transfer from military to commercial applications.
The SPR reference platform consists of BittWare’s RapidTCA developer systems and Altera’s Cyclone III FPGA developer kit.