Multi-Function SOSA-Aligned RFSoC Board Wins 2021 Innovators Award from Military & Aerospace Electronics

August 30, 2021

 

Annapolis Micro Systems, a leading FPGA board and systems supplier, has won a 2021 Military & Aerospace Electronics Innovators Award for its WILDSTAR™ 3XR2 3U OpenVPX FPGA Processor that is aligned with the SOSA™ Technical Standard.

An esteemed and experienced panel of judges from the aerospace and defense community recognised Annapolis as a Platinum honoree – their highest award level.

The award-winning board is the first SOSA-aligned 100Gb Ethernet RFSoC board that combines analog and digital capability in a single 3U OpenVPX slot. Formerly, these operations would require two or more boards to accomplish.

“On behalf of the Military & Aerospace Electronics Innovators Awards, I would like to congratulate Annapolis Micro Systems on their Platinum-level honoree status,” said Military & Aerospace Electronics Editor-in-Chief John Keller. “This competitive program allows Military & Aerospace Electronics to celebrate and recognise the most innovative products impacting the aerospace and defense community this year.”

“We’re honored to receive this important third-party recognition,” said Noah Donaldson, Annapolis Micro Systems Chief Technology Officer. “Military & Aerospace Electronics is a leading voice in the industry, so it’s very meaningful that their expert panel of judges think so highly of our pioneering multi-function RFSoC board.”

The WILDSTAR 3XR2 incorporates an innovative full-length coax-connected Analog Interface Mezzanine Site. This site can be populated in one of three ways:

1. With a direct RF digitization mezzanine
2. With simple analog circuitry (filtering, amplification, etc.)
3. With a 3rd party or customer-supplied analog tuner to allow for digitization of higher frequency signals

Air-Flow-Through Version of 3XR2

Annapolis has defined and standardized this interface between analog and digital cards so that customers can deploy best-in-class RF and digitization/processing capability in a single 3U VPX slot.

Combining filtering and tuning with digitizing and processing delivers much lower SWaP-C than separate single-function modules, while maintaining the ability to upgrade either capability separately.

Data is driven to two powerful Gen 3 Xilinx UltraScale+™ RFSoC FPGAs (XCZU43DR and other P/Ns on request). These chips feature eight channels each of A/D & D/A converting, with an ADC sample rate of 0.5–5.0+GSps and resolution of 14 bits, and a DAC sample rate of 0.5–10.0+GSps and resolution of 14 bits.

The rugged 3XR2 supports wide temperature ranges via air (VITA 48.1), conduction (VITA 48.2), or air-flow-through (VITA 48.8) cooling. Min/max operating temperatures are -55˚C/85˚C; min/max storage temperatures are -65˚C/105˚C.

Annapolis maintains a full WILD100™ EcoSystem of 100GbE products that are SOSA-aligned and proven in the field.

Annapolis high-performance products are designed for advanced HPC, ISR, and multi-function EW applications, including phased array radar, cybersecurity network processing, DRFM, beamforming, sensor processing, wireless communication, and radar signal processing.