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Pentek provides board and system-level products that support each of the following application areas. They are representative of the type of applications we have successfully implemented with our customers. In some instances customers use our products for research and development and in other cases, our boards are deployed in the field. To this end, we have a variety of ruggedization levels and form factors to choose from including VME, PCIe, PCI, cPCI, PMC, XMC, VXS and VPX.
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Pentek Product Segment Catalogs
Pentek's segment catalogs highlight products by function. These downloadable catalogs are available for Analog & Digital I/O, Clock & Sync Generators, Processors, Radar & SDR I/O, Software & FPGA Tools, and High-Speed Real-Time Recording Systems.
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Beamforming is a signal processing technique that utilizes an array of sensors to achieve directionality, increase the strength of transmitted signals and improve the quality of received signals. Beamforming applications span frequencies from sub-audio to light, and encompass a diverse range of critical applications for commerce, industry, government and defense.
Many of Pentek's products include built-in beamforming IP to optimize application development. The IP includes programmable phase and gain adjustments, power meters, threshold detectors, interrupts and output summation blocks. For larger systems, multiple Pentek boards can be chained together for summation across channels on multiple boards.
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Putting FPGAs to Work for Software Radio Handbook
Written by Rodger Hosking, Vice President and Co-founder of Pentek
FPGAs are becoming an increasingly important resource for software radio systems. This handbook introduces the basics of software radio followed by a brief review of the evolution of programmable logic technology which now offers significant advantages for implementing software radio functions.
An overview of Pentek’s GateFlow FPGA Design Resources is followed by product descriptions and finally by some software radio system examples that utilize FPGA technology.
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FPGA
Handbook
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Next-generation communication platforms must manage the unrelenting high-speed data streams that come from cellular network, basestations, SATCOM and other wireless communication applications.
Pentek has developed clever solutions to pinpoint and explore multiband signals, optimize performance and data movement, increase channel count and board-level synchronization. Pentek solves these demanding application challenges with the latest technology and helps system providers accelerate their time to market.
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High-Speed Switched Serial Fabrics Improve System Design Handbook
Written by Rodger Hosking, Vice President and Co-founder of Pentek
VMEbus continues as the dominant bus structure for high-performance embedded systems. In an industry characterized by a steady succession of new device offerings with speed and density increases every few months, the VMEbus has retained its leadership position not simply because it was based on a sound electrical and mechanical architecture.
Indeed, the major reason for its longevity has been a series of performance and feature enhancements promoted and nurtured by a broad base of VMEbus vendors.
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Switched Serial
Fabrics Handbook
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Modern, high-tech telecom and computing solutions for the military and defense markets are based on real-time, integrated connectivity in the lab and in the field. Many of these deployed military systems must be built to withstand environmental extremes in temperature, humidity, air pressure, mechanical shock and vibration.
Over the years, Pentek has worked closely with its customers to develop a number of powerful, flexible and rugged solutions for deploying in a wide range of harsh environments. As the first to introduce board-level software radio solutions to the DOD, Pentek's years of SIGINT expertise allows our customers to leverage our decades of experience.
For each new military embedded computing challenge, Pentek offers the benefits of shorter development time, reduced costs, mature software development tools and improved life cycle support that our customers can depend on.
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SDR (Software-Defined Radio) allows much of what was done on predefined hardware, such as signal processing, to be programmed in software. SDR-enabled devices have the ability to change how and where they operate within the radio spectrum. They can move among a set of frequency bands in response to interference or environmental changes and the devices can autonomously make decisions about their operation. These capabilities enable SDRs to vary waveforms and frequencies within their hardware constraints, as well as to reconfigure the operation of their network protocols.
Pentek's board and system level implementations aim to solve the two most challenging issues facing over-the-air communications today: compatibility and spectrum usage. The SDR communications industry requires flexible signal processing capabilities to support many waveform types simultaneously, to host complex, special-purpose waveforms, and detect and cancel interference using digital techniques.
As the software radio industry matures, the demand for these technologies will grow as military, civilian, and commercial users take advantage of its increased reliability and capacity. Pentek's expertise enables its customers to have the flexibility to design and offer differentiated solutions to their most challenging programs.
Let our system engineers customize the perfect system for your specific needs, click here for our recording system questionnaire.
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High-Speed, Real-Time Recording Systems Handbook
Written by Rodger Hosking, Vice President and Co-founder of Pentek
In today's world of high-speed A/D converters real-time signal recording has become a challenging task that requires specialized hardware and intelligent application software. When designing a real-time recorder capable of streaming sustained data to disk, the system developer has to consider the limitations presented by the recorder's disk drive technology, operating and file systems.
Fortunately for the application developer, serial fabrics have emerged to provide the high-speed interfaces required to move this data. Developing software that can take advantage of these new technologies presents a challenge that can be met by understanding some key concepts required to build a high-speed, real-time recording system.
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High-Speed
Recorder Handbook
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Faced with demands for faster time-to-market with lower cost and higher quality, electronics manufacturers must focus on improving processes, increasing productivity, retaining customers and enhancing flexibility. Pentek can help bridge the gap between mainstream technology and customer requirements by leverage our software and hardware to complete their projects on time and under budget.
Pentek excels at identifying technology trends and architecting adaptable, long-term solutions that satisfy our customer needs not just for today, but well into the future. We have the expertise to meet the most demanding system integration challenges to keep our customer's program ahead of schedule and allow them to focus on developing their applications.
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Critical Techniques for High-Speed A/D Converters In Real-Time Systems Handbook
Written by Rodger Hosking, Vice President and Co-founder of Pentek
A/D (analog-to-digital) converters, frequently abbreviated as ADC, accept an analog voltage at the input and produce a digital representation of that voltage at the output that’s called a "sample".
The two primary characteristics of A/Ds are the rate of conversion, or sampling rate, expressed in samples per second, and the accuracy of each digital sample expressed as the number of binary bits or decimal digits per sample.
Sampling rates vary tremendously between applications. A digital medical thermometer may deliver samples to update the readout once every five seconds while a high-speed wideband radar may produce 2 billion samples per second.
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High-Speed A/D
Converter Handbook
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Software defined radio (SDR) allows much of what was done on predefined hardware, such as signal processing, to be programmed in software. SDR enabled devices have the ability to change how and where they operate within the radio spectrum, moving among a set of frequency bands in response to interference and where the device can autonomously make decisions about its operation, in response to environmental changes. These capabilities enable SDRs to vary waveforms and frequencies within their hardware constraints, as well as to reconfigure the operation of their network protocols.
Pentek's board and system level implementations aim to solve the two most challenging issues facing over-the-air communications today: compatibility and spectrum usage. The software defined radio communications industry requires flexible signal processing capabilities to support many waveform types simultaneously, to host complex, special-purpose waveforms, and detect and cancel interference using digital techniques.
As the software radio industry matures, the demand for these technologies will grow as military, civilian, and commercial users take advantage of its increased reliability and capacity. Pentek's expertise enables our customers to have the flexibility to design and offer differentiated solutions to their most challenging programs.
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Software Defined Radio Handbook
Written by Rodger Hosking, Vice President and Co-founder of Pentek
SDR has revolutionized electronic systems for a variety of applications including communications, data acquisition and signal processing. This handbook shows how DDCs (Digital Downconverters) and DUCs (Digital Upconverters), the fundamental building blocks of SDR, can replace conventional analog receiver designs, offering significant benefits in performance, density and cost.
The inner workings of the SDR are explored with an in-depth description of the internal structure and the devices used. Actual board- and system-level implementations and available off-the-shelf SDR products for embedded systems are described.
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Software Defined
Radio Handbook
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Acoustics & Sonar - ( top )
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Sonar systems use acoustic energy to detect objects of interest in water, such as submarines, surface ships, torpedoes, mines, or features of ocean topography. The broad array of sonar missions and platforms results in a wide range of computational requirements, from high-frequency beamforming to low-frequency adaptive processing and automated detection.
Systems for vibration and acoustic analysis require data acquisition products capable of digitizing signals ranging from below 1 Hz up to several hundred kHz, depending on the application. Modal analysis normally requires several channels with well-defined phase characteristics and good channel-to-channel matching. Anti-aliasing filters are usually needed to avoid aliasing of higher frequency components and floating-point processors are often preferred to help preserve dynamic range.
Pentek has provided processing solutions for sonar platforms in submarines, ships, airplanes, and shore installations over many generations of computer technologies. We remain on the cutting edge today with high-performance, cost-effective solutions that anticipate needs well into the future.
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Avionics - ( top )
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Pentek's capabilities in radio frequency (RF), A/D-D/A conversion, real-time processing, and connectivity enable us to tackle your most complex embedded computing challenges in avionics with a flexible and holistic approach.
Whether you seek embedded boards, embedded computing systems, software or IP cores, Pentek's embedded computing solutions for rugged and COTS environments can play a critical role in enabling your systems.
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Bio-medical & Imaging - ( top )
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The scope of biomedical imaging covers data acquisition, image reconstruction, and image analysis, involving theories, methods, systems, and applications. While tomographic and post-processing techniques become increasingly sophisticated, traditional and emerging modalities play more and more critical roles in anatomical, functional, cellular, and molecular imaging.
The overall goal of Pentek is to enable research, development and computing in this rapidly growing interdisciplinary field.
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Cellular / Mobile Telephony - ( top )
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With greater emphasis on emerging wideband standards to handle both voice and data traffic, cellular telephony requires high speed A/D and D/A converters operating at rates of 100 MHz and beyond. New algorithms to optimize signal-to-noise performance and reduce bit error rates are often best implemented in FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays). High channel density digital receivers with fast tuning and programmable bandwidths can accommodate multiple standards using the same hardware platform.
Pentek can help with our high-performance multicomputer solutions that address the compute density and capacity challenges facing wireless system architects as they design the next generation of wireless networks.
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Electronic Countermeasures - ( top )
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In order to address the Electronic Countermeasure (ECM) threat to vital radar and communication technology, adaptable solutions are required for an increasingly complex electromagnetic environment. Pentek is committed to overcoming customer's technological challenges, handling known, emerging and future threats in a variety of environments to provide next-generation capabilities and performance.
Customers can rely on our depth of knowledge to provide consistently cutting-edge solution packages tailor made to match their individual requirements.
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Electronic Surveillance - ( top )
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Electronic Surveillance is an invaluable tool in this era of high-speed, global communications and presents new challenges. Digital communications technology has outpaced the abilities of many traditional law enforcement and government agencies.
Pentek's years of data acquisition and signal analysis expertise allows us to tailor innovative solutions needed to address our customer's needs.
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Electronic Warfare - ( top )
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Electronic Warfare (EW) has become a military discipline within itself with an image of being black box magic, but in reality the vast majority of techniques involve clever application of established electrical engineering principles. Radar and communications are pivotal components in any modern defense system which imposes an implicit need to design these electronic systems with these aspects of electronic battle.
EW systems require high performance, throughput, and scalability, with the flexibility to reconfigure and upgrade systems for real-time multi-mission profiles. These attributes are provided cost-effectively by scalable, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) computer equipment. Pentek offers a broad range of solutions and technologies to answer these requirements.
Additionally, Pentek's extensive defense-optimized, real-time software environment and software development tools support a diverse range of applications such as wideband spectral analysis, spectral monitoring and multi-channel direction finding (DF).
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Military Communications - ( top )
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Present-day military communications are built to encrypt and decode transmissions using signal processing tasks include demodulation, decoding and extraction of a digital signal stream while surviving rough treatment in hostile environments.
Pentek's aim is creating state-of-the-art Software Defined Radio solutions for secure wireless wide band networks, Communication, Navigation and Identification (CNI) avionic systems and COMINT technologies. Abilities developed over the years and in collaboration with industry leaders and universities have made it possible to deliver turnkey products, systems and solutions that can can be integrated to support land, satellite, naval, avionics, professional and civil applications.
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Precision Instrumentation & Measurements - ( top )
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Pentek offers flexible and versatile solutions for precision mechanical/electrical measurements, optical measurements, metrology (mechanical, electrical), signal-processing and precision control. Pentek has experience working with NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) to develop and apply technology, measurements and standards for simultaneous phase measurement of 3D objects through beam interferometers.
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Physics & Nuclear Chemistry - ( top )
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Pentek has aided many of national laboratories to help advance, understand and improve studies in the state of science in nuclear physics. Pentek’s high-performance FPGA and gigabit serial based products have been key in the advancement of Nuclear physics accelerator technology and Pentek’s cutting edge designs offer many cost-effective solutions that can be used well into the future.
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Radar - ( top )
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Demanding radar applications require high-bandwidth A/D converters with sampling rates up to 100 MHz and higher, extremely fast data transfer paths to store and process data with triggering or gating circuitry to digitize pulse waveforms at precisely the right time.
In some cases, a wideband digital receiver is required to translate the IF signal down to baseband and signal processing handled with fast, fixed-point engines. In addition to Pentek’s unique approach and delivery of high-performance I/O for radar applications, Pentek has been successful at implementing many FPGA IP solutions specifically for radar requirements.
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Recording Systems - ( top )
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Pentek high-speed real-time recording systems are designed to satisfy the requests of engineers and program managers looking for complete solutions. With easy-to-use and understand, graphical interfaces, recording systems provide engineers with field-ready recording and playback capabilities.
The high-speed real-time recording systems eliminate the time and risk associated with new technology system development. With increasing pressure in both the defense and commercial arenas to get to the market first, today’s system engineers are looking for more complete off-the-shelf subsystem offerings.
To learn more about Pentek's RTS, RTR and RTX recording systems including rackmount, portable and rugged systems with supporting SystemFlow software, click here.
Let our system engineers customize the perfect system for your specific needs, click here for our recording system questionnaire.
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Satellite & Telemetry - ( top )
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As satellite lifetimes increase and their functionality continues to evolve, the need to necessitate a hardware platform that can evolve without developing a new system on each change also grows. Software defined radio technology offers the required flexibility to solve these complex challenges.
The digital functions enabling this technology include reconfigurable hardware components that implement advanced data acquisition front ends capable of digitizing an IF signal followed by a digital down conversion to baseband with signal processing tasks include demodulation, decoding and extraction of a digital signal stream. Pentek has over hundred product offerings to choose from to find exactly what fits your application needs.
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Signals Intelligence - ( top )
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SIGINT is actually a broad discipline under which multiple sub-disciplines fall including COMmunications INTelligence (COMINT), ELectronic INTelligence (ELINT), and Foreign Instrumentation Signals INTelligence (FISINT). Signals intelligence satellites are designed to detect transmissions from broadcast communications systems such as radios, as well as radars and other electronic systems.
The interception of such transmissions can provide information on the type and location of the signal. Pentek provides high-density boards and high-speed real-time recording system solutions with high-channel counts and bandwidths to advance technology for signals intelligence applications.
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Telecommunications - ( top )
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Telecom systems are characterized by their rapid evolution in terms of components and applications with the introduction of new data services where voice previously dominated in mobile communication. In a few years, voice traffic should represent a minority of the global traffic, while new data applications including text data (SMS) and video data will continue to expand requiring ever increasing bandwidths to transport these streams.
Telecom applications involve data acquisition ranging from audio through RF, depending on the application, and often require algorithms for decoding, echo cancellation, compression and decompression using both fixed- and floating-point processors. Pentek provides embedded computing board and high-speed real-time recording system solutions that have been successfully implemented to test, improve and develop new wireless standards and technologies.
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Wireless Networks - ( top )
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Wireless networking is used to meet a variety of needs. One common use is in mobile networks that connect via satellite. A wireless transmission method is a logical choice to network a LAN segment that must frequently change locations, span a distance beyond the capabilities of typical cabling, avoid obstacles such as physical structures, EMI, or RFI, provide a backup communications link in case of normal network failure and to remotely connect mobile users or networks.
Pentek has an abundance of data acquisition, signal processing and recording solutions to meet the needs of wireless networking.
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