Winter 2009-2010 Vol. 18, No. 3

Two Model 7153 Beamformer PMC/XMC modules are installed on the Model 4207 I/O Processor board. The eight signals to be beamformed are connected to the eight analog inputs of these modules. Joining the two 7153 modules is a clock/sync cable that synchronizes the DDCs and guarantees synchronous sampling across all eight channels.

Signals from the first four channels of the left 7153 module are summed in the left summation block; signals from the second four channels of the right 7153 are summed in the right summation block. The summation output from the left XMC module is delivered using the Aurora 4x link into one port of the crossbar switch. Each red 4x link is capable of data rates up to 1.25 GBytes/sec. The left 4-channel sum is connected through the crossbar switch and delivered into the summation input port of the right XMC module.

The Aurora summation from the left four channels is combined with the right four channels and then delivered to the crossbar switch from the right summation output port. The eight-channel combined sum is delivered through the crossbar switch into the Aurora engine implemented in the Virtex-4 FPGA of the Model 4207 processor board.

This Aurora engine decodes the stream and delivers it to a designated block in the DDR2 memory attached to the FPGA. The PCI-X interface in this FPGA presents the SDRAM memory as a mapped resource appearing on the processor PCI-X bus 1.

The Power PC reads the data from the FPGA DDR2 memory across the PCI-X bus, creates the beamformed pattern display and presents it via its front panel gigabit Ethernet port to an attached PC for display.

This concept can be expanded to create a 16-channel beamforming system by daisychaining a second Model 4207 with another two Model 7153 modules installed. The beamformed data from the first system is moved to the next one over the VXS backplane of the 4207's.

A 10-minute presentation with more details of this system narrated by Rodger Hosking is available on Pentek’s website. You can download the 8-Channel Aurora Beamforming System demo from this link, click here.