Aldec's new FPGA-based NVMe Data Storage Solution Targets High Performance Computing Applications

TySOM embedded systems development platforms and stackable non-volatile memory express FPGA mezzanine cards combination is ideal for applications requiring high-bandwidth, low-latency access to SSDs within a reprogrammable system architecture.

Henderson, USA – December 12, 2019 – Aldec, Inc., a pioneer in mixed HDL language simulation and hardware-assisted verification for FPGA and ASIC designs, has launched a powerful, versatile and time-saving FPGA-based NVMe Data Storage solution to aid in the development of High Performance Computing (HPC) applications such as High Frequency Trading and Machine Learning.

The solution includes an Aldec TySOM embedded prototyping board and up to eight high-bandwidth, low-latency FMC-NVMe daughter cards, and a reference design (including source files and binaries) allowing engineers to fast-track their projects.

“NVMe SSDs are very popular in a wide range of high-performance computing applications, as are FPGAs because of their ability to handle parallel processing, their speed and programmability, plus the fact MPSoC FPGAs also feature ARM processor cores,” comments Louie De Luna, Director of Marketing. “Our newest FPGA-based embedded solution is aimed at engineers developing systems that will combine the power and benefits of NVMe and FPGAs.

The latest addition to the company’s extensive range of FPGA mezzanine cards, the FMC-NVMe provides four Non-Volatile Memory express (NVMe) interfaces. These are connected to a Microsemi PM8532 PCIe Switch, which provides a connection-to-carrier-card via the PCIe x8 GEN3 interface using a standard FMC connector. The FMC-NVMe daughter card supports board stacking (up to eight deep - which means up to 32 NVMe SSDs slots are accessible).

Figure 1: Hardware Setup of FPGA-based Data Storage Solution

To make life easier for HPC application developers, Aldec has prepared a reference design that can be used with either its TySOM-3A-ZU19EG or TySOM-3-ZU7EV embedded development board. Both are based on Xilinx® Zynq™ UltraScale+ MPSoC technology, which incorporates high-performance application processor (APU) with DDR4 system memory controller and a hardened configurable PCIe GEN3 blocks in the programmable logic part. These features enable the boards to implement a rich-featured Root Port of PCIe Root Complex solution to meet the underlying physical layer requirements of the NVMe protocol.

About TySOM

TySOM is a family of development boards for embedded applications that features Xilinx® Zynq™ all programmable module combining FPGA with ARM® Cortex processor. Plethora of included peripherals makes these boards useful in various embedded applications like Automotive, IoT, Industrial automation or embedded HPC.

About Aldec

Aldec Inc., headquartered in Henderson, Nevada, is an industry leader in Electronic Design Verification and offers a patented technology suite including: RTL Design, RTL Simulators, Hardware-Assisted Verification, SoC and ASIC Prototyping, Design Rule Checking, CDC Verification, IP Cores, Requirements Lifecycle Management, DO-254 Functional Verification and Military/Aerospace solutions. www.aldec.com