The Ensemble™ MTI-203 RapidIO® DSP/FPGA Signal and Video Processing AdvancedMC™ Card from Mercury Computer Systems is an ideal solution for developing and deploying LTE, WiMAX, nextgeneration video, or base-station applications.

With three TCI6482 DSPs and a supporting Xilinx® FPGA node, the module enables all the physical layer (PHY) baseband processing required for a 20-MHz, TDD (time division duplex), multi-antenna solution with Smart Antenna MIMO (multiple input/output) enabled. As a baseband development platform, the MTI-203 is designed to support advanced features such as Smart Antenna and MIMO transmission across a variety of air interfaces.

WiMAX is an evolving standard (802.16x) for point-to-multipoint wireless networking. It can provide high-throughput connections over long-distance applications, including high-speed enterprise connectivity for businesses. The highly integrated MTI-203 module is designed to support the Texas Instrument (TI) WiMAX/802.16e infrastructure solution for wireless applications, which includes software, analog, and RF products from TI.

Combined DSP and FPGA Technology

At the heart of the MTI-203 are three Texas Instruments TMS320TCI6482 DSPs, running at 850 MHz each, and a Xilinx Virtex™-4 FX100 FPGA with dual integrated Power Architecture™ cores, running at 400 MHz. Combining DSPs and an FPGA on the same AMC module offers developers the ability to partition their applications using the most appropriate processing technology.

Flexible, High-Performance I/O Interfaces

The MTI-203 module communicates with the rest of the AdvancedTCA system via two 4x RapidIO fat pipes for data exchange and two 1-Gigabit Ethernet ports for configuration and
control. The fat pipe from the FX100 FPGA is configurable as either a 4x serial RapidIO link or a 10-Gigabit Ethernet port. The second fat pipe, which is from the Tsi578™ switch, is a 4x serial RapidIO link. Total peak bandwidth is 13.125 Gbps.

Ensemble AdvancedTCA Platform

The MTI-203 AMC expands the capabilities of the Ensemble family of blades and AMC modules to support highly integrated DSP/FPGA applications. The Ensemble Platform is a standards based solution built around the power, functionality, and scalability of serial RapidIO, AdvancedTCA, and AMC. The platform supports a variety of I/O sources and heterogeneous processing, thereby reducing integration costs, improving efficiency, and minimizing risks in design of next-generation applications.

The Ensemble Platform has many advantages that accelerate application development activities:

• The variety of heterogeneous Ensemble AMCs allows developers to customize applications with options to plug in host processors,
  radio cards, or a network interface card (NIC) AMC.
• AMCs can be combined with Ensemble carrier boards that provide RapidIO chip-to-chip and across-the-chassis connectivity, enabling seamless scaling from a single-sector system to multi-sector, multi-antenna, multi-carrier base-station implementations. 
• Ensemble offers developers the flexibility to easily expand specific processing nodes to address application performance bottlenecks; additional FPGA or DSP modules over RapidIO can be used to support specific application requirements. 
• The homogeneous RapidIO interconnect among processing nodes enables ease of programming of DSPs, communication processors, and FPGAs. 

For more information about the Mercury Ensemble MTI-203, see www.mc.com.