GX3700e: FPGA PXIe High Performance Digital I/O Board

• User configurable onboard Altera Stratix III FPGA
• No need for specialized FPGA design tools
• 160 digital I/O signals can be used for user specific applications
• X4 PXI Express interface and internal DMA controller support data streams exceeding 800MB/s
• 700MHz digital I/O clock rate
• Customizable interface for expansion cards

brief introduction

GX3700e is a user configurable 3U FPGA PXI board that supports 160 digital I/O signals and can be configured as a single ended or differential interface. The board uses Altera's Stratix III series FPGA, which supports a SerDes data rate of 1.2Gb/s, a 700MHz digital I/O clock rate, and has 45000 logic units and 1.836Kb of memory. The GX3700e supports expansion integration, allowing users to design their own expansion cards based on specific applications, eliminating the need for bulky and difficult to integrate additional cards into testing systems. FPGA can be designed using Altera's Quartus II free web design tool. Once the user completes the FPGA design, the design files can be loaded into the FPGA through the PXI bus interface or onboard EEROM.

characteristic

The GX3700e digital I/O signal has a tolerance of 5V. The logic series of I/O interfaces supports LVTTL, LVDS, and LVCMOS. FPGA supports 4 PLLs for clock synchronization and clock generation. The reference clock for FPGA can be selected from the onboard 80MHz oscillator or PXI 10MHz or 100MHz clock.

FPGA can access all PXI Express bus resources, including PXI 10MHz clock, PXIe 100MHz clock PXIe 100MHz synchronization, PXIe star trigger, local bus, and PXI trigger bus enable users to create a self-made instrument that combines PXIe bus resources. The GX3700e includes a DMA controller, making it easier for high-speed data streams to enter and exit the main controller.

The GX3700e driver can be used to control and access FPGA, which includes DMA and tools for downloading edited FPGA code, and supports read and write functions for registers.

Programming and software

The board is equipped with GXFPGA library, and the software package includes a virtual instrument panel, Windows 32/64 bit DLL, and documentation. The virtual panel provides interactive programming and control of the instrument through a window that displays its current settings and status. In addition, providing access to ATEasy, LabView，LabView/Real-Time，C/C++，Microsoft Visual Basic ®， Delphi， Interface files for programming tools and languages such as Pascal. The online help document and PDF user manual provide instructions and guidance on board installation, use, and programming.

Application Fields

• Automatic Test Equipment (ATE)
• semiconductor testing
• Custom interface simulation
• self-made instrument
• SerDes interface