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ATCA, MTCA & AMC
Multi-core processors and FPGAs
control communication and speed data
By Vollrath Dirksen, N. A. T.
This article describes the combination
of highly sophisticated multi-core
processors and fully user-accessible
FPGAs implemented on a single
AMC board, which strengthens
the ATCA and MTCA standards
in established markets and
addresses others such as aerospace,
high energy markets
and industrial automation.
n In the telecommunications market the advantages
of using one common infrastructure
are the driving factor for unification of services
like digital voice, video streaming and data
transfers. To meet the various requirements
DSPs, FPGAs and packet processors are used.
In other markets such as automation, SoCs
(System on Chips) and FPGAs are used to reduce
the BOM (bill of material) costs, increase
the MTBF (main time between failures) and
reduce board space. Various members of the
Freescale QorIQ product family address the
high bandwidth and processing requirements
of the telecommunications market. Others address
the low power consumption and set of
I/O requirements in markets such as automation
market. Combining a QorIQ with an
FPGA on an AMC board brings applications
even higher flexibility, longevity and scalability
benefits to card-based systems.
Ethernet/TCP/IP is currently the standard for
using a common infrastructure in the telecommunications
market. It is simple, low cost,
allows variable packet length and is widely
available. For different functions the quality of
service for digital voice, video, web etc. has to
be guaranteed. Therefore classification, prioritization,
flow control, traffic shaping and (re-)
synchronization to a common timing base
have to be fulfilled. RTP, MPLS, IPSEC, http,
billing and other protocols are also needed.
For this purpose deep packet inspection in real
time (on the fly) differentiates between packet
types at Layer 4+. For example general purpose
multi-core CPUs, even the Core-i7, do not
have the hardware accelerators on board to do
thousands of data channels at wire speed.
Hence specific packet processors are currently
used for these kinds of functions, with multiple
GbE and 10 GbE interfaces with high-speed
switch matrices. The restrictions of these processors
force the user to add general purpose
CPUs and DSPs to these kinds of systems.
For test and measurement systems like LTE
or Wimax base stations, the latency of GbE
or 10 GbE is too big. Serial RapidIO is used
because of its short latency and multiprocessor
support. Other applications need to interface
to more general purpose I/O, where PCIexpress
is the dominant interface. Thus, it is
time for a new kind of communication processor
and a new generation of boards. To
address all the different kinds of communication
applications, Freescale offers a huge new
range of communications processors, the
QorIQ product family. These are divided into
two sets of pin-compatible devices.
Group 1: QorIQ-P4080 (8 cores), P4040 (4
cores), P3041 (4 cores, SATA) and P5020 (two
true 64-bit processing engines) with DPAA
(data path acceleration architecture), highspeed
switch fabric and different combinations
of a number of GbE, XAUI, SRIO, PCIexpress
and SATA interfaces.
Group 2: QorIQ-P1011, P1020, P2010, P2020
for lower power consumption applications i.e.
industrial automation.
June 2011 6
Within these groups all devices are pin-compatible
and can be selected according to the
application requirements.
The detailed description of all QorIQ processors
would go beyond the scope of this
article. Thus, one processor, the QorIQ-
P4080, is chosen as an example for showing
the flexibility and high performance. Figure
1 shows in a simplified manner the main
function blocks of this QorIQ. The 8 Power-
PC cores can be used running in SMP mode
(one operating system for all cores) or AMD
(each core runs a different OS) or as a combination
of both. Even one or more cores
can run in the metal mode, which means
without the operating system. Further, a number
of cores can be switched off to reduce
power consumption.
A rich set of the commonly needed high-speed
interfaces (GbE, XAUI, SRIO, PCIe, SATA) is
integrated on the QorIQ chip. It is essential
that the data packets of the high-speed interfaces
are streamed to the right channels. This
is done with two sets of frame, queue and
buffer managers. Acceleration hardware for
pattern matching, decompression, and crypto
security is on board. The switch fabric in the
CoreNet Fabric is responsible for non-blocking
transfers inside the chip. All high-speed interfaces
such as GbE, 10 GbE, Serial RapidIO
and PCIexpress are served by this processor.
The QorIQ product family offers much more
than general purpose or application-specific