Spectrum Signal Processing Inc. has introduced field-programmable gate array (FPGA) algorithms for its flexComm product line. These new off-the-shelf options will assist designers in accelerating software-defined radio (SDR) development and deployment. These high-performance, small-footprint algorithms provide functions commonly used by waveform developers, thereby reducing development time, cost and technical risks of high-performance SDR applications.

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"These FPGA algorithms are expected to enable our customers to exploit off-the-shelf, front-end processing technology for projects that require complex, wide and narrowband channelization,” said Mark Briggs, vice president of marketing, Spectrum Signal Processing Inc. “The available algorithms build on Spectrum’s existing quicComm software and provide power-efficient FPGA implementations critical to the field deployment of many defense electronic systems. With these new algorithm options, customers can choose a platform configuration that is closely tailored to their application needs and allows them to concentrate on higher-level design issues.”

As Briggs pointed out, Spectrum offers its customers a common application interface (API) for managing the hardware. Instead of having to learn all about our hardware, trying to figure out what kind of communication fabric and where to put the data and where to send it--you simply open up a socket, opening up a connection from the FPGA to the GPP, write the data and then close the socket. That’s what is called quicComm.

“What is appealing is that all of our products in the flexComm line use quicComm. The APIs are all common. So once you know one product, you know how to program all our products,” he concluded.

Spectrum will offer the FPGA algorithms integrated into its line of software-defined radio platforms as upgrade options. Available algorithms include:

· Dual-channel, 16k-point Fast Fourier Transforms with the appropriate filtering. · Tunable multichannel receiver algorithms for high-density, small-footprint, downconversion. · Distributed half-band filters for simultaneously filtering, downconverting and decimating a real input signal. · Fixed-to-floating point converter algorithms. Spectrum’s SDR platforms with integrated algorithms are available in Compact-PCI, PCI/PCI-X and VME configurations.