Embedded and Standalone Systems

The functions offered by DSP systems mean that they are often targeted for embedded use. Systems that combine many millions of FPGA gates, I/Os of 100s of Mhz and real time communications at 400Mbytes/second sometimes have no need of a Host PC.

HERON and HEART systems are designed so that they can be used in embedded and stand alone systems as well as PC hosted systems. Even the PCI and cPCI module carriers can be used stand alone.

A simple stand alone system can be made using the HERON-BASE1 and a single module. This is ideal for systems based around modules that have I/O and processing capabilities like the HERON-IO modules.

For a system with one or two modules, the HERON-BASE2 is available. This is a USB based board but can be used embedded or standalone if required - simply disconnect the USB cable. If two modules are used, FIFO connections enable data to be streamed between them.

A more complex system with multiple modules needs to be fitted to a module carrier that provides communications between the modules. This is provided by HEART on a carrier board like the HEPC9 or HECPCI9, so simply remove it from your PC, connect a power cable and it works!
All HEART module carriers have been designed with this use in mind - you simply leave the host bus connection (PCI in this case) unconnected.

A proper development environment can speed your development.

Being able to plug your system into a PC where you can run the software development tools on the same machine has some considerable advantages. There you have some tools that allow you to easily and quickly load your system with the program you just compiled, then you can achieve a fast iteration time for your development.
The faster the better, so using the PCI bus is a good idea. Using compression techniques to speed the download means HERON modules with a 6M gate FPGA can be loaded in 6 seconds!

Use data paths to the PC to analyse the system performance

While the system is fitted to your PC, you have a great way of analysing or displaying data from various points in your system. Utilising the PCI connection you can send data from any point in your processing chain and analyse it on your PC

This simple PC program reads signal samples that the HERON system has written to FIFOs connected to the PCI interface. It graphically displays the signal waveform as well as the Frequency spectrum of that signal.

You can use techniques like this to speed up your system development and help you to measure the performance of that system.

But how do I disconnect my system from the PC environment

Ultimately your embedded system will need to initialise itself without being connected to a PC, so now is the time to program your PROMs. It is important that you do not need to change any of the code that you have just finished testing.

FPGA modules
For FPGA modules you use the Xilinx^® JTAG cable (like Parallel Cable III or IV) and the Xilinx^® iMpact tool to program the PROM on the module.

Programming HEART

Of course if you use the connections of HEART in your multi-module systems you must still program the connections after the system is reset. We provide options with our HeartConf tool to generate VHDL for an FPGA module that will configure HEART according to the connections in your network file.

HERON modules for embedded & standalone systems