The CommAgility AMC-D24A4-RF4 is an extremely high performance ARM, DSP and FPGA based processing card which includes four integrated, flexible, wideband RF transceiver channels, all in the compact double width Advanced Mezzanine Card form  factor. The module is aimed at LTE, LTE Advanced  and 5G systems that require MIMO technologies, and  enables complete RF to Layer 3 wireless basestation  functionality to be implemented on a single card. The performance and flexibility is ideal for use in test equipment, research and development, or a specialized  application such as wireless surveillance.

The module’s main processor is the TMS320TCI6636, part of TI’s new KeyStone II generation of DSP/ARM SoCs. It includes eight C66x+ DSP cores, as well as four ARM Cortex™-A15 cores for higher layer processing.  Two additional TMS320C6678 octal C66x core DSPs maximize the AMC’s processing capability, with all processors closely coupled through TI’s Hyperlink interface and the Ethernet infrastructure of the card with Serial RapidIO (SRIO) backplane connectivity providing inter-card connectivity. There is also a large Kintex-7 FPGA for additional co-processing and to manage the RF interfaces. Kintex-7 provides an ideal compromise between size, speed and cost, and allows fitting of various FPGA sizes from K160T through to K410T.

CommAgility has ported the RF modules and capabilities of its existing  AMC-RF2x2 card to the new module, keeping all the software configurable bandwidth (up to 40MHz+) and flexibility (662MHz to 3839MHz). With the new larger board, it can now support 4 RF channels for 4x4 MIMO configurations, or alternatively each pair of channels can be run at different frequencies, allowing carrier aggregation across  different bands. The included RF control, management and processing firmware and software provides a high level RF control API while also leaving most of the board available for customer processing.

A comprehensive DSP Board Support Library is provided along with a full SMP Linux  implementation for the ARM cores, for easy integration of 3rd party PHY, stacks and customer applications with the card.

Timing and synchronisation for applications is achieved with the built in GPS receiver, or via the front panel and AMC backplane clock I/O.

KEY FEATURES

• Full solution for RF through to SRIO, Gigabit or 10G Ethernet

• Four flexible, wideband RF ports

• Texas Instruments TMS320TCI6636 and TMS320C6678 DSP SoCs

• Large Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA

• Full SMP Linux support for ARM cores configurable as a standard or real-time OS

• Comprehensive timing sync options plus 20 Gbaud backplane Serial RapidIO ports

• CPRI links to DSP (8x) or FPGA (16x); available without RF

• Double width Full Size PICMG AMC.0 R2.0 Advanced Mezzanine Card

• Can run “standalone” with just power and cooling