The Mercury+ MP1 System-on-Module: Enclustra’s Microchip PolarFire® SoC FPGA-based module cuts development time from years to months.
Mercury+ MP1 from Enclustra offers many advantages over chip-down designs. Leveraging the high production quantity of their off-the-shelf System On Modules (SoMs) brings down their cost while providing a proven and reliable solution. It provides a complete and powerful embedded processing system in a compact and space-saving form factor.
During product development, requirements and timelines are prone to change. Similarly, costs and effort can end up exceeding initial estimates. And inevitably, projects encounter technical and operational challenges along the way. The design loop, comprising system design, schematic creation, layout definition, fabrication and validation, is rarely applied just once. It often takes multiple iterations to achieve a fully functional solution. Given that each of these iterations can take several weeks and requires the production of new boards, costing anywhere from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars, the schedule leading up to the product’s market launch or customer delivery rarely goes as planned.
Don’t Reinvent the Wheel—Focus on Core-Competencies
To shorten time-to-market and reduce development costs, companies need to focus on their core competencies and know-how. No one can afford to waste precious time reinventing the wheel if a solution is readily available in the market—like the Enclustra Mercury+ MP1. The Microchip PolarFire® System-on-Chip (SoC)-based SoM encapsulates the technology-specific complexity of the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) in a powerful standard system-on-module. The FPGA module’s high functional density hugely reduces the complexity of the base board, making development both faster and more cost-effective. Meanwhile, engineering teams can focus on solving application-specific challenges.
The Mercury+ MP1 Module: A Whole System in the Palm of Your Hands
Based on the Microchip PolarFire SoC FPGA, the Mercury+ MP1 forms a complete and powerful embedded processing system—smaller than a credit card (74 × 54 mm). Its industrial temperature range and long availability make it ideal for industrial applications. Two independent memory channels offer a memory bandwidth of up to 19.2 GB/s: one for the MSS (DDR4 ECC SDRAM, up to 4 GB) and the other for the FPGA fabric (DDR4 SDRAM, up to 8 GB). The module also offers all standard interfaces such as: PCIe® Gen2 x4, USB 2.0 and 2 x Gigabit Ethernet as shown in Figure 1. Its three 168-pin Hirose FX10 connectors give access to 295 user I/Os. And its highly efficient power supply only needs a single supply voltage in the 5–14 V range. The module also can be used to power the logic on the baseboard, further simplifying overall product designs.
Figure 1: Block Diagram of Mercury+ MP1 System-on-Module
The Enclustra Mercury+ MP1 System-on-Module offers 295 User I/Os, lots of memory and all the standard interfaces on a single compact board.
This SoM module is targeted for applications such as:
Embedded computing
Data Acquisition
High-Speed Communications
Drive/Motion Control
Digital Signal Processing
Image Processing
Reference Design and Linux at Your Fingertips
Linux BSP and toolchain are available.
Enclustra offers broad design-in support for its products. The detailed documentation, reference designs and application notes make it easy to get started. Schematics, 3D models, PCB footprints and a table with lead lengths complete the offer.
Enclustra also offers detailed instructions for the creation of Linux-based Board Support Packages (BSP). These explain, in detail, the necessary adjustments for the different boot modes (QSPI, eMMC, SD Card).
About Enclustra GmbH
Enclustra is an innovative and successful Swiss company for FPGA design and development services and solutions based in Zurich, Switzerland, with subsidiaries in Germany, France, USA and China.
In addition to FPGA and System-on-Modules (SoM) and FPGA-optimized IP cores, Enclustra offers design and development services covering the entire spectrum of FPGA-based system development: from high-speed hardware or HDL firmware to embedded software, from system design, specification and implementation to prototyping.
With specialization in promising FPGA technology and broad application knowledge, Enclustra can provide optimal solutions in many areas with minimal effort. For more information, you can visit our website or you can email us at marketing@enclustra.com.
Sarah Han, Product Marketing Engineer at Enclustra GmbH, Oct 31, 2023
Tags/Keywords: Industrial and IoT
Comments