In order to develop a unified system meant to
share images, sound and data, a manufacturer from a mass public multimedia
company had to develop switch equipment intended to connect domestic multimedia
terminals.
Its technology is based on two standards of
communication which are IEEE1394 and IEEE1355.
The purpose of this box is to gather in a network
a whole of interfaces and protocols (Audio, Video, PC, ...); that
should interest a large audience in a near future.
This switch is composed of an ELIOS
mother board, called "CALICE", which, coupled to a manufactured
daughter board, makes the whole completely autonomous of any PC connection.
Several modules of the daughter board (FPGA Xilinx) were also written in
VHDL by ELIOS.
"CALICE" board presentation
The mother board of the switch is directly derived
from the ELIUM product designed by ELIOS. It lays out as follows:
MPC860 processor from MOTOROLA,
Flash EPROM memory,
SDRAM memory,
A bus interface by mezzanine board (PMC
connector).
However, several characteristics are specific to
the constraints of the manufacturer:
The absence of PCI bus (autonomous board),
The addition of an ETHERNET interface (remote
downloading available),
The board dimension (100*160mm).
This board uses the advantages suggested by PowerQuicc
(MPC860) in terms of communication:
2 controllers of serial lines and an
Ethernet controller for download or monitoring functionalities mainly,
Mechanisms of high flow communication with
the daughter board carried out by the manufacturer.
Essential characteristics of the "CALICE"
board
MOTOROLA MPC860 processor
4 MB FLASHES memory
32 MB SDRAM
2*24.576 MHz µP clock
1 Ethernet interface (download)
1 mezzanine board interface (PMC connector)
2 serial RS232 interfaces (download +
monitoring)
1 BDM port (debug)
1 JTAG port (CPLD programming of multiplexing
of address)
1 generic port (future use)
5V Power supply, 3.3V technology
Dimension: short board (100*160 mm)
VHDL modules of the manufacturer daughter
board
Associated with this mother board, several modules
intended for the FPGA Xilinx located on the manufacturer daughter board
were written by ELIOS, in particular the interface module between the
two boards.
These modules took advantage of a leading-edge
technology for their development:
FPGA from Xilinx,
FOUNDATION 3.3 software (VHDL Development +
functional Simulation),
ALLIANCE software (FPGA Routing),
ModelSim software (functional and temporal
Simulation by VHDL scripts).
