RF Engines To Supply Thales With Complex Channelizer Design
Building on the launch of the ChannelCore product line in December of 2005, this contract calls for a modified version of that product to meet a specific channel plan and FPGA resource availability. Use of the ChannelCore design has enabled Thales to utilize a small FPGA in the project, therefore meeting both space and power consumption targets.
The RFEL design will form a part of a new high specification, digital receiver system that Thales is developing. Multiple instantiations of the design will be included in a single Altera Stratix-II device, and so an efficient structure is required, with critical timing and low power usage. It is essential that the design fully exploits the architecture of the Stratix-II device.
The Thales overall system design approach will allow for the future upgrading of the system to accommodate developments in analog to digital converters and other device enhancements, and so the RFEL channelizer design has also been structured in such a way as to accommodate these overall system changes.
Thales said, "The key part of the design was being able to pack as many channels into as small an FPGA as possible to process multiple antenna inputs. RFEL's ChannelCore design is so compact and fine-tuned that they were able to achieve an extremely high channel density when compared to any other solution offered."
"We're obviously very pleased to be working with the Thales team and continuing a relationship that has existed for a number of years," said John Summers, RF Engines' CEO. "It does help to have good working relationships across all levels of the businesses, and, as always, a very clear set of requirements from the Thales team."
SOURCE: RF Engines Limited (RFEL)