New QuiXstore(tm) Data Recorders Deliver Unparalleled 1.8 GB/s per Slot Data Recording Rate

The QuiXstore UWB ControlCenter (click image to zoom by 1.4x)

QuiXstore UWB uses a variety of payload cards

QuiXstore UWB uses the ANSI/VITA 41 (VXS) switched architecture standard to provide high-speed serial connections from each payload slot to one or more fabric slots populated with data recording engines. This provides each payload slot with a pair of dedicated 1.25 GB/s full duplex connections. The fabric slots support aggregate data rates in excess of 20 GB/s on and off the backplane.

“QuiXstore gives our demanding military and defense customers the highest performance data recorders available today,” comments Paul Martino, TEK Microsystems, Inc, vice president of sales and marketing. “We have already fielded systems for an airborne synthetic aperture radar imaging application and a multi-use radar research application. The scalability of the QuiXstore UWB allows customers to easily expand systems as the number of data streams increases.”

The heart of the QuiXstore UWB is the Callisto VXS data recording engine. Each recording engine accepts data from the backplane using the Aurora protocol (VITA 41.5) and stripes the data to up to 10 storage interfaces at 180 MB/s (Megabytes per second) each, for a total per slot sustained aggregate rate of 1.8 GB/s (Gigabytes per second). Customers can select from a variety of Tekmicro’s QuiXilica VXS front-end digitizers supporting sample frequencies from 185 MSPS to 2.2 GSPS , or can use any FPGA-based VXS payload card. The number of Callisto VXS boards, the number of RAID arrays and the storage capacity can all be selected based on individual customer requirements.

QuiXstore UWB leverages Tekmicro’s QuiXtream network-enabled FPGA architecture to support Gigabit Ethernet-based control of both the Callisto recording engine and the V5 VXS payload cards. The QuiXstore UWB ControlCenter software can be used on any network-attached host PC to connect to a recorder; mount, unmount & format the disk arrays as well as configuring, starting & stopping recordings. Multiple recording engines can be combined into a single system and controlled together from a single Windows GUI.

The QuiXstore UWB API is available to integrate control of the data recorder system into customer specific application software. All functions of the data recorder can be controlled using a C++ class available through a Windows DLL or Linux shared object library.

The QuiXstore UWB recorder engine can accept data from any VXS payload card that supports VITA 41.5 (Xilinx Aurora protocol over VXS), including all QuiXilica VXS digitizers. An FPGA firmware component is provided that can be instantiated on any QuiXilica payload card and provides an interface to the VXS backplane using the Aurora protocol. This allows the user to either simply pass through data, add formatting such as headers or timestamps, or perform their own signal processing prior to recording using the FPGA capability of the payload cards.

QuiXstore UWB data recorders use standard off-the-shelf FibreChannel RAID storage arrays. Data is written to the array using Tekmicro’s real-time implementation of a standard FAT32 file system. This allows all recorded data to be accessed easily from any workstation equipped with a FibreChannel Host Bus Adapter without requiring special software on the host workstation.