Carrier board

Pentek Inc. has released the 7800 series of high-performance I/O boards built upon a half-length x8 PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 carrier board. The carrier board hosts a PMC/XMC module to fulfill a range of software radio, data acquisition and beamforming applications. Now designers can utilize PCI Express, FPGAs and high-speed interfaces in low-cost PCs as well as in blade servers.

Design Features
• In addition to the x8 PCIe interface, the 7800 carrier board features a number of high-speed gigabit serial connectors for inter-board communication. Using protocols such as Xilinx Aurora and Serial Rapid I/O, these interconnections support communication between multiple 7800 Series boards completely independent of the backplane. This provides a critical advantage for high-connectivity systems such as radar and beamforming applications, where significant data must  be transferred across multiple boards.

• A built-in fan provides forced-air cooling that can be invaluable in dissipating heat developed by high-speed A/Ds, D/As and FPGAs, without requiring an extra slot.

• A 4-pin standard disk drive power connector accepts power directly from the PC power supply to augment PCIe slot power. This supports modules with power consumption as high as 50 watts or greater.
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