Kontron extends 6U VPX portfolio of COTS computing nodes

Acknowledging the growing success of the Arm architecture in the signal processing domain, Kontron extends its 6U VPX portfolio of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) Computing Nodes segment with a new Arm-based architecture dedicated to HPEC applications. The newly announced VX6124, a 6U VPX 200k+ DMIPS processing blade features 40G/100G Ethernet connectivity, enabling powerful HPEC architectures for the next decade.

"Our HPEC customers have been looking to leverage the unique computing performance per watt offered by the Neon SIMD Arm technology coupled with the outstanding I/O performances offered by the VPX backplane. We are very pleased to have collaborated again with NXP so as to offer their Layerscape LX2160A processor in this first 6U VPX product, the VX6124," said Vincent Chuffart, VPX Product Manager at Kontron.

"The next generation of high-performance applications for IoT gateways, transportation and 5G networks will require new levels of processing power," added John Heinlein, Vice President, High Performance IoT Business at Arm. "Kontron's new VPX Computing Node will allow developers to build intelligent, high-performance devices efficiently and quickly, building on the computing performance delivered by the Arm Cortex-A72 processor and software libraries such as Arm's Compute Library."

"Kontron's expertise in delivering reliable and ruggedised board solutions is an ideal complement to NXP's product longevity program, focus on security, and the extended operating temperature ranges offered for the Layerscape LX2160A," said Jeff Steinheider, GM Industrial Edge Processing Product Line for NXP Semiconductors. "The VX6124's performance, efficiency and reliability, coupled with the fast time-to-market of a VPX platform provide a solution that the industrial, transportation and defense markets need."

The VX6124 NXP Layerscape LX2160A processor is coupled with up to 32GB DDR4 memory and XMC slot. The design has been especially designed to best support the main CPU and optional XMC mezzanine such as Kontron XMC-GPU91 Radeon E9171 running at their best. In the case of the XMC-GPU91, the XMC adds eight 12TFlops class compute units to the already massive computing power offered by the main CPU.

The design of the VX6124 makes it easily adaptable to a 3U form factor compliant with the SOSA intensive profile SLT3-PAY-1F1F2U1TU1T1U1T-14.2.16., providing the necessary I/O capabilities onboard and outstanding flexibility by supporting XMC and M.2 storage mezzanine cards.

VX6124 for Signal Processing Architectures: offering 40GBaseKR and 10GBaseKR on the backplane connectors, the VX6124 is a perfect fit for integration into systems for Airborne Radar. In a configuration with multiple VX6124 interconnected with a Kontron VX6940 switch, each board communicates the bulk of the signal data via a 40G Ethernet data plane while synchronising complex radar modes and processed data via 10G Ethernet control planes. 

In this type of architecture, Kontron's VX6940 40G/100G Ethernet Broadcom BCM56760 switch handles the I/O traffic with ease while offering 100GETH interfaces to the system required to handle massive data flows coming from antenna arrays. It can also be equipped with the Kontron APPROTECT-Security Chip, which prevents reverse engineering of executable codes, while enabling a strict, hardware enforced control over the copies of the program allowed to run on any VX6124.