Quantum3D, Inc., has introduced irs Sentiris AV1 PCI Express Mezzanine Card (XMC) which was conceived to address the ongoing needs of high safety and security-critical applications — such as primary flight instrumentation and multi-level security systems. Certifiable to DO-178B for software and DO-254 for hardware, the Sentiris AV1 reduces the likelihood of obsolescence. This is accomplished by leveraging a FPGA-based video- and graphics-processing core instead of the traditional approach of using dedicated graphics processing units (GPUs) which often become rapidly obsolete.

The Sentiris AV1 employs a Xilinx Virtex 5 FPGA which is programmed as an embedded GPU that can be upgraded over the lifetime of the product.
However, the company's approach is different from traditional GPUs in that its firmware is fully DO-254 certifiable firmware, rather than having to obtaining a hardware waiver based on a statistical time test. While originally designed for applications such as flight-certified image generation, the Sentiris AV1 is also suitable for other applications, such as real-time imaging for medical applications.

The product's video- and graphics-processing capabilities with analog and HD-SDI video outputs enable three-dimensional graphics in cockpits and mission-critical applications. Its ease of upgrade means that safety-critical applications can be rapidly implemented without the fear of obsolescence when new GPUs come to market. This is crucial for embedded applications requiring long life cycles, robust performance, reliable operation and design flexibility to address future needs.

Integrators can use the Sentiris AV1 with any operating system or CPU environment because the driver and all other software have been written from the ground up with DO-178B practices. This is in contrast to commercial GPUs which are typically limited to Windows, Linux and x86 architectures with no access to source code.

The Sentiris AV1 is available now, starting at $9,980. Quantum3D currently supports Sentiris AV1 with Linux drivers. Certification package details are available upon request.