Xilinx Inc. and ISR Technologies have readied an off-the-shelf prototyping-to-production kit that accelerates implementation of software-defined radio (SDR) modems for programs such as the U.S. Department of Defense Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS). According to the developers, it is the industry's first SDR kit to support partial reconfiguration and SCA-enabled System-on-Chip (SoC). The JTRS SDR Kit consists of reconfigurable hardware and software elements that are compliant with JTRS-mandated specifications, including the software communications architecture (SCA). The kit leverages the low-power, high-performance digital signal processing (DSP) features of Xilinx’s Virtex-4 Platform FPGAs, along with their partial reconfiguration capabilities, to provide a programmable solution that meets JTRS requirements and lowers overall power consumption and manufacturing cost through more efficient usage of processing resources.

"Lowering power and cost are two of the biggest technical issues facing developers of SDRs today. Xilinx and ISR have brought to market a complete prototyping-to-production kit that allows developers to address these issues with two novel technologies available in Virtex-4 Platform FPGAs: partial reconfiguration and an embedded processor capable of running the complete JTRS operating environment," said Manuel Uhm, senior DSP marketing manager at Xilinx. "We expect developers using this kit to realize significant time-to-market and cost savings in leveraging these technologies into a competitive advantage for their production radios."

The JTRS SDR Kit leverages the powerful SoC features of the Virtex-4, removing the need for a discrete general purpose processor. The kit uses the embedded PowerPC 405 processor to host the infrastructure required to manage the modem, consisting of an SCA Core Framework, a real-time operating system, and a CORBA ORB. In addition, the processor is used for control functions and network processing. At the same time, the programmable fabric and DSP resources are used for waveform processing. The kit includes two modems that can instantiate a wideband waveform in the Virtex-4 device to transmit video data to the other modem. While maintaining transmission of the wideband waveform, the modem can then initiate a narrowband waveform to transmit voice data to the other modem.

The JTRS SDR Kit is priced at $75,000 and will be available in March 2006. The JTRS SDR Kit includes full documentation, including a QuickStart guide, in addition to free on-site installation and training on SCA-controlled partial reconfiguration by ISR Technologies.

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