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Infineon, Xilinx, and Xylon Partner on FPGA Solutions

February 23, 2019 by Scott McMahan

Three companies working together, Infineon Technologies AG,  Xilinx Inc., and Xylon, d.o.o. will present a new Xylon IP core called logiHSSL at the Embedded World trade fair 2019. It enables high-speed communication between Infineon's AURIX™ TC2xx and TC3xx microcontrollers and Xilinx' SoC, MPSoC and FPGA devices via the Infineon High-Speed Serial Link (HSSL). This serial link supports baud rates of up to 320 Mbaud at a net payload data-rate of up to 84%.

The partners are offering an FPGA starter kit to support development activities. Applications for the starter kit include ADAS and automated driving, as well as industrial automation, sensor fusion, chassis, EVs, and powertrains.

A Xilinx evaluation kit, an Infineon AURIX evaluation board (see image above), and a Xylon FMC board are included with the kit. Kit deliverables include the reference design with the test software application, Xylon's logicBRICKS evaluation licenses, as well as documentation and technical support.

The HSSL is an Infineon native interface, that requires five pins - two LVDS with two pins each and one clk pin. So far, the HSSL interface is used to exchange data between AURIX devices and customer ASICs for performance or functional extension.

Infineon says now, its new IP core will let system developers combine safety and security provided by AURIX with the wide range of functions provided by Xilinx devices. Linked devices can access and control each other's internal and connected resources through the HSSL.

"Our AURIX microcontrollers are the market reference for many safety-critical applications, for example in advanced driver assistance and automated driving," said Ralf Koedel, Marketing Director Microcontrollers at Infineon. "Now, we are creating new options for our customers in emerging applications that are both performance-hungry and safety-critical. Besides the ones mentioned these include for example industrial automation applications."

"Our products are adopted in ADAS and AD architectures for data aggregation, pre-processing, and distribution as well as compute acceleration," said Paul Zoratti, director Automotive Solutions, Xilinx. "Coupled with the AURIX family providing ASIL D level functional safety, this has created a strong market pull for an FPGA-based HSSL solution. Xylon's licensable IP core will enable customers to implement a reliable HSSL communications path between Xilinx and Infineon devices without expending valuable development resources."

Xilinx Evaluation Kit

Xilinx ZCU104 evaluation kit

The ZCU104 evaluation kit from Xilinx enables designers to jumpstart designs for embedded vision applications such as surveillance, Advanced Driver Assisted Systems (ADAS), machine vision, Augmented Reality (AR), drones and medical imaging. This kit features a Zynq® UltraScale+™ MPSoC EV device with video codec and supports many common peripherals and interfaces for an embedded vision use case. The included ZU7EV device is equipped with a quad-core ARM® Cortex™-A53 applications processor, dual-core Cortex-R5 real-time processor, Mali™-400 MP2 graphics processing unit, 4KP60 capable H.264/H.265 video codec, and 16nm FinFET+ programmable logic.

Key Features of Xilinx Evaluation Board

  • reVISION package provides out-of-box SDSoC software development flow with OpenCV libraries, machine learning framework, USB HD camera, and live sensor support
  • reVISION Getting Started Guide
  • PS DDR4 2GB Component - 64-bit
  • Integrated video codec unit supports H.264/H.265
  • USB3, DisplayPort & SATA
  • LPC FPGA mezzanine card (FMC) interface for I/O expansion
  • Optimized to work with SDSoC/reVISION development environment with OpenCV and Machine Learning libraries

Infineon Aurix Evaluation Board

With Infineon's general purpose AURIX TC397XE evaluation board, customers can quickly start to develop, evaluate and test their software. The TC397XE is an Emulation Device capable of non-destructive tracing on dedicated 4MB SRAM. This SRAM can be configured to be used by a standard application.

The board features various communication interfaces such as CAN FD, Gigabit Ethernet, SPI and FlexRay. It also gives access to all the digital and analog IOs available from the LFBGA292 package of the microcontroller.

A downloadable User Manual helps with the installation, use, and configuration of the board and includes the schematics and the layout. The schematics can serve as a solid reference design for hardware engineers. Thanks to the scalability of the AURIX™ family, this board is compatible with all other AURIX™ in the BGA292 package.

Key Features of Infineon AURIX Evaluation Board

  • Infineon's TC3X7 (TC397) AURIX™ TC3xx Controller in LFBGA-292 Package
  • FlexRay™ Transceivers
  • High-Speed CAN Transceivers (CAN-FD capable)
  • USB to UART bridge
  • Ethernet Gigabit PHY
  • Serial Eeprom
  • LIN Transceiver
  • Crystal 20MHz (default) or External Clock
  • USB miniWiggler JDS for easy debugging
  • 8 x Low Power Status LEDs
  • 8-DIP switches for configuration
  • Access to all pins of controller
  • 100mm x 160mm (EURO-Board)

Components of Infineon AURIX Evaluation Board

  • Infineon's Multi-Voltage Safety Micro Processor Supply TLF35584QV
  • Three LEDs to validate power supply (5Volt / 3,3 Volt / 1,25 Volt)
  • LED indicating safe state signal 2 from TLF35584
  • LED indicating /HDRST (ESR0) active state
  • LED indicating active miniWiggler JDS
  • LED switched via DAS software
  • 2 x Infineon's FlexRay™ Transceiver TLE9221SX
  • 2 x Infineon's High-Speed CAN-Transceiver TLE9251VSJ
  • Infineon's LIN-Transceiver TLE 7259-3GE
  • USB to UART bridge FT2232HL (FTDI)
  • Single Port Gigabit Ethernet PHY PEF7071 (LANTIQ)
  • 8 x general purpose LEDs

Key Features of FPGA Starter Kit

Prototype with the Xilinx Zynq SoC board

  • Combines Infineon's AURIX™ microcontroller and Xilinx's UltraScale+ MPSoC programmable device
  • Integrates Infineon High-Speed Serial Link (HSSL) optimized for Xilinx FPGA implementations
  • Includes complete reference design with the evaluation logiHSSL IP core
  • Design is prepared for Xilinx Vivado® Design Suite
  • Linked devices can access and control each other's resources
  • Complete hardware platform includes:
  • - 1x Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC ZCU104 Evaluation Kit
  • - 1x Infineon Aurix Evaluation Board Kit KIT_A2G_TC397_S_TRB
  • - 1x Xylon FMC board for cable connection
  • - 1x FireWire cable
  • Documentation and tech support (e-mail)

Infineon's new IP core and the development kit will be available starting in March 2019.

Infineon will showcase demo boards at the Embedded World trade fair 2019 at Infineon (booth #231, hall 3A), and its distribution partner EBV will also show demo boards at booth #229 in hall 3A.