The Xilinx Versal ACAP accelerator board

Alpha Data’s latest ADM-PA100 board featuring the Xilinx Adaptive Compute Acceleration Platform

November 6, 2020: Golden, Colorado & Edinburgh, Scotland

Alpha Data, the leading supplier of Commercial Off-the-Shelf FPGA solutions has released the ADM-PA100, the first deployable adaptive computing acceleration platform (ACAP)-based Data Processing Unit suitable for PCIe deployment. It offers fully customizable IO and is available to meet customer requirements in a range of markets including Data Centre, Machine Learning, High-Performance Computing, Scientific Instrumentation, and Test and Measurement.

The ADM-PA100 is based on the ground-breaking Versal AI Core series, which includes an array of Xilinx AI Engines (dedicated VLIW processors, each capable of Vector Math Processing at compute densities 5 times higher than programmable logic), closely coupled with programmable logic to allow highly efficient implementation of custom co-processing operations in the data flow.
The Xilinx Versal series of devices also feature an on-chip Programmable NoC (vastly improving the on-chip Programmable Logic routing in large designs), dedicated hardened IP for Multi-Rate 100G Ethernet, hardened PCIe Gen4 endpoints with DMA outside the Programmable Logic, hardened DDR4 memory controllers, built in ARM A72 and R5F CPUs, and next-generation programmable logic and DSP performance improvements over Ultrascale+TM devices.

“The hardware adaptability and heterogeneous architecture of Versal AI Core ACAPs are a key advantage over traditional accelerators that typically focus on a subset of applications. This enables the creation of multiple Domain Specific Architectures targeted to specific workloads. We’re delighted that Alpha Data has chosen Versal AI Core series for its ADM-PA100 board to accelerate a breadth of workloads in cloud, networking, and edge markets.”

Manuel Uhm, director of Silicon Marketing at Xilinx, Inc.

 

The ADM-PA100 provides programmable power on a platform that can be deployed in PCIe format as a co-processor in an x86 CPU server system, or as a stand-alone system using the ARM A72 for general-purpose processing requirements.

IO flexibility is one key advantage of ACAP and FPGA over other classes of devices, allowing data to be processed directly with minimal latency and maximum bandwidth. The ADM-PA100 supports this IO flexibility with a front-facing FMC+ socket supporting 24 Gigabit transceiver lanes and a full FMC HPC interface with 160 GPIO, which can interface with a wide variety of FMC IO adapters.

The ADM-PA100 comes with support for Xilinx Vivado® and Vitis tool chains, giving customers as much flexibility as possible when developing their deployable solutions.

For More Details

For further product details and ordering options for Alpha Data’s FPGA accelerator cards, please visit.  www.alpha-data.com/pa100

About Alpha Data

Established in 1993, Alpha Data is a world leader in high-performance Xilinx FPGA based plug-in acceleration boards for rugged and embedded communications, video and image acquisition and processing, radar and sonar signal processing, low- latency and custom communications, data centre and high-performance computing, and space and high-reliability development. Alpha Data’s low-cost, power-efficient accelerators leverage Xilinx’s ACAPs, All Programmable FPGAs and the Vitis tool chain to accelerate processing, increase data throughput, and deliver power- optimized solutions for computing clusters. Designed to be server-friendly for large scale data centre deployment, Alpha Data’s high-reliability hardware platforms are ideal for development as well as full-scale production deployment.