Product of the Week: Extreme Engineering Solutions’ 3U VPX Single Board Computer, The XPedite7870
April 08, 2024
Sponsored Story
High-performance computing (HPC) applications are responsible for managing large amounts of critical data. There is also a growing demand to ensure that this data remains secure during transmission and storage, especially in extreme environments.
In such scenarios, the requirements documentation outlines the following:
- Requirement: High performance, Government-grade security, Robust design
- Preference: Rapid time to market
- Not required: Cost-effectiveness
The answer? Extreme Engineering Solutions’ (X-ES) XPedite7870 3U VPX-REDI module.
Complaint to the VITA 48 and 65 standards (VPX REDI, OpenVPX) and based on Intel® Xeon® D-2700 series (formerly Ice Lake-D) SoCs with as many as 20 cores, the 100 mm x 160 mm XPedite7870 contains all the components necessary for high-performance, secure applications processing at the extreme edge.
This starts with an integrated PolarFire™ FPGA from Microsemi® that can serve as a workload acceleration co-processor that offloads tasks like AI, vision, or security from the host CPU. Alternatively, the FPGA has four dedicated GPIO pins that provide direct access for users looking to deploy the XPedite7870 in a multiprocessor configuration.
The XPedite7870 in Action
To support the compute capabilities of the VPX-REDI SBC, 64 GB of DDR4 ECC SDRAM in four channels, 32 GB of SLC NAND flash, 64 MB of NOR boot flash, and 64 kB of EEPROM are available to read-write and shuttle data to and from the cores.
A wide variety of connectivity options are also available for data shuttling. These include two 100GBASE-KR4 and one 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet port, the former courtesy direct access to the Xeon-D 2700’s built-in Ethernet PHY and the latter courtesy a PCIe-to-GbE MAC PHY. Other interfaces and I/Os include two x4 Gen3, one x4 Gen2, and two x2 Gen2, as well as PCI Express interfaces, two USB 2.0 ports, and two RS-232/422/485 serial ports for connections to the backplane and between onboard components.
A SPI interface links an onboard trusted platform module (TPM) with the XPedite7870 host. Coupled with air- and conduction cooling options and SKUs that have native extended temperature support (including the Xeon processor), it’s a one-stop shop for checking off all the requirements above.
Now, we'll look at the X-ES SecureCOTS design methodology. SecureCOTS design practices are applied when integrating all the components mentioned above.
To ensure products like the XPedite7870 can detect, record, resist, and respond to threats, X-ES engineers layer use case-specific security features into the design that may include, but are not limited to:
- Monitoring, encrypting, and controlling sensitive data paths
- Secure erase and declassification of on-board memory
- Burying sensitive signals and removing access to test/debug interfaces
- Encapsulating sensitive components
- Environmental, diagnostic, and situational monitoring
- The use of silicon-specific features like Intel® Trusted Execution Technology (Intel® TXT) or NXP (formerly Freescale) Secure Boot
- Integration of FPGAs and their enhanced security features
- Trusted Platform Modules (TPM)
Other relevant security features of the XPedite7870, for example, include a system voltage monitor, power-on/reset control, and non-volatile write-protection controls.
Getting Started with Extreme Engineering Solutions’ XPedite7870
The XPedite7870 SBC provides software support for Wind River VxWorks and X-ES Enterprise Linux (XEL) Board Support Packages (BSPs).
X-ES offers additional support with the XPand1203 and XPand1205 3U VPX rugged development platforms.
You can find more information on the X-ES XPedite7870 product page or by visiting the resources below.
Resources:
- X-ES XPedite7870 Product Page: www.xes-inc.com/products/sbcs/xpedite7870/
- X-ES XPedite7870 Product Datasheet: www.xes-inc.com/assets/products/datasheets/XPedite7870-DS.pdf
- X-ES SecureCOTS Overview: www.xes-inc.com/embedded-technologies/securecots
- X-ES Contact Information: www.xes-inc.com/about/contact
- X-ES Website: www.xes-inc.com
