Mezzanine card

Jon Lawson

Inova Semiconductors has developed a new high speed mezzanine card for video systems using Intel Cyclone V FPGA boards.

The new transceiver card has been co-developed by Inova and the Intel Programmable Solutions Group (formed from the acquisition of Altera).

This enables engineers to easily set up hardware for testing and system development with the APIX2 automotive video interface and can be connected to any Intel FPGA development board with a High-Speed Mezzanine Card (HSMC) connector.

APIX2 is Inova’s SerDes (serialiser/deserialiser) technology for video and data communication in vehicles.

It provides high-speed differential data transmission over a quad twisted pair (QSTP) cable, with bandwidth up to 3Gbps. APIX2 is the second generation of the Automotive Pixel Link (APIX) standard aimed at automotive display and camera applications.

“The APIX2 HSMC add-on card enables the interfacing of cameras and displays to Intel FPGAs via long-reach APIX2 interfacing, thus enabling the development of feature-rich next-generation cockpit experiences,” said Michael Hendricks, director for the Automotive business in the Intel Programmable Solutions Group.

A design example has been developed for receiving and merging APIX2 camera video streams and sending them over an APIX2 link, and will be available at the Intel Design Store.

The APIX2 High Speed Mezzanine Card can simultaneously stream multiple digital video signals, as well as 100Mbps bidirectional Ethernet data traffic and SPI control data, over robust APIX cable connections into and out of a FPGA.

The two on-board INAP375RAQ receivers accept video streams with resolutions of up 1600x600 pixels and refresh rates of up to 100Hz and the video interface is configurable to handle one or two independent video streams each, which gives a total of up to four video input streams.

The INAP375TAQ transmitter can send 18- or 24-bit video with a resolution of up to 1600x600 pixels, 24-bit colour depth and refresh rates of up to 100Hz to a display using the OpenLDI digital video interface.

The card’s RJ45 10/100 Ethernet port enables it to send and receive data traffic over the APIX2 link of the transmitter and receiver #1, via a Media Independent Interface (MII). It can also be used to send IP video traffic over the APIX2 links.

In camera applications, the cameras can be powered remotely through Power over APIX (PoA) using the card’s power regulator.

The APIX2 transmitter device also includes a High Speed Data (HSD) connector for a QSTP cable, as well as an LVDS interface via the HSMC connector from the FPGA. The new card also features an SPI port and STATUS pin connected to the FPGA.