Development of an Open PXIe System based on FPGA Modules

PXIe is a instrumentation platform that is used as the basis for developing test equipment, modular electronic instruments and automated test systems. A typical PXIe platform comprises of modules that are housed in a 3U Eurocard form factor chassis. The platform utilise the PCIe bus standard to enable high-speed data transfer, suitable for a range of applications. However, the platform is inherently complex, contains proprietary IP and is prohibitively expensive for most researchers and engineers who wish to utilise a modular instrumentation system. To overcome these barriers, the beginnings of an open PXIe platform has been developed. This consists of two open PXIe modules utilising modular FPGA technology. The first module is the System Controller, which introduces an embedded Linux solution and open-source PCIe driver to the platform. To simplify software development, user applications can utilise the drivers API without using kernel-level code. On the System Controller FPGA fabric is a root-port implementation that allows communication with peripheral modules. The second modules is a general purpose Peripheral Module that provides various I/O standards that users can utilise in their FPGA design, and a dedicated PCIe generation 2 x4 link with the System Controller. In the FPGA fabric of the Peripheral Module is a PCIe-DMA engine that facilitates data transfer between the two modules. The open nature and modular design will allow more economical and more flexible solutions, which will be appealing to a wide range of potential users. In addition, an example user application is developed for this system to show case the overall functionality the modules, with transfer speeds of 100 MB/s.