Data Transfer Firmware (FWDT) New!

ADQ14-FWDT is a firmware and software bundle which upgrade the PCI Express interface of an ADQ14 to generation 3 by 8 lane (Gen3 x8). It also adds support for peer-to-peer streaming to a selected number of graphics processing units (GPUs) from AMD and NVIDIA. Data transfers can hence be done either to the CPU of the host PC or, for applications that require higher computational power, via peer-to-peer to a GPU. Transfers can done at sustained rates of 6 Gbyte/s and with peak rates at up to 6.8 GByte/s.

ADQ14-FWDT offers a complement to the open FPGA architecture for those customers that prefer to work with GPUs. With peer-to-peer technology the data is transferred directly from the digitizer to the GPU with minimal involvement of the host computer’s CPU. This is a huge advantage compared to conventional solutions which require data to be copied via the RAM of the host PC. With peer-to-peer both the CPU and RAM can instead be used for other tasks. The captured data can be post-processed in OpenCL™ or CUDA™. See the datasheet for details about supported GPU models and operating systems.