Military Microprocessor.
Advatech Pacific contracted with us when they needed a video coprocessor for their TACDS product (Sapphire did the hardware design and assisted in agency certification).
The constraints on this design were multifold: We had minimal area – the full implementation had to fit on a mini PCIe card – and we had to have maximum processing performance, all done in time for a critical trade show.
Sapphire designed and implemented a quad core ARM design with built-in video accelerator, PCIe, dual Ethernet and USB interface with DDR3 SDRAM, and we went from concept to boards in less than 10 weeks.
Microprocessor Capabilities
- Experience with Freescale, Intel, Motorola, AMD, TI, Atmel microprocessors and DSPs
- Full microprocessor system design experience with interfaces including: PCIe, PCI, Ethernet, DDR2, DDR3, USB3, HDMI, DVI, VGA, SPI, LVDS, I2C, SD Flash, CAN.
- Gigabit I/O interfaces
- Custom L2 Cache Design
- ECC and Reed-Solomon error corrected Memory
- Linux and VxWorks integration
Military Design Experience
Sapphire Computers has wide-ranging experience in implementing complex designs for military customers and meeting stringent environmental and security requirements. Some of the military projects we’ve been involved in include:
- Designed a Cross Domain Guard (CDS) for Military vehicles for Advatech Pacific
- Lead Hardware Design Engineer in AFRL’s Software Protection Initiative
- Designed a stand-alone, hardened SRAM test unit for radiation testing and verification for NRL
- Designed a PMC board and Mil STD-1275 power supply for Northrop Grumman’s “Single Chip Crypto” solution
- Designed a flight-hardened Ethernet interface card for Northrop Grumman
- Designed a man-wearable version of Advatech Pacific’s Cross Domain Guard
