Hardware Validation

Every new product undergoes multiple phases of validation: on the lab bench during prototyping and proof-of-concept and eventually on the manufacturing floor during production. In almost all cases, hardware validation fixture design is a bespoke affair. Custom fixtures, jigs, software, interfaces, and hardware all come together to exercise key features and specifications of the product.

While generally not part of a company’s core competency portfolio, validation systems are almost always built in-house by engineers intimately familiar with the product. In makes sense to equip these engineers with as much cost-effective off-the-shelf hardware as practicable to avoid diversion of resources. Opal Kelly FPGA modules provide the adaptable, programmable, and easy-to-use components that make seamless integration between software and hardware elements of the validation setup.

The multi-platform FrontPanel SDK enables rapid development and integration of test systems into existing environments allowing your engineers to deploy and support custom hardware validation systems quickly and move on to the project.

System Integration with SYZYGY

The SYZYGY open standard was introduced in 2017 as a way to support high-performance peripherals on FPGA platforms in a way that is more cost-effective than FMC and higher-performance than PMOD.

Using a SYZYGY-based development platform such as the XEM8320 can be an effective way to leverage existing SYZYGY peripherals to quickly create cost-effective validation systems. A wide range of SYZYGY peripherals exist supporting functionality such as high-speed ADC (SZG-ADC) and DAC (SZG-DAC) data conversion, moderate speed multi-channel data conversion (SZG-MULTIDAQ), as well as dozens of lower-performance components built on the PMOD standard.

Opal Kelly has made a number of development resources available for free to support customer development of custom SYZYGY peripherals as well.

Customer Deployments

Mustang Technology

Mustang Technology, a defense systems company with specific expertise in radar, RF sensors, aircraft and missile integrated systems, and guidance and control systems, uses Opal Kelly’s FPGA modules to test their Radar prototype hardware.