low cost high speed interface was: custom cluster cabinets (was Re: 1U P4 Systems)

[Bari Ari]

Jim Lux wrote:


> You might take a look at SpaceWire (aka IEEE 1355.2). Very low cost, high
> speed (150 Mbps today, 400 in next year) low latency serial communications
> with nonblocking wormhole routers (i.e. the router just looks at the header
> to figure out where to send it and doesn't buffer up the whole packet). 
> Today, it's being pushed for space applications (hence the name), but
> University of Dundee has just finished a VHDL core for the interface and
> router, and is starting to test, and expects to be done in a year.  Today,
> you can buy Intellectual property from a company called 4links (in England)
> to fit in the smallest Xilinx FPGA to implement it. The full up core and
> router are targeted to the Virtex parts, which are quite large, and
> expensive.
> 
If it could fit in a Xilinx Spartan-II that would be very nice.

Bari