IP Handset - IP5540 Attendant Console
Mitel required a design team to staff an approved project that had a tight product release schedule. Mitel turned to Fidus with the challenging task of adapting and integrating their VoIP phone set technology into the SC1000 DNIC console, work was to be done within the Mitel development process and maintain the existing Product Release Schedule as closely as possible.

The project demanded a mixture of background knowledge in LCD displays, SoC processor technology, Power-over-Ethernet, voice signal interfaces, signal integrity and EMI containment, as well as ESD control. Design was carried out, following the Fidus quality standards and the Mitel standards, procedures, and documentation authoring all within the Mitel team environment. The electronic and PCB designs were coordinated with the mechanical design also provided by Fidus, such that all the stringent regulatory and Mitel standards were readily met. With the help of the signal integrity capabilities within Fidus, the difficult goal of meeting stringent Class B EMI regulatory standards was achieved with the first prototypes.

The project concluded with a smooth hand-off of the final design to Mitel engineering and manufacturing support. The final product, known as the IP5540 Attendant Console, is currently in field trials and will be introduced to the market shortly.

Digital Control Card Redesign
MDS Inc. is a global life sciences company that provides market-leading products and services that our customers need for the development of drugs, and the diagnosis and treatment of disease. MDS Analytical Technologies, one of three business units that makes up MDS Inc., is a global leader focused on the research, design, manufacture and marketing of state-of-the-art solutions for mass spectrometry, drug discovery and bioresearch.

Fidus was contracted by MDS Analytical Technologies to redesign the Digital Control Card for their Mass Spectrometer Instrument. The project involved providing RoHS compliance and obsolescence management of components, hardware design services, FPGA design, PCB layout, prototype design verification and project management services. The result of this partnership was a prototype board that has the same performance, is backward compatible, has RoHS compliance and provides component availability for the next six to eight years at lower cost. The existing Digital Control Card design was based on through-hole components and CPLD with 5V power supply. The new Digital Control Card was redesigned with SMT components and 3.3V/1.2V FPGA. Cost was reduced by using lower cost quad output DAC chips.

40G Optical Line Cards
Fidus developed a hardware platform to facilitate verification of IP cores for an optical line card utilizing FPGAs in the data path. This reference design provides a 40Gb/sec optical transponder compliant with the OC-768 SONET and STM-256 standards, and interfaces this to a XAUI based backplane running multiple 3.125Gbits/sec links. For this project, Fidus delivered an initial architectural analysis for customer approval before proceeding with schematic capture, PCB layout design and signal integrity analysis. Fidus managed the PCB fabrication and build process, and then tested the final products to ensure they met the customer’s requirements.

High Speed Optical Circuit Packs
Fidus developed a series of high speed optical circuit packs for a next generation DWDM transport application. These circuit packs use multi Gigabit interconnect with very high speed serial links and high speed DDR2 parallel buses. In addition, extensive analog and mixed signal design was required to provide control and monitoring of optical modulators, lasers, APDs and EDFAs.

ASIC Emulation Platform
Fidus developed an ASIC emulation Platform to test our customer’s RTL code before fabrication. The board contains three Xilinx Virtex™-II Pro FPGAs, DDR with two DIMMs, one PCI/X 32b/64b interface, PMC bus, CMC bus and other industry-standard peripherals.

xDSL System
Fidus was responsible for the design of an xDSL system for installation in Central Office (CO) and Outside Plant Cabinets (OSP) locations. The system included 48-192 xDSL ports and dual GigE/2.5GigE uplinks. Deliverables included all design files, tested systems, support for client network integration testing and compliance requirements (product safety, EMC, NEBS).

Controller and Memory PCBs for SSDs
Pliant Technology is a developer of Enterprise Flash Drives (EFD’s), a new class of solid state storage devices, that integrate seamlessly into enterprise information systems and dramatically improve performance, reliability, energy efficiency, and total cost of ownership. Pliant engaged Fidus to develop the controller and memory.

PCBs for use in its leading-edge 3.5” Solid State Drive (SSD). The project involved providing hardware design services, PCB layout, signal integrity analysis, thermal analysis, mechanical design, prototype design verification and project management services. The result of this partnership was a prototype board that was suitable for final product verification and high volume manufacturing. Pliant’s EFDs are expected to operate at similar input/output operations per second (IOPS) as a good DRAM but offer the improved cost, higher capacity and lower power consumption of Flash SSDs.

Anti-Theft Card for Barracuda Security Devices
When installed in a computer, the Barracuda anti-theft device prevents both tampering and theft. In addition to designing the PCI card hardware, Windows-based software and PCI firmware, Fidus delivered working prototypes compliant with the manufacturing and regulatory requirements.

24 GHz Point-to-Point Radio Link
Fidus developed the architecture, hardware, software, mechanical design and factory test station for a Point-to-Point IP radio operating in the 24 GHz unlicenced portion of the K-band. This involved mmWave circuit design using both monolithic and discrete ICs and a custom waveguide filter for the antenna interface. In addition, Fidus supported the product through all necessary regulatory compliance testing and managed the pre-production builds.

Temperature Calibration Production Test System
As the designer and manufacturer of the FDA-approved LDX cholesterol monitoring system, Cholestech engaged Fidus to design and build a new temperature calibration production test system. The 8-unit LDX Temperature Calibration System (LTCS) replaces the previous single-unit system. The move to the new multi-unit calibration system provided the benefit of increasing the production throughput and also allows archiving of the calibration information in the FFT (Final Functional Tester) database.

The project involved creating a temperature calibration workbench with a new control computer, printer and bar-code scanner. New temperature calibration software was created using LabVIEW and final calibration results were stored in a Microsoft SQL server database. The deployment of this new system meant that Cholestech could now calibrate over 24 units per station per hour instead of 3 units per station per hour – a dramatic increase in manufacturing efficiency.

Global Positioning System (GPS) Technology
Fidus hardware, firmware and PCB layout designers developed this battery-powered, portable unit to receive GPS and sensor information, convert the data into a proprietary message structure and transmit the packet to a satellite network. Designed to be water resistant, the unit supported several different battery types, external sensors, and both internal and external antennae.

HighSpeed Optical Line Cards
Fidus developed a series of high speed optical line cards for a next generation DWDM transport product. These boards use 75 Gigabit parallel optical modules interconnected with multi-gigabit (>6Gbps) serial links and high speed DDR parallel buses to achieve datapath throughput in excess of 320 Gbps. In addition, extensive analog and mixed signal design was required to provide control and monitoring of optical modulators, lasers, APDs and EDFAs.

Customizable Automatic Identification System (AIS) Transceiver
When incorporated into marine radar systems, the Transceiver is a high performance Software-Defined Radio (SDR) that can track and identify marine vessels. The Transceiver enables customers to fuse radar and AIS information resulting in enhanced data for better management of ship traffic and collision avoidance.

Architecture Design
Ottawa-based GasTOPS Ltd. provides products and services that ensure reliable and cost-effective operations of mission critical equipment. The company services the Defense, Aviation, Power Generation, Oil and Gas, Marine and Wind Energy industries. GasTOPS engaged Fidus to provide product level architecture design of its next-generation Radio Headsets specifically designed for submarine use. Fidus was also requested to provide the PCB layout, aid in board level testing and make signal integrity recommendations for immunity and emissions susceptibility (EMI, EMC) on the completed unit. At the completion of the project, Fidus delivered a Bluetooth based wireless headset system providing better volume control and better voice quality that was both smaller and lighter than the customer’s original headset design.

40G Reference Design for Line Cards
Fidus developed a hardware platform to facilitate verification of IP cores for an optical line card utilizing FPGAs in the data path. This reference design provides a 40Gb/sec optical transponder compliant with the OC-768 SONET and STM-256 standards, and interfaces this to a XAUI based backplane running multiple 3.125Gbits/sec links. For this project, Fidus delivered an initial architectural analysis for customer approval before proceeding with schematic capture, PCB layout design and signal integrity analysis. Fidus managed the PCB fabrication and build process, and then tested the final products to ensure they met the customer’s requirements.

WiMAX Antenna Array Interface
Fidus developed a number of PCBs for a WiMAX Beamforming product. These PCBs included an Analog IF Modem Interface, baseband processor, a calibration module, and the RF front end with an antenna array interface.

ASIC Evaluation Cards for:
ATM
H.110
TDM
VDSL

DSP Designs in FPGAs:
Edge-detection filters
Various filter designs
IR imaging                                          
Image enhancement
Echo cancellation & tone detection                                       
Object identification

FPGA - ASIC Designs:
ATM traffic manager                                                
SONET & 8B10B
Datalink manager                                          
Waveform generator
Graphic pixel generator                                             
SPI4 phase II interface
HDSL framer                                    
TDM switch
SDRAM controller, other memory interfaces                                                 
Hardware accelerator for graphic processor                                                  

High-speed Signal Integrity:
2.5 GHz PLL I/O interface
11.3 Gbps backplane
10 Gb/s board
Simulations of:                       
Fibre Channel            
PCI-X
InfiniBand                   
UTOPIA
Hypertransport                                      
XAUI

Optical Line Cards
Gigabit Ethernet
OC-3, -12, -48, -192

Wired Line Cards
10/100 Ethernet
Analog PSTN
Gateway
DS3
DSLAM
SHDSL

Plug-in Cards
Universal PCI-X 133 MHz, 64 bit
USB 1.1, 2.0
PCI 66 MHz, 32-bit VGA
cPCI 6U cards (hot-swap)
AGP

Processor Cards
PowerPC-based (or ST-PC-based)
ARM-based
Power substation monitoring card