Mezzanine Cards

WILDSTAR™ Mezzanine Cards are designed from the ground up for superior density and analog performance. They includes 16 high speed serial lanes and over 96 LVDS lines to accommodate even the most bandwidth hungry PCI ADC or DACs. By providing far more voltages to the mezzanine card than competing form factors, noisy power supplies are eliminated from the noise-sensitive mezzanine card and moved to the baseboard, improving analog performance over competing options. With a taller stacking height, cooling is also improved as a larger heatsink can be used and there is also more separation from digital signaling on the baseboard. All PCI WILDSTAR Mezzanine Cards have fully tested FPGA interfaces to provide reliable data transfer between the two even at the highest sample rates and are qualified on Annapolis baseboards for reliable system integration. The WILDSTAR Mezzanine Card specification is open and customers can design their own proprietary cards if needed.

All Annapolis ADC/DAC boards deliver world class performance, allow for synchronization across multiple cards, and can accept external clock and trigger. Some cards also have on-board (internal) clocking options.

On WILDSTAR 7 and WILDSTAR A5 baseboards, there is an option to populate three QSFP+ cages on the baseboard (1st slot) and then still use an WILDSTAR Mezzanine Card in a second slot. Since these cards generally have double-wide heatsinks for thermal stability, there are two PCIe I/O slots available which can both be taken advantage of with this solution. The QSFP+ interfaces can run up to 14.1 Gbps and each is capable of running a 40Gb Ethernet or QDR/FDR Infiniband interface (IP included with board purchase) or other high-speed protocol such as Annap Micro Protocol which is a low FPGA resource usage protocol with full flow control and variable line rate.

The QSFP+ option is a manufacturing option chosen when the board is purchased. WILDSTAR Mezzanine Cards are compatible across the product line and can be swapped or upgraded as needed. There are some compatibility exceptions with older mezzanine cards being used on WILDSTAR 7 or WILDSTAR A5 baseboards due to FPGA technology changes.

See all of the Annapolis Mezz Cards.