NorthBridge Technology Overview Rev. A 090120

1. NorthBridge Technology
Company Overview

2. NorthBridge
NorthBridge Technology
The Management Team
President: Andrew Goodwin
The Engineering Team
NorthBridge Technology has a core engineering group of
experienced engineers based in Ottawa
Design Experience
NorthBridge Technology has have over 120 years of system and
FPGA design experience
Engaged with over 500 global customers
Completed in excess of 1100 designs.

3. Service Offerings
NorthBridge Technology Product and Service Offerings
NorthBridge Technology
Design Services Board Services Management Services
System Reference Boards Production Boards Project Management
Rapid Response
Semiconductor Suppliers
FPGA
In-sourcing Services
ASIC Fabless Semis
Training Services
Board Design
Embedded Firmware
System on Module

4. Advantages of Outsourcing
Immediate access to specialized skill sets
Optimize design cycles intimate Knowledge
of products
Controlled Growth, no long term costly
overhead
Readily scale customers resources and costs
Sharpen customers focus core competencies:
Partner with world-class management with
years of design experience
Share the risks a nearshore/offshore design
operation
Flexibility, our services are fully customized
to meet our customers precise requirements
McKinsey & Co concluded six-month delay in
getting to market cost a product one third of
its lifetime potential profit

5. Design Expertise
Digital Signal Processing
Networking
Test & Measurement
Bus Interfaces & Protocols
Digital Video and Imaging
Telecom
Automotive
Medical
Military
Datacom
Satcom

6. Nu Horizons Virtex 5 Reference Board
Nu Horizons Virtex-5 Reference Board
XC5VFX30T FPGA
1 SFP Module Port
2 sets of SMA ports for off-board GTX transceiver connectivity
External Differential Clock to drive GTXs
Single Ended General Purpose External Clock
Dedicated MGT loopback path for easily design verification
IDT ICS843001 Femtoclock Frequency Synthesizer for GTXs
Marvell 88E1119 Gigabit PHY
24-bit Analog Devices high-speed Video DAC
64 Mbytes of Micron DDR SDRAM
16 Gb of Micron High Speed NAND Flash

7. Design Examples
Floating Point Co-Processor Board
• FPGA based PCIe to 8 DSP switch
• 4 Lane PCIe
• FPGA based DDR buffereing
• For PCIe I/F
• For DSP I/F
PCIe Switch
- External PCIe switch
- 8 lane upstream port
- 8 lane down stream port
- 4x4 lane downstream port

8. Design Examples
ARINC Processor Card
AMCC PPC 405 core Coprocessor
RAM (DDR) with ECC 2 Mb x 32 bit + ECC
Flash
11 - ARINC 429 Tx/Rx Channels – Based on Actel FPGA
1 – ARINC 717 Rx Channel - Based on Actel FPGA
Custom Channel Processing on FPGA
PPC PCI Bus Interface – PC104 Bus.
2 – UARTs, one RS-232 and the other RS-422/485,
Discrete I/O, 12 inputs, 4 outputs
2 Ethernet ports (optional)
Airborne Location Transponder
Marvell PXA320 quot;Monahans Pquot; processor, 800MHz
128MB of NAND flash memory
128MB of mobile DDR memory
Removable SD card
Ublox TIM-4H GPS module integrated onto the PCB
Aerocomm AC4790-1000M RF transceiver

9. Design Examples
PMC Card
• Xilinx Virtex-4FX FPGA,
• PCI/PCI-X interface,
• configuration FLASH, control PLD
• Two independent banks of DDR2 SDRAM,
• Stratum 3 timing generator
• Four SFP ports
• Embedded PPC
Video Processing FPGA
•Frame rate conversion from 15fps to 29.97fps
•2X horizontal and vertical scaler
•400 x 240 input resolution
•800 x 480 output resolution
•False color generation
•On screen display, battery icon, splash icon
•Dual Port DDR image buffer

10. Design Examples
Stereo Video Processor Development Board
• ASIC Verification in FPGA
•One component YPbPr input + Video Decoder
•Two component YPbPr output and Video Encoder
•MDIN3 for the SYNC signal
•2 x 16 Mb SDRAM
• Mcrocontroller with an RS232 to UUT.
HDTV Video Processor
•Multiple Video Formats
•Utilizing PCI Core
•Multi-PCI bus switch
•Multi Video Cahannel swirch
•Interface SDRAM @133MHz,
•Transitioning Next Gen. to PCIe

11. Design Examples
Multi Channel to PCI Interface Boards
• 24 RS-232/RS-422 Channels
• 24 16C954 UARTS
• PCI 32bit interface
• Implemented in an Actel FPGA
FPGA DSP Application
•MPEG 4 Pre-compensation Processor
•Non-linear Edge Adaptive Spatial Filter
•Polyphase decimation for image cropping
and scaling
•Luminance Enhancement, adjustable
LPF/HPF emphasis

12. Design Examples
Obsolete ASIC to FPGA Conversion
• Original ASIC
•a custom implementation 2 Cirrus
CD1400 (4 ch UART)
• plus custom Interface and logic
• had to be H/W and S/W compatible
•Used Altera Stratix FPGA to implement
Module Design/System on Module
• Replace obsolete ASSP/ASIC
•Use FPGA and adapter board
•Obsolete Motorola UART for phone systems
• Footprint adapter boards

13. Project Support
Weekly E-mail
Status Updates
Conference Calls Internal Engineering
Defined Milestones
Resources
Tool Offering
NorthBridge Design Supplier Ties
Expertise
On Line Project Tracking
Regular E2E Contact
Interim Design Enhancements

14. Why NorthBridge Technology …
NorthBridge
NorthBridge Technology Delivers:
Complete high quality designs
•
Comprehensive project management experience
•
Immediate expertise in all the phases of the design cycle
•
Professional results oriented engineering team
•
Proven design methodology
•
Projects on time at cost competitive rates
•
NorthBridge
Customers Hire NorthBridge Technology for:
Our ability to immerse ourselves in our customers business
•
Robust execution capabilities
•
Responsiveness and depth of commitment
•

15. NorthBridge Sales Locations…
Asia United States
•China •Alaska
•Arkansas
Canada
•Florida
•Alberta
•Idaho
•British
•Louisiana
Colombia
•Nevada
•Manitoba
•Oklahoma
•Ontario
•Oregon
•Quebec
•Puerto Rico
Europe •Washington
•Germany
•Italy

16. NorthBridge Technology
Contact information
www.northbridgetech.com
Or call at:
+1 613 228 6776 x111
NorthBridge Technology
2660 Southvale Cres., Suite 325
Ottawa, ON, K1B 4W5
Canada