XpressSX AGI-FH400G

Presentation of the Intel® Agilex™ board

XpressSX AGI-FH400G
use case for the XpressSX AGI-FH400G board
use case for the XpressSX AGI-FH400G board
XpressSX AGI-FH400G
use case for the XpressSX AGI-FH400G board
use case for the XpressSX AGI-FH400G board

Product overview

The XpressSX AGI-FH400G Agilex™ I-Series SoC PCIe board is a full-height, half-length PCIe Gen5 Network Processing board, featuring the Agilex™ I-Series SoC FPGA and 400 GB Ethernet.

The Intel® Agilex™ board is based on an Intel® Agilex™ I-series SoC FPGA. This device is optimized for bandwidth-intensive applications that require a high-performance processor interface, supported by the CXL™ standard interface, the PCIe Gen5 x16 interface, and transceiver tiles with data rates of up to 116 Gbps.

The FPGA board is delivered with a 2-slot PCIe active heatsink and is specifically optimized for embedded applications.

Target markets are Security SmartNIC, Memory expansion & sotrage, and Networking switch.

reflex ces & CESNET collaborated to provide a complete solution for network security and monitoring, smart NIC, and networking acceleration applications, through the Liberouter project.

reflex ces & Brnologic collaborated, through the Dynanic project, to provide a complete FPGA-based SmartNIC solution on the XpressSX AGI-FH400G board.

Benefits & features

  • Intel® Agilex™ I-Series SoC FPGA
  • Quad Core ARM® Cortex® A53
  • 2700 KLE
  • PCIe Edge Gen5 x16, CXL™ EP compatible
  • 400GbE (8 x 56)
  • 3x DDR4 banks
  • 4x HSI connectors (2x PCIe Gen5 x16 EP/RP, 1x CXL™ EP compatible)

 

The main advantage of the Intel® Agilex™ board is the 400-Gigabit Ethernet capability, specially designed for SmartNIC applications.

 

The FPGA is an Intel® Agilex™ I-Series SoC device. Intel® Agilex™ I-Series SoC FPGA devices also integrate the quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor to provide high system integration.

The Intel® Agilex™ I-Series FPGA has options to integrate Compute Express Link™ (CXL™), an open standard interconnect protocol for high-speed CPU-to-device and CPU-to-memory. This standard is built on the PCIe physical and electrical interface.

 

The FPGA delivers up to 40% lower power for applications in data centers, networking, and edge computing.

FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) are used to offer high-capacity logic and memory storage.

The system-on-chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit inside the FPGA, most often a CPU (central processing unit) processor and supporting peripherals, that provides more flexibility and integration, and allows the FPGA to better control the board.

 

Our Intel® Agilex™ board offers primary interfaces and components, such as 400 Gb Ethernet, PCIe Gen5 x16 (CXL™ compatible), HSI connectors (offering transceivers for PCI Express), power supplies, a USB 2.0 port (for JTAG, UART, BMC), high-speed transceivers, DDR4 (on-board and SO-DIMM) interfaces and more. These components are from Intel®, Micron Technology, Inc., STMicroelectronics, and Cypress Semiconductor.

 

The Agilex™ board has a full height, half-length, 2-slot PCI Express form factor, specially designed to fit into various servers and chassis available on the market, as well as custom rack systems for embedded applications.

The Peripheral Component Interconnect Express, commonly known as PCI Express, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard. Our FPGA board offers up to three PCI Express x16 slots or two CXL™ standard interfaces. Added to an Intel® Agilex™ SoC FPGA I-series, this makes our board quick and efficient.

 

Reduce time to market of your next embedded project with our Agilex™ SoC board, using the Intel® Quartus Prime development tools. We draw on our firmware, hardware, and software skills, and full documentation package and reference designs to create our boards.

 

The Intel® Agilex™ board is RoHS and REACH standard compliant.

 

Our Intel® Agilex™ board is specially designed for customer needs and specifications.

Our sales team is available to advise you on the best solution to meet your requirements. Contact us at sales@reflexces.com.

Diagrams

Block diagram of the Intel® Agilex™ board:

 

Software Frameworks

Open-source Development Framework for High-speed Packet Processing

Start your design from standard NIC

  • Provided as a free demo application
  • Network module based on F-Tile 400G Ethernet Hard IP
  • Ultra fast DMA with 400 Gbps throughput based on PCIe Gen5 x16 interface (R-Tile)
  • Easy to use memory interface for single read/write data from/to card
  • Preconfigured DDR4 controller for memory access from the user logic
  • Precise timestamps with 2.5 ns resolution for 400G Ethernet

Easy to use Development Framework

  • Set of open-source IP cores for data manipulation
  • Automatic scripts for complete design synthesis
  • Single make command to create complete FPGA bitstream
  • Bitstream identification through DeviceTree ROM
  • Easy to use software stack in a single RPM package
  • Linux kernel driver, DPDK support, user space library, tools for the configuration of components
  • Easy creation of custom application by user-friendly API for component access and DMA transfers
  • Fully parameterizable and modular hardware and software architecture

-> More details as well as sources of the open-source development framework can be found here: https://www.liberouter.org/ndk/
-> License for the use of Ultra-fast DMA IP Core can be obtained here: https://support.brnologic.com/

 

DYNANIC: complete FPGA-based SmartNIC solution on XpressSX AGI-FH400G

DYNANIC comes with the universal high-speed FPGA packet processing pipeline for XpressSX AGI-FH400G. This pipeline consists of components required for various packet processing in many use-cases. And so DYNANIC enables full utilization of FPGA-technology without prior FPGA knowledge!

Agilex 400g PCIe board fpga packet processing pipeline

This wire-speed capable FPGA pipeline is controlled from the host software by standardized and open-source RTE Flow DPDK API. For example, to set up the filtration rule in the pipeline, it is only needed to write a few lines of code in C++ or Python programming language.

 

Unique features of DYNANIC solution on XpressSX AGI-FH400G :

  • No need for FPGA development, processing pipeline is given
  • Standardized and open-source DPDK software stack
  • Processing pipeline controlled by standard RTE Flow interface
  • Full 400 Gbps throughput to and from host RAM
  • Configurable packet parser supporting protocols from L2 to L4
  • Different filtering options utilizing internal or external memories
  • Flow tracking with fast atomic insert/removal from host
  • Solution ready for different link speeds even on given card
  • Lossless traffic processing at wire-speeds from 100G to 400G

DYNANIC solution on XpressSX AGI-FH400G available now! Order it now: www.dyna-nic.com

Tech specs

FPGA Configuration

  • Intel® Agilex™ I-Series : AGIB027R29A1E2V including SoC Quad Core ARM® Cortex® A53
  • R29A/D package compatibility
  • HPS interface : Ethernet RJ45, UART, USB Device, SDCARD/EMMC, 2x LED, SPI to Max 10
  • Flash configuration
  • USB 2.0 Hub for JTAG, UART, BMC, USB2

Memory

  • 1x on-board DDR4 (mutual SoC / FPGA), x64 bit bus, 8GBytes up to 2666 MT/s
  • 2x DDR4 SO-DIMM sockets (for FPGA), each capable up to 32GBytes SO-DIMM, with ECC, up to 2666 MT/s
  • eMMC or SD Card holder (if used) for SoC

Power

  • 200W max, delivered with 2-slot active cooling heatsink
  • Powered by the PCIe slot and an 8 pin PCIe Aux ATX external connector (additional power)

Board dimensions: Full height half length: 167.7mm x 111.15mm

Operating range: 0°C to 35°C
Storage range: 0°C to 70°C

Communication interfaces

  • PCIe Edge Gen5 x16
  • CXL™ EP standard compatible*:
    • Open standard interconnection for high-speed CPU-to-device and CPU-to-memory
    • Built on the PCIe physical and electrical interface
  • 8x QSFP-DD (8x 53G: 400G total)
  • 2x HSI connectors (ARF6-16-L-RA): Total of 16 transceivers for PCIe Gen5 End Point / Root Port, CXL™ End Point standard compatible
  • 2x HSI connectors (ARF6-16-L-RA): Total of 16 transceivers for PCIe Gen5 End Point / Root Port
  • 2x USB-C connectors for HSI Clocks & control signals

*Use of CXL™ features might require separate CXL™ IP license purchase. Please contact Intel® for details.

Other resources

  • Board Management Controller (Max® 10 device)
  • Programmable PLL

Standards and compliance

  • RoHS/REACH compliant
  • UL certified
  • ISO9001 certified

 

Additional PCIe Gen5 x16 daughter card

The XpressSX AGI-FH400G board is delivered with accessories : a PCI Edge Gen5 x16 daughter card, two HSI cables and a USB-C cable.

This PCIe Edge Gen5 x16 daughter card needs to be inserted in a PCIe Gen5 compatible server to deliver the full PCIe Gen5 x16 performances.

The daughter card can also be used in PCIe Gen4 slot in case the server is not supporting Gen5, and it also supports x8x8 bifurcation mode.

 

Deliverables

Deliverables

  • Full height half length 2-slot PCIe board with active heatsink and PCIe bracket
  • 2x DDR4 SO-DIMM 32GByte each, one SD card
  • 2x HSI cables (ARC6-16-10.0-LU-LD-2-1) and 1x USB-C to USB-C cables (0.72ft), 3.1 Gen2 to connect the PCIe Gen5 x16 daughter card
  • PCIe Gen5 x16 (Gen4 x16 compatible) daughter card
  • 1-year technical support and 1-year warrantee
  • Online support at support.reflexces.com
  • NDK package (including DPDK NIC application) provided separately by BrnoLogic
  • Board Support Package (download it from reflex ces online support)
    • Reference Manual
    • FPGA HDL Full feature Design (Quartus Prime Pro Edition 23.3)
    • HPS Software :
      Built with Yocto Project version 4.1 (langdale)
      U-Boot bootloader (v2022.07), ATF Linux kernel (v5.15) and linux Poky distribution
    • BMC Software
    • Mechanical files: 3D DWF/STEP models and 2D CAD drawing (upon request)

Ordering Information

  • XpressSXAGI-FH400GT // Intel® Agilex™ SoC I-Series based on Production Silicon (AGIB027R29A1E2V)

Contact sales for availability and pricing

Export control ECCN

ECCN Number : 5A002.a

CECC (commodity Export Classification Certificate) : Download certificate

Applications

Target Network Applications

Hardware acceleration of precise network monitoring, IDS/IP systems, next generation firewalls, test equipment, Anti DDoS and other time-critical networking applications.

Only one card for 10, 40, 100, 200 and 400 GE link speeds.

Network monitoring probes

▪ high-speed packet capture with up to 512 receive queues, DPDK support
▪ Extraction of features for encrypted traffic analysis
▪ Variety of packet classification engines with wire-speed performance:
▪ TCAM with up to 512 general rules, each defined with individual wildcard mask
▪ Longest Prefix Match in deep pipeline with capacity for up to 100k prefixes
▪ Exact Match hash table with support for up to a million unique keys
▪ DDR/QDR/HBM based connection tables with tens of millions flow records

Security devices

▪ Hardware filters and pattern matching to accelerate IDS/IPS systems
▪ Precise packet filtering and packet capture for lawful interception
▪ Anti DDoS with hardware IP or flow filtering controlled by software

 

Design services

The card is prepared for custom hardware acceleration in FPGA

We provide FPGA design based on high-speed 400 Gb IP cores for:

▪ packet headers parsing (Ethernet, ICMP, IPv4, IPv6, MPLS, etc.),
▪ packet filtering and classification,
▪ flow cache and connection tracking tables,
▪ fast pattern matching and
▪ many other IP cores for fast packet processing in deep pipelines.

Related products

Newsletter - Keep me informed

If you want to know more about reflex ces, sign up for our newsletter to be updated on our initiatives, sectorial news and upcoming events.