HapsTrak – A Key To Success

By Bo Nilsson, Synplicity Hardware Products Group

HAPS is a modular system with multi-FPGA mother- boards and standard or custom-made daughter boards, which can be connected together in a variety of ways. Amongst the functions available on standard daughter boards are video processing, various memory types, A/D and D/A conversion, and interfaces to Ethernet, USB, PCI, PCI Express, and ARM. The robust and reliable hardware, together with the flexibility and I/O connectivity, and the large collection of off-the-shelf hardware modules has made it easy for ASIC designers to build their own customized ASIC prototype.

The HAPS concept “build your own ASIC prototype using off-the-shelf hardware modules” implies a few important key requirements. There must be a whole set of hardware modules implementing all kinds of functions and interfaces. As new standards and demands arise, new modules must be developed. Some specific demands may even require that customers develop their own modules. All these hardware modules must fit together – mechanically, electrically and functionally. The ruleset defining this is called HapsTrak.

The main components in HapsTrak are the connectors – a terminal connector and a mating socket connector. All boards in the HAPS family are equipped with at least one socket connector, placed on the bottom side of the boards. All motherboards (boards with FPGAs for customer use), and many daughter boards, also have terminal connectors on the top side. The connectors are placed in a regular matrix, 70x50 mm, and the maximal dimension of boards is defined to be 1 mm less than a multiple of 70 mm, and 50 mm respectively. The maximal height is strictly specified as well.

These modular rules make the HAPS family look like a set of LEGO® bricks – easy to understand, easy to build, and yet with an enormous amount of freedom to put together virtually any system.

The pinout in the connectors is defined with respect to power distribution, clocking, support for differential signaling, and support for all available I/O standards. The signals are also grouped together to match the clock regions in the FPGA devices.

Power is generated and distributed upwards, from the motherboard to the top side connectors and through all daughter boards. If needed, the user can easily modify HAPS motherboards to distribute power to the bottom side connectors as well.

Up to the release of the HAPS-50 family all HAPS boards used 120 pin HapsTrak connectors, with one pin dedicated for power distribution. In order to meet demand for distributing power exceeding 1A, HapsTrak II was introduced in April 2007. HapsTrak II connectors have 8 more pins, which are used for additional power, remote configuration and diagnostics.

Don’t worry – HapsTrak II connectors are fully compatible with HapsTrak I connectors, i.e., all previous HAPS boards can be used together with the new generation of boards. A key to success is compatibility.

LEGO® is a trademark of the LEGO Group of companies.