October 23, 2024 – Beaverton, CO. The AXIe Consortium and TECHWAY – Signal Vision System jointly announce that TECHWAY has joined the AXIe Consortium. TECHWAY further announced a new breakthrough product based on ODI (Optical Data Interface) technology. ODI, a standard managed by the AXIe Consortium, breaks speed and distance barriers by relying on optical communication between devices over a standard pluggable optical fiber. This allows ODI to address challenging real-time applications in 5G communications, radar, electronic warfare, and GNSS including electronic measurement and embedded applications.
Patrick Mechin, founder of TECHWAY stated, “We are developing high-end solutions to serve advanced technologies based on FPGA and high-speed communication. ODI is an exciting candidate. Our breakthrough PCIe ODI-ready platform, with its reduced costs, sets new paradigm for ODI implementation. We are glad to be part of AXIe Consortium and to be able to contribute to ODI expansion.”
TECHWAY’s PCIe ODI-ready platform highlights a pluggable PCIe card with an ODI interface supported by both Windows and Linux drivers. The product is capable of generating and receiving ODI data at a sustained rate up to 16GB/s (128 Gb/s).
Brian LeMay, Chairman of the Board of the AXIe Consortium stated, “We welcome TECHWAY as our newest member of the AXIe Consortium. By offering a compelling PCIe-based ODI product, TECHWAY has dramatically expanded the solution space for ODI-based applications. Being an open standard, TECHWAY’s product can be combined with other ODI products to address challenging applications where high-speed gapless streaming is a requirement.”
ODI-based products have been previously announced by Conduant Corporation, Guzik Technical Enterprises, and Keysight Technologies. Additionally, Samtec Incorporated offers the Samtec FireFly, an optical engine capable of generating and receiving ODI signals. This can be used by any vendor to create new ODI-based products.
Larry Desjardin, AXIe Technical Chairman said, “TECHWAY’s offering is an exciting expansion of ODI capability. When you look at 5G or phased-array mil/aero applications, the aggregate bandwidth needed to transfer IQ data grows pretty rapidly. Electrical solutions can’t extend across a backplane, much less a racked system. But with optics, you can connect products up to 100 meters away if needed. The interoperability, bandwidth, and distance issues simply disappear.” Desjardin added, ”However, ODI is not simply a physical link standard. We’ve adopted the VITA 49 standards, which define data formats for software defined radios. This extends the applications from not just test and measurement, but to embedded designs as well.”
Though managed by the AXIe Consortium, the ODI standard is not specific to AXIe, and works equally well with any format. Products have been announced in AXIe, LXI, and PXI formats, traditional instrumentation form factors, and, with TECHWAY’s introduction, as a PCIe card.
A set of ODI technical specifications is posted on the AXIe website, along with a technical overview. Any manufacturer may adopt the ODI specification, and a manufacturer may participate in the ODI Technical Committee by joining the AXIe Consortium.
About the AXIe Consortium
AXIe is an instrumentation standard based on AdvancedTCA (ATCA) with extensions for instrumentation and test. AXIe Consortium membership is open to all vendors who agree with the stated goals and intend to provide solutions to the marketplace.
About TECHWAY
Founded in 2003, TECHWAY develops advanced electronic solutions for signal and video acquisition and processing in real time solutions. For more information, visit www.techway.com.
