Ettus Research Announcements -- Nov 2010

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Ettus R. Announcements
November 2010

1> USRP Nominated for Technology of the Year!
2> USRP N210 Product Announcement
3> DBSRX2 Product Announcement
4> RFX2200 Product Announcement
5> Rackmount Product Announcement
6> UHD Driver status
7> New Simulink Drivers for the USRP2
8> New Mailing List
9> DBSRX and TVRX End of Life
10> SDR’10 Conference and GNU Radio Meeting

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1> USRP Nominated for Technology of the Year!

The USRP Family of Products has been nominated for the 2010 Technology
of the Year award from the Wireless Innovation Forum. We are very
honored to have the USRP family be nominated from among the many
exciting products and technologies in the Software Radio field.

Members of the Wireless Innovation Forum may cast their vote online for
the winner here:

http://groups.winnforum.org/p/su/rd/sid=56

Votes need to be in by 12 Pacific Time on Friday Nov 12th.

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2> USRP N210 Product Announcement

The USRP N210 software radio system builds on the success of the USRP2,
offering higher performance and increased flexibility. The N210 offers
the following improvements over the USRP2:

  • Xilinx Spartan 3A-DSP3400 FPGA
  • on-board TCXO frequency reference
  • Flash configuration memory.
  • An improved ADC (still 14 bits, 100 MS/s)

The flash memory replaces the SD card used on the USRP2, and is
reprogrammable over the network. The N210 is usable with our entire
line of daughterboards.

The USRP N210 introductory price is $1700, and orders placed now will
ship in mid- to late- December.

The USRP2 will continue to be available for those who cannot use the
N210, but lead times may be longer.

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3> DBSRX2 Product Announcement

The DBSRX2 is now shipping. It has the same price ($150) and features
as the original DBSRX, including an 800 MHz to 2.4 GHz frequency range,
with the following improvements:

  • Better phase noise
  • No modifications necessary to use with the USRP2

The DBSRX2 works with all USRP motherboards, including USRP1, USRP2,
and USRP N210. The DBSRX2 requires the use of the UHD drivers.

Please see below for status of the original DBSRX.

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4> RFX2200 Product Announcement

The RFX2200 is now shipping. This transceiver covers 2.0 GHz to 2.45
GHz, has 50+ mW output power, and is otherwise similar to the other
members of the RFX-series. It is full duplex capable, and is ideal for
use in the satellite up and downlink bands. It costs $275 and works
with all USRP systems.

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5> Rackmount Product Announcement

We are now selling a rack mount frame for the USRP2 and USRP N210
products. This frame allows 4 systems to be mounted in a standard 19"
rack, occupying 3 Units of space. It costs $250. You can see a
picture of it here:

http://www.ettus.com/images/U2-Rackmount.JPG

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6> UHD Driver status

The UHD is now the preferred driver system for all USRP products. It
supports all of our hardware, and works well with GNU Radio as well as
other software packages. It is strongly recommended that users migrate
their applications to the new system. More information about the UHD
can be found here:

http://www.ettus.com/uhd_docs/manual/html/

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7> New Simulink Drivers for the USRP2

The MathWorks latest version (release R2010b) of Communications
Blockset

Sounds great.

Will the USRP2-N210 be supported by UHD from start (software, firmware,
bitstream) ?
Should I anticipate any problems when using a combination of old and new
USRP2s in a MIMO configuration ?

BR/
Per

On 11/14/2010 07:24 AM, Per Z. wrote:

Sounds great.

Will the USRP2-N210 be supported by UHD from start (software, firmware,
bitstream) ?

Yes, it works with UHD. The N210 will ONLY be supported by UHD, not
the old-style drivers. All of our new products going forward will be
UHD-only.

Should I anticipate any problems when using a combination of old and new
USRP2s in a MIMO configuration ?

The ADC in the USRP2 and the N210 is different, so it has a different
pipeline delay. This means you would need to account for this effect in
calibration. It is doable, but will be a little bit of work. Transmit
should match very closely as the DAC has not changed. The vast majority
of the logic in the FPGA is exactly the same between the two of them.

My suggestion is to give preference to like pairs. For example, if you
have 2 USRP2s and 2 N210s, it would be best to set them up as:

System 1 – USRP2 + USRP2
System 2 – N210 + N210

rather than mixing them.

Matt

Hello Matt:

Why the name “USRP N210” instead of just “USRP3”? I just want to
understand the new naming scheme. You imply that the N210 is but the
first in a series of future N200-family devices. Could you comment on
your plans for these devices? What is the product roadmap for the N220,
N230, etc.? Thanks.

Steve McMahon

Hello Matt:

Sorry, one more question. Will the USRP N210 still support the raw
Ethernet interface to the host (like for the USRP2), or will it only
support the new UHD interface?

Secondly, what is performance penalty of UHD interface versus the raw
Ethernet interface? UHD is based on UDP, so certainly there must be some
reduction in the maximum data rate (and thus the bandwidth) compared the
raw Ethernet interface. UDP certainly adds overhead…

Finally, if the USRP N210 only supports the new UHD interface, what is
the reason that the current raw Ethernet interface is being deprecated
in favor of UHD? What are the advantages of UHD compared to raw
Ethernet? What are the disadvantages?

Thanks a lot for answering all these questions!!

Steve McMahon

On 11/16/2010 08:20 PM, Steve M. wrote:

Secondly, what is performance penalty of UHD interface versus the raw Ethernet
interface? UHD is based on UDP, so certainly there must be some reduction in the
maximum data rate (and thus the bandwidth) compared the raw Ethernet interface.
UDP certainly adds overhead…
With UHD, you can manipulate the maximum frame sizes to an extent that
the extra bytes in the header disappear “into the noise”, so one
(IMHO) shouldn’t be concerned that UHD is a “lesser” beast in terms
of on-the-wire performance.

I run a Rx-only UHD USRP2+DBS_RX in my lab
(http://science-radio-labs.com) at 25Msps, and it’s fine. I don’t think
that the packet
overhead is really that big an issue.

Finally, if the USRP N210 only supports the new UHD interface, what is the
reason that the current raw Ethernet interface is being deprecated in favor of
UHD? What are the advantages of UHD compared to raw Ethernet? What are the
disadvantages?

****************************** STRICTLY WEARING MY USRP1/USRP2
USER/CUSTOMER HAT HERE **************************************
From my point of view, as a user of Ettus hardware with Gnu Radio,
UHD provides a more uniform abstraction layer for various physical
devices that fit in the Analog-goop+{ADC,DAC}+FPGA+data-pump
category. It’s nice not having your application need to “know”
too much about the devices it’ll be connected to. Prior to UHD,
there was no convenient way to do that (not that there was no way,
just no convenient way). Plus UHD is more platform-neutral than
what went before. It will allow Ettus (and anyone else who licenses
UHD technology, I guess) devices to be used in a broader “eco-system”
of SDR technology, and that’s never a bad thing.

On 11/16/2010 05:20 PM, Steve M. wrote:

Hello Matt:

Sorry, one more question. Will the USRP N210 still support the raw
Ethernet interface to the host (like for the USRP2), or will it only
support the new UHD interface?

We have no intention of supporting the raw ethernet interface on there.
If someone wanted to port it over from the USRP2 it is certainly
possible, but not worthwhile.

Secondly, what is performance penalty of UHD interface versus the raw
Ethernet interface? UHD is based on UDP, so certainly there must be
some reduction in the maximum data rate (and thus the bandwidth)
compared the raw Ethernet interface. UDP certainly adds overhead…

UDP/IP only add a very small amount of overhead since we are using 1500
byte packets. Our max sample rate is 25 MS/s at 16 bits I, 16 bits Q.
That gives us 800mbps, which is enough under the 1 Gbps capability that
there is plenty of room for the overhead.

Finally, if the USRP N210 only supports the new UHD interface, what
is the reason that the current raw Ethernet interface is being
deprecated in favor of UHD? What are the advantages of UHD compared
to raw Ethernet? What are the disadvantages?

That is really 2 separate questions:

The first is raw ethernet vs. UDP/IP. UDP/IP allows packets to pass
through routers. Raw ethernet requires root access on Linux, and is
extremely tough to get at on Windows. UDP/IP plays nicer with the rest
of the network stack.

The 2nd question is UHD vs. the drivers we had before. UHD consolidates
all the control of the hardware in one place, so everybody doesn’t have
to reinvent those wheels. It allows you to switch between all of our
motherboards and daughterboards (past, present, and future)
transparently to the application writer and user. UHD gives a much
better interface for timed transmission and reception, and other
advanced features that just weren’t available otherwise.

Matt

On 11/16/2010 05:12 PM, Steve M. wrote:

Hello Matt:

Why the name “USRP N210” instead of just “USRP3”? I just want to
understand the new naming scheme. You imply that the N210 is but the
first in a series of future N200-family devices. Could you comment on
your plans for these devices? What is the product roadmap for the
N220, N230, etc.? Thanks.

Steve McMahon

Steve,

Thanks for the question. Even internally we get confused about the new
naming scheme.

Each product number is one letter and 3 digits. The letter denotes how
the device is attached to the computer –
“B” stands for bus (i.e. USB)
“N” for network (ethernet in this case)
“E” for embedded computer

The first digit roughly indicates a product generation. In this case, 2
for the 2nd generation of our network devices.

The 2nd digit indicates option levels. In this case “1” indicates the
larger S3A-3400 DSP FPGA.

The third digit indicates major revisions. In this case we are on the
zeroth revision.

Had this naming system been around when the USRP1 was introduced, it
would have been called the USRP B100. There’s no point in renaming it
now, so we’ll continue calling it the USRP1. Similarly, the USRP2 would
have been called the USRP N100, but we won’t be renaming it.

There is a USRP N200 planned for March which will have a smaller Spartan
3A DSP 1800 FPGA instead of the 3400 in the already-announced N210.
This will cost $200 less than the N210 because of the smaller FPGA.

We also will be making a formal announcement very soon about the USRP
E100 and USRP E110 which will be embedded radio systems with 2 different
sizes of FPGA.

We have other products in development which will further exercise this
new naming system :slight_smile:

Matt

We also will be making a formal announcement very soon about the USRP E100
and USRP E110 which will be embedded radio >systems with 2 different
sizes
of FPGA.

Can you give us any sneak-peek details on the Embedded system? What
processor/form factor?
I ask because I’m working on putting together a system like this now …
the
E100 might save me a lot of trouble.
Thanks!
-William