Travel to a new dimension in vision processing with Matrox Odyssey

Launched at Semicon West 2002, Matrox Imaging's Odyssey Xpro and Odyssey XCL vision processor boards integrate the latest off-the-shelf and custom technologies with an established, fourth-generation architecture to deliver unprecedented performance and value.

The scalable Matrox Odyssey Xpro features the premier Motorola G4 PowerPC™ embedded microprocessor, running at 1 GHz. The PowerPC, combined with Matrox Imaging's state-of-the-art Oasis processing and router ASICs, delivers over 130 billion operations per second (BOPS). The single-slot Odyssey Xpro also offers over 5 GB per second of memory bandwidth, up to 1 GB of DDR SDRAM memory and up to 2 GB per second of external I/O bandwidth. These features, combined with the latest PCI-X bus technology and its linearly scalable architecture, provide the Odyssey Xpro with the power and flexibility needed for vision applications today and tomorrow.

Matrox Oasis ASIC
The high-density Matrox Oasis ASIC is the pivotal component on the Odyssey Xpro and integrates a CPU bridge, main memory controller, Pixel Accelerator and Links Controller. The Pixel Accelerator (PA) is a parallel processor core that accelerates neighborhood, point-to-point and LUT mapping operations. It consists of an array of 64 processing elements all working in parallel. Operating at a core frequency of 167 MHz enables the PA to process up to two billion pixels per second.

The Links Controller (LINX) is the router that manages all data movement inside and outside the processing node, which consists of the Pixel Accelerator, CPU and main memory. It can handle several concurrent video and message streams, thereby offloading data management tasks from the CPU and PA and allowing them to focus on image processing tasks.

With 22.4 million transistors, the Oasis also incorporates the 64-bit, 133 MHz CPU bus interface to the G4 PowerPC and a 128-bit wide, 166 MHz double data rate DRAM interface capable of transferring image data at rates of up to 5.3 GB per second.

PCI-X interconnectivity
The Odyssey Xpro is the first vision processor on the market to take full advantage of the latest bus technology. PCI-X is a high-performance, backwards-compatible enhancement to the conventional PCI bus specification. Version 1.0 of PCI-X specifies a 64-bit physical connection running at speeds of up to 133 MHz, resulting in a peak bandwidth of up to 1 GB per second. The custom-designed Matrox System Interface Bridge (SIB), a four-port PCI-X router, handles the PCI-X connections on the Odyssey Xpro, including those between processing nodes, to optional frame grabber modules and to the host PC, including display. The Odyssey Xpro offers superb scalability by way of a pair of link ports dedicated to interconnecting multiple boards. These ports provide point-to-point PCI-X connections, delivering up to 1 GB per second of bandwidth.

Plug-in modules
The Odyssey Xpro can capture from the majority of area or line scan video sources, thanks to a standard PCI mezzanine card (PMC) site located on the board that allows for the addition of Camera Link™ and analog frame grabber modules. The Camera Link module, which acquires up to 680 MB per second, is available in two versions. The dual-base version enables simultaneous acquisition from two completely independent Camera Link video sources using the Base configuration, while the single-full configuration acquires from a single Camera Link video source using the Base, Medium or Full configuration. The analog module, which acquires up to 800 MB per second, provides four 10-bit/100MHz channels that can be used independently or synchronized together.

Matrox Odyssey XCL
The Odyssey XCL is an entry-level, non-scalable version of the Odyssey Xpro, geared towards cost-sensitive yet computationally intensive applications. Also featuring the Motorola G4 PowerPC™ embedded microprocessor, running at 600 MHz, the Odyssey XCL offers 256 MB of DDR SRAM memory, up to 1 GB per second of external I/O bandwidth, over 5 GB per second of memory bandwidth and delivers up to 120 BOPS. The Odyssey XCL also takes full advantage of PCI-X bus technology and integrates a Camera Link frame grabber that acquires up to 680 MB per second and offers the same configuration options as the Odyssey Xpro Camera Link module.

All-encompassing software environment
The Odyssey software development tools for both the Odyssey Xpro and Odyssey XCL offer developers a choice of application programming interfaces (APIs) and programming models. The board can be programmed using either the award-winning, hardware-independent Matrox Imaging Library (MIL) or the Matrox Odyssey Native Library (ONL), which is compatible with the Matrox Genesis family of vision processors. Both options come with royalty-free run-time environments.

Developers are provided with high-level algorithms and workload distribution across multiple boards. Highly optimized for the Odyssey family's onboard processors, these software libraries are carefully tuned to exhibit low function call overhead, thereby maximizing application efficiency and performance. In terms of application control, developers can either run their application remotely from the host PC, run it entirely on the board itself, or write their own custom functions for the Odyssey's onboard processors.

The Matrox Odyssey family offers support for Microsoft® Windows® 2000, Windows® XP, QNX® Neutrino® and Linux.

For more information, please call High-Tech Digital  at 310-265-8203, or e-mail your questions to info@high-techdigital.com.