ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES

KSA possesses technology expertise in the following areas:

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

IN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING IN GENERAL, we have done all kinds of embedded realtime DSP and other firmware; diagnostics; object-oriented design and programming (C++, VC++, JAVA, CORBA, ActiveX, X-Windows/MOTIF, Smalltalk, etc.); hundreds of person-years of real-time C programming; UNIX, Windows NT, Windows 95, DOS and other systems/internals/device driver development; custom language, tool, compiler and protocol development and code porting.

. KSA wrote approximately 40% of a 1.5 million line-of-C++ code clinical information system, object-oriented throughout, the largest object-oriented project in Massachusetts at the time, for the world's leading manufacturer of patient monitoring equipment.

Extended the capabilities of the language by extending the C++ compiler a number of times, created many custom MOTIF widgets, helped develop the first distributed, object-oriented database management system in the US, designed much of the communications subsystem, and conducted most of the performance characterization and tuning.

. Assisted several clients in porting large (1.5 million+ line-of-code) systems from various flavors of UNIX to Windows NT. We subsequently assisted in the development of new functionalities in Visual C++/MFC.

. Analyzed and performance-tuned a network of workstation clients connected to a mainframe server for the reservation system of a major hotel chain

. Created a cross-platform X-Windows slide-show program to display simulation results for new medical imaging algorithms

. Developed a dynamic loading service, and integrated it into PC-DOS to support a large communications application for a major telecommunications company in C and 80X86 assembler

ASIC DEVELOPMENT

KSA has been designing complex application-specific (ASIC), semi-custom and custom IC's as well as FPGA's (Xilinx, Actel, Orca, Altera and others) at the state of the art for emulation and prototyping purposes as well as for inclusion in final product for 15+ years. We performed some of the earliest work in ATM, SONET, MPEG-2 and other telecom, datacom, video and audio applications, from specification through partitioning to verification (both chip- and board-level) to integration.

. Developed numerous complex communications ASIC's for SONET (OC-3, OC-12, OC-48), ATM (AAL-1, AAL-5), and DS-3 transmission and switching systems, operating at speeds near the state-of-the-art for CMOS.

. Analyzed and optimized the performance of a RISC integer and floating point processor custom chip set.

. Assisted in product definition followed by design partitioning among multiple ASIC's. Developed an ASIC using behavioral VHDL with synthesis. Incorporated JTAG scan-testing. Invented a novel protection switching circuit for the design, resulting in a patent (which was assigned to our client).

. Introduced a department of a major telecommunications company to ASIC design using HDL (VHDL) and synthesis (Synopsys). Provided in-depth expertise and training to our client.

. Developed and ASIC to mix multiple video streams. The design was done in VHDL using Synopsys for synthesis and was implemented as a 100k gate 0.5 micron CMOS gate array.

. Developed a SONET STS-1 interface chip using VHDL and Synopsys. The device was implemented using a 100k gate CMOS standard cell.

. Developed a board-level functional simulation capability for complex mixed-signal boards. This involved porting ASIC models between Viewlogic and Mentor toolsets and then integrating ASIC, VHDL, FPGA, structural and behavioral logic, analog, backplane, and test-bench models together with a custom user interface. The resulting simulation was able to run application code and predict system performance.

. Implemented designs as FPGAs to quickly prototype ASIC's.

. Consolidated multiple FPGA's (Xilinx, Orca, Actel, Altera, etc) into single ASIC's for several clients.

. Conducted numerous ASIC-oriented cost-reduction efforts

. Performed all the R&D and applications engineering for the $70 million frequency control products division of one of our customers, a large telecommunications products manufacturer, which included development of analog IC's, hybrids, timing recovery units, SAW oscillators, VCXO's, TCXO's, etc, primarily for cellular and fiberoptic telecommunications applications

. Developed DS-3 framers for various products, including a semi-custom IC which does transmit, receive and framing functions for 24 DS-3's

PCI INTERFACES

. KSA has substantial PCI interface development experience and complete in-house PCI interface design capability. We have developed proprietary, customizable, portable, performance-optimized PCI target and initiator designs which can be implemented in ASIC's or FPGA's, depending on client needs. These designs are suitable for use in PC applications, in CompactPCI and PMC applications, and in embedded PCI applications.

These interface chips are optimized for high performance (e.g., we achieve wire-rate bandwidth for bi-directional OC-3 payloads through the PCI bus). They have as their back ends DMA controllers which effectively create "fat pipes" which lend themselves to all kinds of I/O applications which need streams of data (e.g., OC-3, T3, multiple T1's, single, dual or triple HSSI, X.25, DVB ASI, Fiberchannel, ESCON, DXI, etc.) for forwarding IP, PPP, HDLC and Frame Relay traffic from routers and other applications. Several chips and multiple busses can be combined to provide an interface to support higher data rates (e.g., four devices for OC-12).

We are certain that we can implement 64-bit PCI interfaces running at 66 MHz with 3.3V signalling, given the requirement. KSA also has the experience and capability to write device drivers, including Configuration Space managers, for our interfaces in a wide variety of applications and environments.

Please contact Tom Robitaille (tr@ksa1.com or 617-527-2000) to explore OEM arrangements for WAN and I/O cards.

CompactPCI HOT SWAP TECHNOLOGY

Drawing on KSA's experience gained from developing fault tolerant telecommunications systems and computers over the years for the major players in these industries, KSA has applied its knowledge to produce a hot swap solution for CompactPCI.

We divide the necessary technology into five areas: Electrical, Mechanical, PCI Protocol, Operating System Software, and Application Software. We have addressed the issues and have solutions to offer in each of these areas.

At the electrical level, we have developed simulation models and scenarios to predict the signal integrity and transient effects of hot insertion and removal. We have extended our modeling for clients to evaluate non-standard physical topologies (such as altered card spacings) and connector schemes. We have solutions to offer using FET switches where the silicon does not directly support hot swap. We also have power management technology to address insertion/removal power transients, and can architect a fault management scheme consistent with your requirements.

At the mechanical level we offer a solution to the signaling and electrical latch-up problems using pin sequencing in combination with other methods.

At the protocol level, we have determined how to accomplish insertion and removal in a way which results in no system disruption.

At the operating system level, we have developed the architecture and services required to support hot swap system needs. We can port our technology to the operating system of your choice.

At the application software level, each implementation is unique, however all can employ concepts and techniques that we have developed.

We can provide a complete solution which is compliant with the current draft of the CompactPCI Hot Swap Specification (0.4) or customized to suit your needs. KSA technology will enable you to bring your product to market with Hot Swap capability much sooner than otherwise possible.

FIRMWARE

KSA has specified, architected, designed, implemented, tested and supported firmware for most modern microprocessors and digital signal processors. Applications have included real-time control of and signal processing in telecommunications, data communications, videoconferencing, video-on-demand, multimedia, medical and test equipment.

. Developed real-time control firmware for an ATM switch in a C++/pSOS environment.

. Analyzed and developed portions of the real-time COMSEC executive, wrote cryptographic verification routines, and designed portions of the Black traffic software of a secure communications system for a major telecommunications company.

. Developed code for an embedded RISC processor (AMD 29030) in an ATM/MPEG-2 video multiplexer. A portion of the functionality in the 155 Mb/s transmission path was implemented with execution-speed-optimized assembly language.

. Converted network management control software from 8051 assembler to C for a major computer networking company.

. Developed diagnostics for a Token Ring network interface card for high-performance workstations.

. Wrote local area network drivers which optimized bus bandwidth on a proprietary system.

. Developed portions of the user interface and diagnostics for a medical imaging system, using pSOS on a MC68000.

. We have performed several hundred person-years of real-time embedded control of various telecommunications platforms in pSOS and VRTX on Motorola 68000- and PowerPC-series microprocessors as well as all Intel platforms, including 80186, 80286, 80386, 80486, Pentium, I960, etc.

SYSTEM INTEGRATION AND TEST

KSA has developed test plans, hardware and/or software-based test systems, scripts and suites, etc. for several first-ever technologies, including SONET, ATM and MPEG-2.

. Created an MPEG-2/ATM/SONET testbed by modifying an HP 75000 Broadband Test Set in hardware and software to generate and monitor MPEG-2 and electrical TAXI.

. Assisted in the system integration and test of a video dial tone network for a Local Exchange Carrier. The system included video server, ATM switch, hybrid fiber coax system and set top box products from different vendors tested together for the first time.

. Developed the system test plan, a custom test language and test suites for a secure voice and data transmission system. The project also involved design of several PC plug-in cards and software development (language definition, development of a concurrent test language and implementation of scripts, verification of encryption algorithms, etc.)

. Developed and implemented an award-winning software quality assurance plan for a Fortune 100 company.

. Networked a Japanese-language PC with other test equipment into an integrated test system using UNIX and C tools.

. Developed an integrated test system for a SONET transmission system involving distributed processing, C++, TCP-IP and X-windows.

. Developed scan diagnostic software for a top-of-the-line workstation for a leading computer company.

. Specified and developed the system integration and test plan for an RBOC's hybrid fiber/coax video and data transmission system.

. Specified and developed the system integration and test plans for three separate SONET/ATM/frame relay/DS-1/DS-3 access multiplexers for three separate customers.

. Performed a world-wide search for vendors of esoteric subsystems to be used in a multimillion dollar medical imaging system which significantly reduced overall development time.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Since 1978, KSA has assisted the end-users of computer systems and networks (banks, hospitals, insurance companies, manufacturing companies, etc.) in specifying, designing, coding, testing and integrating cutting-edge technologies. We are experts at object-oriented design and programming for Web-based (HTML/JAVA/Netscape, etc.), client-server and mainframe-based systems.

. Performed 40% of the development work (approximately 50 person-years over five elapsed years) on a 1.5 million line-of-C++-code, distributed (client-server) medical information system. This system, which is object-oriented throughout, ran on H-P 9000 workstations under HP-UX for the first four years of its existence. Much of the code was then ported to Windows NT and new applications developed in Visual C++ under Windows NT using MFC/OLE/CORBA, etc., to create essentially three categories of system for different environments: the original HP-UX/C++/MOTIF system, a UNIX server/Pentium NT client version, and a Pentium/NT version.

KSA was responsible for the most technical tasks on the project. This system makes extensive use of X/MOTIF graphical user interfaces, for which we created custom widgets before MOTIF-standard widgets were available sufficient to the task. The user interfaces are very sophisticated in that most are user-customizable, which cuts down by several orders of magnitude on the amount of time the core development team must spend customizing those user interfaces; the user community does that work itself with some help-desk involvement. We also developed many straightforward data management/data handling ("middleware") kinds of applications. This system represents one of the earliest large-scale deployments of object-oriented systems in the US and has won several awards for advancement of the state of the art in object-oriented technology.

We extended the C++ compiler several times when the language was insufficient for exception handling and other requirements. We assisted in the creation of a distributed, object-oriented database when no such database was commercially available. We have developed many specialized development and system installation tools in AWK, Perl, C++ and C; have done all the system performance characterization and tuning; prepared the system/documentation for ISO 9000 certification and walked the modules through FDA approval; have done all of the communications subsystem (real-time 10 Base-T/ethernet) customization and integration work.

. For Sheraton Corporation, we performed 10+ person-years of application development on a real-time, distributed hotel reservation system, which used an IBM 3090/DB2/CICS as a server and 500 HP-9000 UNIX workstations as clients. We specified, designed prototyped and coded a large percentage of the applications on the client side, using Informix as the database. The server side used CAP/NETRON, a 60 transaction-per-second mainframe-oriented database product, in which we had our people trained, as it was not commonly used in the US. We also designed and implemented the communications subsystem, which ran LU 6.2 on the server side and TCP/IP as an interface to the UNIX clients.

. Performed an analysis of requirements, wrote a book of standards, and created a suite of help desk applications in Lotus Notes for Openview deployment, including network security, for Dun & Bradstreet. We also substantially assisted in deploying Lotus Notes across D&B's network by creating standards for its use and developing automated help-desk applications, in Lotus Notes, to support the user community.

. Relocated corporate data centers for the Continental Group (Continental Can, Florida Power & Light, Life of Virginia) and United Brands (Chiquita brands), both Fortune 100 companies with very large systems, code bases, etc. We migrated Kendall Healthcare's applications from two 3090's in Colgate-Palmolive's corporate data center in New Jersey to 40 distributed AS/400's at various locations throughout the US. We also assisted substantially in the relocation of Fidelity's corporate telecommunications center from Massachusetts to Texas, one of many projects performed for Fidelity.

We will be pleased to assist your product development efforts. For more information: Contact Us