The folks at Opal Kelly – you know, the guys and gals who create powerful FPGA USB 2.0 modules that provide essential device-to-computer interconnect – have announced the Opal Kelly Experts Program.  This program introduces Opal Kelly customers to qualified Opal Kelly expert consultants to augment in-house expertise and bandwidth for completing FPGA and FrontPanel-based development.

Just to make sure we're all tap-dancing to the same drum-beat. Let's briefly remind ourselves just what it is that the folks at Opal Kelly do ... this will help us understand why their Experts Program is so cool.

Let's suppose you are designing something really cool like some form of industrial control system – maybe one using an incredibly robotic vision system. Let's say that you've got the design well in hand ... except for the fact that you need to send your images and other data back and forth to a host PC.

You decide that USB is the way to go... the only problem is that you don’t have any USB experience and creating a USB interface is a lot more complex than you might think. Do you really want to spend months of effort mastering the complexities of USB, or would you rather use an affordable, off-the-shelf module that you can simply drop on top of your main circuit board?

I know – it's a dumb question – of course you'd rather use the existing module, because this is a low-risk solution that will get you to the market (and profit) as quickly as possible. That's where the guys and gals at Opal Kelly come into the picture – they make a wide variety of FPGA-based USB 2.0 modules suitable for just about anything you might want to do. The FPGA allows you to customize the module to interface to your main board however you wish (you might also decide to use this FPGA to perform additional processing on your data before passing it to the PC).

In addition to the modules themselves, Opal Kelly also provide an API that allow you to link your tools to theirs. This API is available in the form of C++, Python, and Java libraries, and the DLL allows you to work in a variety of 3rd party tools including Matlab and LabVIEW.

But wait, there's more... for lightning-fast development and testing, you can use Opal Kelly's FrontPanel Application to build interfaces to your design consisting of virtual instruments such as LEDs, pushbuttons, hex displays, and many more. Be rid of clunky I/O boards forever!

This all sounds jolly easy ... in fact it is jolly easy ... but only if you already have a clue about working with FPGAs. If not, then you are sort of caught between a rock and a hard place. But do not despair ... turn that frown upside down into a smile ... because this is where Opal Kelly's expert consultants leap onto the center of the stage with a fanfare of trumpets – Taa-Daa!

The consultants in the Opal Kelly Expert Program have been selected for their expertise in HDL, FPGA, and software design. The program is designed to be a win-win – the folks at Opal Kelly simply perform the introduction between their customers and these expert consultants – they don’t take a commission or any fee for connecting everyone together.

Three seasoned experts have been selected as the founding consultants for the program:

Kevin Smith is an experienced digital design engineer and system architect with 12 years of Xilinx experience and a track record of creative uses of hardware and software to solve problems. Most recently, he has been consulting on low-cost military radar projects and has an active DOD secret security clearance. He has also consulted on digital video, high-speed data capture cards using the PCI bus, and written interfaces for many standard devices: DDR memory controllers, flash, I2C, etc. Kevin also does VHDL and Verilog training and design consulting to enable the success of others.

"With Opal Kelly boards, we have created mini-platforms for data capture and replaying scenarios that are impossible to reproduce in the field, as our tests involve moving vehicles, noise, projectiles, and temperature. Our Opal Kelly emulation systems can log these variables and then re-play them into the system to test various algorithms."

Klaus Zietlow is a one-stop shop for electronics design, analog, digital, and mixed signals. He has worked on everything from high-speed, high-precision analog to FPGA embedded multiprocessor designs to ultra low-power radios.  Mr. Zietlow has a fully-equipped lab and knows how to use it: everything from a 7-digit voltage calibrator to a 4GHz DSO, curve tracer to real-time spectrum analyzer, reflow oven to thermal imaging camera, and an inspection microscope to time interval analyzer.  Zietlow specializes in circuit design and debugging, system analysis and optimization, VHDL, Verilog, DSP, C, C++, and LabVIEW.

"I have recently used Opal Kelly modules to prototype a production board for an Agilent DNA Microarray scanner. The purpose of the board is to acquire data from two photo multiplier tubes (PMT) that are at the receiving end of a laser fluorescence scanner. The PMT signals are amplified and sampled using a quad 14-bit / 44 MSPS ADC and sent over LVDS to the XEM3005 at 622 Mbps. The prototype used LabVIEW to control the design."

Rainer Malzbender has been an engineering consultant since 1986, and gravitates toward work involving displays and image processing, covering the spectrum from small microdisplays to direct-view displays for portable applications, digital cinema and 3D. He develops complete systems that include FPGAs and associated PC software and algorithms. In the past five years he has made extensive forays into the world of x-ray physics for medicine, designing x-ray lenses, dosimetry software, and laboratory automation as part of a radiotherapy startup.  His specialties include: VHDL, microprocessor firmware, displays, image processing, and Mathematica. He has a PhD in physics.

"I have developed for Opal Kelly's XEM3050, XEM3010, and XEM3001 modules. I am currently designing Xilinx Spartan-6 systems while also continuing to use Opal Kelly boards for scientific instrumentation and display controllers."

"Opal Kelly is very pleased to introduce these seasoned developers as expert resources for our customers," said Jake Janovetz, President of Opal Kelly. "This program is a win-win-win for customers, Experts and Opal Kelly.   All parties benefit from applying the Experts’ experiences to customer projects using Opal Kelly FPGA USB modules."

Click Here for more information about the Opal Kelly Experts Program.