Institute for Biocomputation and
Physics of Complex Systems

Laboratory of Electronics

The laboratory of electronics is where we perform all hardware and software tests related with the development of the "Ianus" machine: an FPGA-based dedicated computer.

The upper image shows one of the worktables, equipped with a Windows computer and a 64-bit Linux computer. Both are used for software programming, VHDL programming, hardware simulation and compiling. Another 64-bit Linux PC is used as host computer for a Ianus board, and dedicated to physics simulations.

Preliminary tests on FPGAs were performed on two development boards:

Altera PCI Development Board, equipped with one Altera Stratix EP1S60F1020C6

Virtex-4 Evaluation kit, with a Xilinx Virtex-4 LX25

These boards are no longer used, as all tests are currently performed on new multi-FPGAs boards:

DINI DN8000k10 board with two Xilinx Virtex-4 LX200

Ianus prototype board with one IOP node and two SP nodes, all of them Xilinx Virtex-4 LX160

Another Ianus board, complete with 16 SP nodes, is available and used mainly for massive simulations of Spin Glass models:

Each board is connected to a host computer.

Among other things the laboratory is furnished with:

• Two digital Tektronix digital oscilloscopes
• Soldering instruments
• Magnifiyng lamp
• Two digital multimeters