Fixnetix is tapping BittWare, and its latest Altera Stratix V FPGA-based network cards, to support the second phase of its iX-eCute trade execution and pre-trade risk service. The move represents a boost for Altera, since iX-eCute originally leveraged FPGAs from rival Xilinx.
“We’re pleased to be at the second phase of iX-eCute, and our newly upgraded FPGA solution is now operating on the Altera Stratix V chips with 10/40gE and BittWare PCIe Gen 2 and 3 card,” says Fixnetix CTO Matt Dangerfield. “With this increased functionality and improved latency for trading and risk control, Fixnetix is at the forefront of being able to respond to regulatory changes for our global customer base of banks, hedge funds and proprietary trading groups.”
When iX-eCute was originally designed in 2010, it made use of custom-designed PCIe cards, equipped with Xilinx FPGAs. Since then, the number of commercially available FPGA/network cards has increased, and more powerful FPGA chips have been released.
“Our S5-PCIe slot card combines the industry’s highest performance FPGA – Altera’s Stratix V – with on-board memory and multiple lanes of 10GigE straight to the FPGA, as well as support for 40gE and PCI Express Gen 3,” says Jeff Milrod, CEO at BittWare.
Fixnetix also made use of BittWare’s Atlantis FrameWork (AFW) – and its TCP/IP offload engine – to more rapidly implement its functionality in the FPGA chip.
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