Serial Attached SCSI Sharpens Blade Servers

Serial Attached SCSI Sharpens Blade Servers The magazine of record for the embedded computing industry

December 2007

www.rtcmagazine.com

Multicore —Make it Dance to Your Tune 2007 Annual Article Index

PCI Express: e L

g n i ap

the Bounds of Board and Box

An RTC Group Publication

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms

Yeah. We’ve got that.

With our huge I/O selection, we probably have what you’re looking for.

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms has an enormous selection of I/O types in so many different form factors that it boggles the mind. Honestly, there isn’t space here to list them all. Fortunately, our easy-to-navigate web site will help you find exactly what you’re looking for.

An enormous selection, however, isn’t enough. You also need a quality product – and our long track record of customer satisfaction is the best proof that we have what it takes to design and build superior I/O products.

From rugged, conduction cooled Ethernet switches to ROHS and NEBS compliant telecom boards, we have the resources and experience to get it right.

In addition, as part of the GE family of companies, we offer you that extra level of confidence that comes from working with a mature, stable, well-respected company.

So start your search at www.gefanucembedded.com and find the I/O you’re looking for.

PMC-0247RC PMC SATA Hard Disk Drive

© 2007 GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, Inc. All rights reserved.

PCI Express

Leaping the Bounds of Board and Box

20 PCIe over cable bus adapters are available for PCs, Laptops and CompactPCIe

46 Industrial-Grade Rugged Cased Module Delivers Navigation Data Through RS-232 or RS-422

TABLEOF CONTENTS

47 16-bit Analog Input M-Module for High-Resolution Data Acquisition

December 2007

Departments

Solutions Engineering CompactPCI Express

7Editorial 16 PCI Express Outside the Box Thinking Inside the Box CompactPCI Express Insider 24 Comes of Age 9Industry Latest Developments in the Embedded Marketplace Steve Cooper, One Stop Systems

Stephen Cunha, MEN Micro

& Technology 46Products Newest Embedded Technology Used by Industry Leaders

Industry Insight

Views and Comment 62News, Global Economy

30

Standards SAS Sharpens Blade Servers

Cameron T. Brett & Jesse Molina, PMC-Sierra

Software & Development tools

Featured Products

Core System Architecture Fires FPGA Platforms 44Soft Xilinx

PCI-X Packet Processors Address Speed, 44NEBS-Compliant Security, Flexibility GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms

Annual Article index 2007

Monthly Publications in Review 66RTC

Multicore Software

36 Multicore - What’s the Big Deal?

Sven Brehmer, PolyCore Software

Digital Subscriptions Avaliable at www.rtcmagazine.com/digital

December 2007

DECEMBER 2007 Publisher PRESIDENT John Reardon, johnr@r tcgroup.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR/ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Warren Andrews, warrena@r tcgroup.com

Editorial EDITOR-IN - CHIEF Tom Williams, tomw@r tcgroup.com MANAGING EDITOR Marina Tringali, marinat@r tcgroup.com

Our heatsinks are

COPY EDITOR Rochelle Cohn

DOWN RIGHT frosty Introducing our new INL Series: aluminum plate n, low prole, high efciency cooling products. They attach easily with our EZ SnapTM mounting clips

Buy on-line at: www.radianstore.com

The INL series is an off-the-shelf solution which provide optimum cooling for various package sizes and airow.

web: www.radianheatsinks.com tel: 800-689-2802

·

fax: 408-988-0683

Radian Heatsinks is a division of Intricast Company Inc.

Art/Production CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jason Van Dorn, jasonv@r tcgroup.com ART DIRECTOR Kirsten Wyatt, kirstenw@r tcgroup.com GRAPHIC DESIGNER Christopher Saucier, chriss@r tcgroup.com DIRECTOR OF WEB DEVELOPMENT Marke Hallowell, markeh@r tcgroup.com WEB DEVELOPER Brian Hubbell, brianh@r tcgroup.com

Advertising/Web Advertising WESTERN REGIONAL ADVERTISING MANAGER Stacy Gandre, stacyg@r tcgroup.com (949) 226 -2024 WESTERN REGIONAL ADVERTISING MANAGER Lauren Hintze, laurenh@r tcgroup.com (949) 226 -2014

Mass Storage Modules for VMEbus and CompactPCI®

EASTERN REGIONAL ADVERTISING MANAGER Nancy Vanderslice, nancy v@r tcgroup.com (978) 443 -2402 INSIDE SALES MANAGER Carrie Bowers, carrieb@r tcgroup.com (949) 226 -2029

Billing Mag gie McAuley, mag giem@r tcgroup.com (949) 226 -2024

To Contact RTC magazine: HOME OFFICE The RTC Group, 905 Calle Amanecer, Suite 250, San Clemente, CA 92673 Phone: (949) 226-2000 Fax: (949) 226-2050, www.rtcgroup.com EASTERN SALES OFFICE The RTC Group, 96 Dudley Road, Sudbury, MA 01776 Phone: (978) 443-2402 Fax: (978) 443-4844

PMC CompactFlash Module

Editorial Office Warren Andrews, Editorial Director/Associate Publisher 39 Southport Cove, Bonita, FL 34134 Phone: (239) 992-4537 Fax: (239) 992-2396

Two Type I/ Type II CF Sockets

See the full line of Mass Storage Products at

www.RedRockTech.com

or call Toll-Free: 800-808-7837 Red Rock Technologies, Inc. 480-483-3777

edrock_04.indd 1

December 2007

2/2/07 1:21:52 PM

Tom Williams, Editor-in-Chief 245-M Mt. Hermon Rd., PMB#F, Scotts Valley, CA 95066 Phone: (831) 335-1509 Fax: (408) 904-7214

Published by The RTC Group Copyright 2007, The RTC Group. Printed in the United States. All rights reserved.

All related graphics are trademarks of The RTC Group. All other brand and product names are the property of their holders.

DECEMBER 2007

EDITORIAL

Thinking Inside the Box

by Tom Williams, Editor-in-Chief

O

ur ideas about what constitutes embedded computing keep changing on the basis of what level of integration we’re talking about and, of course, the application. Today the applications are all over the map from small to large, from isolated devices to distributed to deeply embedded ones and to the vastly complex. If an ABS brake controller is an embedded system, so is an ATCA-based networking system. A rapidly expanding middle ground, however, is being served by standard small form-factor boards and, increasingly, fully integrated boxes.

The latter are showing up with increased frequency as small, enclosed packages containing a motherboard, such as an ETX board, along with some I/O modules, rotary or solid-state drive and networking capability. Others are debuting as panel PCs, which incorporate all the features of a PC inside a package that is the size of the given display, which can vary depending on the needs of the application. Often these displays are touch screens so that the unit, which appears to be a “screen-in-the box,” can be mounted into a piece of equipment. The operator, then, simply interacts with the graphical user interface, which is programmed to present the machine’s functions in an intuitive, graphical form.

But the concept of what constitutes a “box” is limited if we think of it only as an actual box, i.e., a rectangular shape containing embedded computing. The same sort of functionality is being integrated on small, single boards and even on chips where we find low-power, mid-function range embedded processors incorporating graphics and video processing on their dies. In other words, an embedded computer doesn’t have to be a panel PC to be treated like a panel PC. By that I mean it can come to the party with all the needed functionality pre-integrated. That includes processor, memory, display control, PCIe, Ethernet and the more standard forms of I/O. For specialized I/O needs many such boards provide standard connectivity such as that provided in COM Express.

It appears that this development is at least partly behind the formation of the Small Form Factor SIG, a new industry consortium formed to work out small form-factor standards that are both legacy-friendly and forward-looking as new technologies enable yet smaller form-factors. One of the benefits of such an ef-

fort is hopefully that with specifications (whatever they ultimately are) well understood, there can be a supply of different sizes and cost/performance levels of pre-integrated embedded computers that are both broadly applicable enough to be made in affordable economies of scale, yet are versatile enough to address the multitude of specialized applications. Then, such a selection of little boards could reasonably be thought of as a selection of “boxes,” modules that can be easily installed into target equipment, connected to general or specialized I/O—with either integrated or selected attached display—and be readily programmed for the desired application, because a selection of popular operating systems, including RTOSs, can easily be pre-qualified, integrated and sold with the “in-the-box” architecture.

So if we think about a box from the inside rather than just considering as a box only what appears to be a box from the outside, many possibilities open up for much more straightforward integration in an ever expanding world of applications of all sizes.

So, whether it’s an actual box like an industrial PC or a panel PC, or a PC/104 stack, or an ETX board (micro, pico, nano, whatever) attached to a specialized I/O module, as long as it contains that full complement of standard functionality, it’s a “box.” Of course, different boxes have different capacities such as dual-core 64-bit processing, 10 Gbit Ethernet, etc., while others may have more modest contents. But they are analogous to different amounts of the same thing, so that they work and communicate together.

That standardization further expands utility to the world of mobile PC—many now made for rugged industrial environments—and more specialized wireless handheld devices, which are also often built on similar “boxes.” These all eventually connect to a continuum that runs up to the enterprise. So the old cliché about “thinking outside the box” may not always be accurate, especially if you have the right things inside the box. In this take on the metaphor, we wouldn’t want to get too far from the idea of things being in nice, well-defined boxes or we might find ourselves . . . boxed in.

December 2007

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms 2500 Austin Drive Charlottesville, VA 22911 US

Phone 800.GEFANUC www.gefanuc.com

VPX

µTCA

Magic1 3U VPX system with leading edge graphics performance

MP2000 Prevalidated Modular Platform

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms was among the very rst companies to see the potential of the VPX architecture and its ability to leverage the substantial performance benets of serial switched fabrics while maintaining compatibility with the ubiquitous VME standard, providing a cost-effective migration path for customers that maximizes the value of existing investments in hardware and software. Since that time, the company has introduced the industry’s broadest range of VPX products – the family now has ten members – with solutions for both 6U and 3U applications, based on both the PowerPC and Intel Core 2 Duo architecture. The DSP230 Quad 8641D AXIS Multicomputer Blade offers leading edge performance for demanding applications such as radar, sonar and signal processing.

The TCA architecture has captured signicant market interest, given its compelling advantages given how it delivers the performance, exibility, manageability and reliability of AdvancedTCA but in a smaller, more cost-effective form factor.

However, until recently, customers have been slow to turn that interest into real programs. Research revealed this to be a function of concern at the probable elapsed tome between evaluation of the new technology and eventual deployment: ‘time to market’ was the barrier to solid acceptance.

The GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms 3U VPX family comprises not only processor boards, but also the infrastructure to support them, including an NVIDIA G73-based graphics card, a PMC/XMC PCIe switch carrier, SATA disk drive module and 16-port Gigabit Ethernet switch.

VPX is also at the heart of a growing number of applicationready subsystems such as the MAGIC1 Rugged Display Computer with its Intel Core 2 Duo processor, NVIDIA graphics and 64 GBytes of solid state disk.

Responding to this requirement, GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms recently introduced two new ‘pre-validated’ platforms: simply, these are fully-congured, tested and ready-to-run hardware vehicles that deliver guaranteed reliability and interoperability, thus freeing customers from the need to concern themselves with low level detail.

These platforms are the MP-2000, featuring a 2U, 13-slot TCA chassis and the MP-3000 8U, 15-slot TCA chassis. Both platforms come pre-congured with a Power Module, dual Cooling Units, and MicroTCA Carrier Hub (MCH) with PCI Express fabric module, together with GE Fanuc Embedded Systems Telum™ Intel®-based processor, dual SATA storage modules, multi-port Gigabit Ethernet I/O interface and VGA graphics AdvancedMCs. A Linux operating system and Linux Support Package (LSP) with drivers are pre-installed on the platforms.

IndustryInsider December 2007

Multiple Companies Showcase Interoperability of Wireless Home Area Network for Energy Management A diverse ZigBee-powered home area network (HAN) is now on display at CenterPoint Energy’s Houston Electric Technology Center. The display features ZigBee-enabled electric and gas meters from Itron; ZigBee-enabled programmable controllable thermostats (PCT) from Computime, Control4, Hunter Fan Company, Golden Power Manufacturing/Radio Thermostat Company of America; and Trane, along with an energy management Web portal from Tendril Networks. The hands-on ZigBee-powered HAN at CenterPoint Energy’s Technology Center offers a view into the utility’s innovative use of technology, which is designed to improve energy efficiency and electric service.

CenterPoint Energy, which began a limited deployment of 10,000 electric and 100 gas advanced meters earlier this year, is one of several utilities that are members of the ZigBee Alliance. It is joined by other utilities helping to ensure that ZigBee HANs support future energy management solutions. That group includes: DTE Energy, Oncor Electric Delivery, Sempra Utilities, Southern California Edison and TXU Energy.

“The ZigBee home area network is installed in our Technology Center to demonstrate that products from multiple vendors can work in unison. Our Technology Center allows us a chance to see how an open standards home area network can be combined with our innovative Intelligent Grid technology,” said Tom Standish, CenterPoint Energy Group President, Regulated Operations. “This combination of new technologies is designed to benefit utilities and consumers alike. In the future, utilities should be able to improve service and reliability, while the ZigBee HAN has the potential to help residential and business customers take control of their energy use.”

CenterPoint Energy is working with the ZigBee Alliance and other stakeholders to create the standard for wireless communication between utility companies and common household devices. This communication protocol is expected to play an important role in delivering on the promise of energy efficiency programs. ZigBee continues to draw support from energy regulators, the utility industry and leading product OEMs who care about the amount of energy efficiency they can result from their devices. Dozens of Alliance members collaborate each day to address this critical need.

Certicom Opens Design Center for Next-Generation Crypto Technology

Certicom has announced the opening of its Scotts Valley Design Center, a new facility dedicated to the secure development of hardware-based cryptographic technologies. Located in Silicon Valley among leading chip manufacturers, this design center serves as the focal point in Certicom’s strategy to deliver the highest level of hardware cryptographic security for communications conducted by corporations, government organizations and individuals worldwide.

Certicom is known for its innovation in the field of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and the company’s Intellectual Property (IP) portfolio, which includes

more than 400 patents and patents pending worldwide, covers many key aspects of ECC, including software optimizations, efficient hardware implementations, methods to enhance the security and various cryptographic protocols.

At the new design center, Certicom engineers will address the emerging security needs for a variety of traditional markets including government, military, enterprise, networking and mobility. It will also address new markets including secure RFID technologies (contactless smart cards, wireless utility networks), industrial/sensor networks (automated factory networks, chemical plant process controls, SCADA systems), PIV (FIPS-201 and ePassport) and contactless payment and public transportation (electronic fare cards).

The new Certicom Scotts Valley Design Center is located at 3600 Glen Canyon Road, Scotts Valley, CA, roughly 30 miles south of San Jose. Pictures of the center are available upon request.

Collaboration to Enhance Biomedical and Bioengineering Design, Modeling and Simulation

Simpleware has announced a partnership agreement to provide an export interface from Simpleware’s 3D image-based meshing software +ScanFE to Comsol Multiphysics 3.4, a multiphysics simulation environment. The interface enables biomedical and bioengineering users to directly export high-quality meshes of 3D MRI, CT and MicroCT scan data created with +ScanFE to Comsol

Multiphysics 3.4 for modeling and simulation without requiring re-meshing or pre-processing.

A key component of Simpleware’s ScanIP suite of imageprocessing solutions, +ScanFE provides a powerful suite of algorithms and a robust toolset for converting segmented 3D image data into multi-part volumetric models. +ScanFE generates highquality volume and surface meshes, contact surfaces and material properties from the segmented data, all of which can now be directly exported to Comsol Multiphysics.

Simpleware’s new Export to Comsol Multiphysics functionality is a simple two-step operation. First, ScanIP segments the regions of interest from the scan data, and then +ScanFE generates an input file for Comsol Multiphysics. Once you import the file, you can leverage Comsol to model, simulate and design biomedical applications such as hip joint replacements, vascular therapy and drug delivery.

Key benefits of the +ScanFE and Comsol Multiphysics partnership include: • The ability to create meshes from 3D scan data, such as MRI, CT and MicroCT, and directly make them available for true multiphysics simulations without intermediate steps such as re-meshing and pre-processing.

• The possibility to integrate CAD and image data interactively, and then automatically mesh the resulting combined model. Users can insert implants and blood stents into the original scan data and then run simulations involving complex interactions between implant, tissue and blood.

• The capability to reconstruct and mesh separate parts yielding perfectly conforming interfaces (no gaps or overlaps).

December 2007

Sealevel Systems, Incorporated 2779 Greenville Highway PO Box 830 Liberty, South Carolina 29657 USA

Phone 864.843.4343 Fax 864.843.3067 sales@sealevel.com www.sealevel.com

Relio™ Industrial Computers

SeaPAC™ Flat Panel Computers

We left something out of our Relio™ industrial computers.

You haven’t seen a product like this since LEGO® blocks.

We left out the fan because fanless operation signicantly improves reliability in harsh industrial environments. But, we didn’t stop there-- we added features to make Relio the ideal industrial computer.

Remember all the cool things you built with LEGO® blocks?

The possibilities were almost endless.

• Operates from CompactFlash; combined with fanless operation this delivers the ultimate in reliability- no moving parts • Available in three form factors: compact (mount under counters, on walls, to DIN rails), desktop, and rackmount • Housed in rugged metal enclosures • Powerful Intel® Celeron®, Pentium® and AMD Geode™ processors • Operates from 0°C to 50°C All Relio computers provide a robust standard I/O feature set: 10/100BaseT Ethernet, analog video, multiple serial and USB ports. The desktop and rackmount models can be expanded with CDRW/DVD, PC/104 Portholes™, and SeaI/O™ modules.

Need even more I/O or a different conguration? You can connect up to 247 SeaI/O data acquisition modules providing Reed and Form C relays, optically isolated inputs, TTL, A/D, D/A, and serial options. (Modules can be located with Relio or remotely to 4,000 feet.)

Relio combines the reliability of a PLC with the congurability of an industrial computer. Give us a call. Once you experience Relio we’re condent you’ll become a fan.

Now you have that design freedom in specifying touchscreen computers for your HMI systems at work. Our SeaPAC™ line is a breakthrough in HMI solutions because the innovative modular design allows us to assemble virtually unlimited congurations for the price of off-the-shelf units.

First, choose one of our at panel touchscreen monitors. They range from 6.4” to 17” and include a rugged panel mount bezel that provides Nema 4/IP65 protection from sprayed liquids on the front surface.

Second, select one of our Relio™ R1000 family of industrial computers with various choices of Intel® Celeron® M and AMD Geode™ processors. All are fanless and can be operated from CompactFlash, thereby eliminating all moving parts and maximizing reliability.

Third, satisfy your I/O needs. The Relio computer provides a robust standard I/O feature set and for more options you can add up to 247 SeaI/O™ data acquisition modules (Attached to SeaPAC or located remotely up to 4,000 feet). Choose from Reed and Form C relays, optically isolated inputs, TTL, A/D, D/A, and serial options.

Give us a call and, just like you did with LEGO blocks, we’ll build the exact HMI solution that you need.

We Listen. Think.

And Create.

PCI & ISA Boardss Remote ote Data Acquisition Modules

You’ll Ànd the PCI & ISA product that you need because Sealevel has one of the broadest offerings in the industry. Plus, our proven commitment to long-term availability means that the Sealevel board you design in today will be available many years into the future.

Create e a Áexible, Áexible, expandable distributed I/O net network with our SeaI/O™ data acquisition modules. Connect to a host via Ethernet, USB, RS-485, or RS-232 and daisy chain up to 246 SeaI/O expansion modules to create a customized control and monitoring network.

Solid-State Embedded I/O Servers Sychronous chronous Serial

Relio™ servers give you the best of both worlds: the reliability of a PLC with the configurability of an industrial computer. The fanless design operating from CompactFlash delivers ultimate reliability — no moving parts for a true solid-state solution.

Sealevel l l iis th the lleader d iin military ilit and commercial synchronous communication where critical applications require high-speed data transfer. Choose from a variety of RS-232 and RS-232/422/485 multi-interface products that support standard synchronous protocols.

HMI Custom Solutions

The SeaPAC™ line of HMI products utilizes an innovative modular design combining flat panel touchscreens, Relio computers, and SeaI/O modules. You can choose between a variety of processors, screen sizes, and I/O options to get the exact system you need. We can assemble virtually unlimited customized configurations for the price of off-the-shelf units.

Tel: 864.843.4343

If you need a custom board or system, Sealevel is ready.

We will work with you to design and engineer a product specifically for your application. We have experienced engineers eager to prove our promise, “We Listen. Think.

And Create.”

www.sealevel.com

Industry Insider The properties and physics of the different parts and the interactions across the interfaces can be fully manipulated in the model set-up.

• The capacity for users to access application examples and exercises that lead them through the entire process from acquiring and exporting 3D scan data to full multiphysics modeling of complex geometries with multiple parts.

Drives Market Booming Due to Record High Energy Costs

According to statistics from IMS Research, the worldwide low voltage AC & DC motor drives market experienced unprecedented growth in 2006. Record high energy prices combined with improved awareness of the energy saving benefits of motor drives have contributed to increasing the market by nearly 15% over 2005 levels, to more than $7.6 billion.

It is expected to continue growing

by an average of 9% per year in terms of revenues to surpass $11.2 billion by 2011.

The Asia Pacific motor drives market, lead by explosive economic growth in China and India, continued to be the fastest growing segment. It is expected to surpass the size of the Americas market in 2007, and continue growing by more than 10% per year over the next five years. The EMEA market also experienced robust growth in 2006 due to high demand for motor drives by the booming heavy industry of the region. The Americas and Japanese markets for motor drives also performed well, but grew at a slower pace than Asia Pacific and EMEA. Industry sectors such as commercial HVAC, food & beverage, metal processing, textiles and utilities continued to lead the market in motor drive utilization, together representing more than one third of the total low voltage drives market. In addition, new segments such as the renewable

energy sector provide opportunity for further growth. According to IMS Research analyst Alex Chausovsky, “The renewable energy sector is a great prospect for motor drive manufacturers.

Electricity generation from wind power is growing by 25% per year, requiring some $23 billion of new generating equipment, most of which is currently using motor drives. Furthermore, there are new technologies on the horizon that attempt to harness the energy in ocean waves and subglacial ice flows, which present tremendous opportunities for motor drives manufacturers.”

Express Logic with GlobalEdge Partner to Provide Apps and Middleware

Express Logic has teamed up with GlobalEdge Software to provide ThreadX customers with embedded software solutions and IP-based services. GlobalEdge services combine ready solutions

and engineering services to offer complete product realization.

ThreadX customers in the communication, wireless, industrial automation, automotive and consumer appliances industries will be served by GES to assist them in creating their next-generation products. This alliance will provide Express Logic’s customers with a wide range of software solutions in the areas of wireless, VoIP, DSP, USB and networking technologies. Leveraging on GlobalEdge’s extensive ThreadX experience in device drivers and BSP development and strong IP portfolio, customers will be able to build feature-rich, cost-effective and quick-to-market solutions.

“GlobalEdge foresees a growing RTOS market across businesses,” commented Sarbpreet Singh, president & COO at GlobalEdge. “Express Logic’s leadership in small-footprint, royalty-free real-time operating systems makes them an ideal partner for many semiconductor

HARTING sets new standards in AdvancedMC™ connector reliability HARTING offers the widest product portfolio of AdvancedMCTM and Power connectors for AdvancedTCA® and MicroTCATM applications.

HARTING now brings the reliability of signal connectors to new heights.

Introducing con:card+, a quality seal that identifies press-fit connectors that provides the highest level of mating reliability for AdvancedMCTM modules.

The con:card+ GuideSpring systematically positions the AdvancedMCTM module precisely in the connector, reducing the maximum possible offset between connector contacts and module pads by 60%.

This significantly increases the mating reliability of MicroTCATM backplanes and AdvancedTCA® carrier blades.

HARTING provides complete design in support, including signal integrity services and 3D modeling.

Learn more about the 5 con:card+ features at www.concardplus.com

1 12Untitled-6 December 2007

8/6/07 9:54:47 AM

Industry Insider and product companies. Partnering with Express Logic enables GlobalEdge to expand its penetration in the market further and to help in delivering high-quality customer solutions.”

“More and more developers are asking for highly integrated solutions specifically tailored for the specifications of their customers,” noted William E. Lamie, president of Express Logic. “Partnering with GlobalEdge enables us to provide a plethora of integrated communications protocols and IP peripherals quickly and cost-efficiently. I look forward to being better able to meet our customers’ needs in these areas.”

Eclipse Hibachi Project Brings Ada Suppliers into Common Environment

The Eclipse Foundation has announced the creation of a new open-source project called Hibachi. The Hibachi project provides an industrial-strength, vendorneutral Ada integrated develop-

Untitled-4 1

ment environment (IDE), which also serves as a platform for other contributors to provide valueadded functionality for Ada developers. Hibachi is a sub-project of the Eclipse Tools Project, and it parallels and complements CDT, the C/C++ Development Tooling project, providing a multi-language native embedded software development environment. The name Hibachi is an anagram honoring the late Jean Ichbiah, lead designer of the Ada language.

To initiate the project, Aonix has contributed the source code of AonixADT, an existing commercial Eclipse plug-in technology that supports Aonix ObjectAda as well as GNAT tool chains on a variety of host and target platforms, as the initial code for the project. AonixADT is based on JDT and CDT, the Java and C Eclipse development toolkits. Additional contributions to Hibachi are being actively solicited by the project team.

Major Hibachi functionality includes:

• Ada editor with semantic navigation, code assist, structural representations and formatting • Build configurations • Debugging support • Refactoring • Support for multiple tool chains • Native or embedded launch capability • Wizards and templates In addition, Hibachi will provide an open framework for the integration and use of other tools used during the lifecycle of large-scale Ada application development. These tools include but are not limited to analysis, modeling, testing, verification, documentation, refactoring and configuration management.

SiliconSystems Supports SanDisk Legal Action

SiliconSystems has affirmed its support for SanDisk Corporation’s announcement on October 25, 2007, to file patent infringement actions against cer-

tain companies that manufacture, sell and import USB flash drives, CompactFlash cards, multimedia cards, MP3/media players and other removable flash storage products.

SiliconSystems’ technology ownership and its SanDisk technology cross-license are intended to provide significant protection for its customers against the risk associated with third-party claims of infringement. Safeguarding customers from product infringement concerns also minimizes the risk of interruption in supply.

SiliconSystems points out that it has developed a substantial patent-protected technology portfolio addressing the burgeoning solid-state storage system and solid-state drive markets. SiliconSystems is among a select group of SanDisk licensees and the only licensee focused exclusively on the Enterprise System OEM market. SanDisk was an early-stage investor in SiliconSystems and remains a shareholder.

December11/26/07 2007

13

3:13:05 PM

Motorola 2900 S. Diablo Way Tempe, AZ 85282 USA

Phone 602.438.5720 Fax 602.438.5825 www.motorola.com/computing

MVME7100 Single Board Computer

PrPMC6001 Processor PMC

The MVME7100 features the SoC MPC8641D processor.

The PrPMC6001 features the MPC7448 PowerPC G4 architecture processor.

The MVME7100 single-board computer (SBC) helps OEMs of industrial, medical, and defense/aerospace VMEbus platforms add performance and features for competitive advantage while still protecting the fundamental investment in VMEbus and related technologies. Customers can keep their VMEbus infrastructure (chassis, backplanes, and other VMEbus and PMC boards) while improving performance and extending the lifecycle. Also, the extended lifecycle of Motorola computing products helps reduce churns in development and support efforts resulting from frequent product changes.

The PrPMC6001 PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC) is a perfect t for embedded applications requiring low power and high performance with PowerPC® architecture. Featuring a Freescale MPC7448 PowerPC G4 architecture processor running at speeds of up to 1.4 GHz, the PrPMC6001 uses an integrated system controller to give the processor high-speed access to up to 1.0GB of external memory with ECC support.

The PrPMC6001 features dual independent Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, one of which has optional SerDes support, routed to the PMC connector.

The MVME7100, one of the rst VMEbus products with the system-on-chip MPC8641D processor, offers a growth path for VMEbus customers with applications on the previous generation of VME, specically the MPC74xx processors.

The system-on-chip implementation offers power/thermal, reliability, and lifecycle advantages not typically found in alternative architectures. The faster processor and 2eSST VMEbus interface (the same as on the MVME3100 and MVME6100) combine to offer signicant performance improvement. New cost-effective peripherals can be integrated easily using USB interfaces.

The PrPMC6001’s ability to support hard real-time applications using VxWorks RTOSs and cost-conscious applications with the Linux OS will enable this product to be used in wide variety of applications. The power and versatility of the PrPMC6001 may enable engineers that are designing leading-edge pervasive computing and embedded network control and signal processing applications, such as ight computers, software dened radio, and command, control and communications systems, to quickly and easily add processing power.

THE ADVANTAGES ARE CLEAR Motorola is the clear choice for MicroTCA™. Motorola’s cutting edge MicroTCA products can help cut your costs, risk and design cycle while increasing your flexibility.

Whether your applications need specific I/O, flexible packaging, ruggedization or a choice of processors, we can customize solutions to meet your needs. That’s why our MicroTCA products are quickly being adopted for network-centric applications across telecommunications, defense, aerospace, industrial and medical industries.

Looking for a clear advantage over the competition? HELLOMOTO™ See why Motorola should be your first choice for MicroTCA solutions at: motorola.com/computing/MTCA

MOTOROLA and the Stylized M Logo are registered in the US Patent & Trademark Office.

MicroTCA and the MicroTCA logo are trademarks of PICMG. All other products or service names are the property of their respective owners. © Motorola, Inc. 2007. All rights reserved.

solutions engineering

CompactpCI Express

PCI Express Outside the Box Having backplane performance levels available over a cable expands the PCIe usage model to encompass many high-end multi-chassis applications including I/O expansion, disk array subsystems, high-speed video and audio editing equipment, medical imaging systems and many more.

by S teve Cooper One Stop Systems

N

ow that PCI Express has achieved nearly 100% acceptance in desktop and laptop PCs, over 60 form-factors have been defined using PCIe as the backplane bus architecture. Earlier this year, the PCI-SIG approved the specification for PCIe over cable implementations.

With the standard in place, creative engineers are looking to capitalize on a new capability as a box-to-box interconnect.

Allowing a high-speed backplane bus to go over a cable—with full speed and complete software transparency—opens up a number of applications. These applications generally fall into one of three architecture usage models as shown in Figure 1.

The first usage is simple bus expansion. In this model the PCIe bus is conceptually stretched to operate over a cable. Some of the first products to come to market using PCIe over cable are expansion chassis that offer additional add-in board slots for either laptops or servers.

Today’s PCs have such a mixture of different kinds of slots that it can be difficult to construct a system where multiple similar I/O boards are used. Using PCIe to cable to an external expansion chassis is a highperformance way to solve this problem.

Expansion chassis can provide as many as 20 add-in board slots (Figure 2), and come in many varieties with different numbers

16

December 2007

Bus Expansion

High-Speed I/O

PC or Laptop

PC or Laptop

PCIe

I/O Device

PCIe

Expansion Chassis

Networking PC or Laptop

PCIe

PC or Laptop

...

PCIe

PC or Laptop

PCIe

PCIe Switch

Figure 1

PCIe over cable can be used in three architectural usage models: Bus Expansion, High-Speed I/O Connectivity and Networking.

of PCI, PCI-X and PCIe slots.

The bus expansion model can also be used to physically repartition a system’s CPU and I/O functions. Applications can now use a conventional external PC with a cable connection to a CompactPCIe or PXIe instrumentation chassis. This repartitioning has the advantages of a stand-

alone PC, including greater functionality and lower cost than a PC in the I/O chassis form-factor. Since the performance of the cable is identical to the native PCIe, there is no performance penalty for system repartitioning.

A second usage model for PCIe over cable is that of connecting a PC to any high-performance I/O device. Some have called this model “USB on steroids,” since the data rate of PCIe over cable is 20 to 80 times faster than USB 2.0. The first products coming to market using PCIe over cable in this model are disk RAID arrays, solid-state disk subsystems and video editing subsystems. With PCIe interface IP now available for gate arrays, designers can design their own custom I/O solution in a custom gate array, and have it connect to PCIe over cable to communicate to the PC. Where in the past this would only work if the I/O functionality would physically fit within an add-in card, with PCIe over cable, the I/O functionality can be as large as it needs to be to get the job done. Over time we can expect a number of high-end I/O devices to become available that have PCIe over cable and their connectivity to standard PCs. The third usage model allows PCIe to be used for networking between PCs or between blades in a backplane as shown in

SOLUTIONS Engineering Figure 3. This usage model requires new hardware and software that is just now becoming available. In this model, PCIe over cable can be used for high-speed memory-to-memory transfers and/or simply to look like a fast Ethernet. The direct data transfer mode is intended for designers who want to send data from PC-to-PC as rapidly as possible. This is particularly

Figure 2

useful for multicomputing applications where one PC inputs data and then passes it to a second PC for data manipulation.

This PC then passes the data to another PC for graphical display, and to another PC for storage. In this example, the PCs could be physically separate communicating with PCIe over cable, or they could be physically located within the same chassis

PCI/104-Express with CoreTM2 Duo PCI Express Applications with two displays video streaming HD-videos

MICROSPACE® MSM945 incl. SMX945

PCIe over cable can be used to connect to an expansion chassis with 20 additional PCIe slots.

_ PCI/104-Express baseboard _ Intel® CoreTM Duo LV L2400 / Intel® Celeron® M ULV423 _ 1.0GHZ to 2x 1.6GHz _ i945GM-PCI Express chipset _ CRT, SDVO, 224MB VRAM _ KB/MS, FD, 1x P-ATA, 2x S-ATA, 2x COM RS232, LPT1, 8x USB 2.0, 1x LAN 10/100 BASE-T, AC97-7.1 HDA _ DDR2-RAM 256 – 2048MB _ IDE _ Watchdog _ Power 5W / typ 10-20W _ Smart cooling concept _ -25°C to +60°C (Option -40°C to +70°C)

DIGITAL-LOGIC AG offers reliable Embedded Computers in PC/104, 3.5”, EPIC, EBX, smartModule, COM Express and other formats.

Further information:

www.digitallogic.com Figure 3

PCIe over cable used for high-speed networking between PCs.

Untitled-1 1

December 2007

17

11/1/07 2:05:30 PM

Pentek, Inc. Setting the Standard for Digital Signal Processing

Phone 201.818.5900 Fax 201.818.5904 info@pentek.com www.pentek.com

Model 7142-428

Model RTS 2504

Multichannel Transceiver with Multiband DDC and Interpolation Filter installed core

Real-time Recording System with Multiband Transceiver and FPGA Processing

Features: • Complete software radio transceiver system in a PMC/ XMC module • Narrowband and wideband functions combined in factoryinstalled IP core -428 • Input and output signal bandwidths from 8 kHz to 40 MHz • Decimation range from 2 to 65,536 and interpolation range from 2 to 32,768 • Four 125 MHz 14-bit A/Ds, one 500 MHz 16-bit D/A and two Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGAs • Built-in sync bus enables multiple board synchronization • Pentek ReadyFlow® Board Support Libraries for quick board startup and operation • Pentek GateFlow® FPGA Resources

Features: • 14-bit 105 MHz A/Ds, 16-bit 500 MHz D/As, 1 GHz PowerPC processor • Real-Time recording and playback with RAID or JBOD arrays at up to 160 MBps • Storage to 6 terabytes or more • Multiple Xilinx FPGAs with optional GateFlow FPGA Design Kit and IP cores • Digital downcoverters and upconverters for complete software radio applications • SystemFlow® recording software with File Manager and Signal Viewer • Ethernet link to Windows or Linux hosts • Ideal for radar, wireless, SIGINT, telecom and satcom

A complete software radio system in a COTS PMC/XMC module, this is a combination of proven hardware and a new GateFlow IP core. The Model 7142-428 employs four A/D converters and one D/A converter capable of bandwidths exceeding 40 MHz for connection to HF and IF ports of communications or radar systems.

The Pentek RTS 2504 is a highly scalable real-time recording and playback system that contains all the hardware and tools needed for acquiring, downconverting, processing, analyzing, recording, upconverting and playing back wideband signals.

Integrating recently introduced A/D and D/A converters, digital downconverters and upconverters, FPGAs, and PowerPC signal processors, this system allows the design engineer to take advantage of the latest technology for signal processing.

In a transceiver, the decimation factor and interpolation factor determine the ratio between the IF frequency and the bandwidth of the received and transmitted signals. By offering a range of more than four orders of magnitude for both decimation and interpolation, the Model 7142428 addresses an unprecedented range of commercial and military communication systems.

For more information visit: www.pentek.com/go/rtc7142-428

Scalable from two to 40 transceiver channels in a single 6U VMEbus enclosure, the RTS 2504 serves equally well as a recording system for advanced research projects and proof-ofconcept prototypes, or as a cost-effective strategy for deploying high-performance multichannel embedded systems.

For more information, visit: www.pentek.com/go/rtc2504

SOLUTIONS Engineering

The Harsher the Environment, the More You Need MEN Micro!

Intel® Pentium®M up to Core™(2) Duo CompactPCI®/Express

For the harshest industrial and mobile applications, MEN Micro offers more solutions, including: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

■

■

■

■

Core™ 2 Duo T7500 Core 2 Duo T7400, L7400 Core Duo T2500, L2400, U2500 Pentium® M 760, Celeron® M 373 Side cards - UART, multimedia, USB, FireWire, CompactPCI® Express and more!

I/O boards - WLAN, GPS, GSM, UARTs, Ethernet interfaces/switches, carrier for M-Modules™, PMC, XMC, PC/104, PC Card, ExpressCard, Mini PCI Compatible 3U Intel® family with scalable computing performance Long-term availability due to easy system adjustment For harsh industrial environments and mobile applications

MEN Micro, Inc. RoHS 24 North Main Street COMPLIANT Ambler, PA 19002 2002/95/EC Tel: 215.542.9575 E-mail: sales@menmicro.com

www.menmicro.com

20

Untitled-1 1

December 2007

12/3/07 10:36:30 AM

using CompactPCIe. The TCP/IP mode allows users to utilize any TCP/IP applications to conveniently communicate between PCs, map and share disk drives, printers, etc.

Advantages Versus Other Cable Standards Whether acting as a slot expander, a super-fast I/O port or as a high-speed network, there are several advantages associated with PCIe over cable: low costs, high bandwidth and software transparency. These advantages derive from the fact that the PC’s backplane bus is already PCIe. Thus, the cable adapter boards don’t need to convert the protocol or change the speed or timing of any of the signals. The adapters simply route the signals from the motherboard out to the PCIe cable connector and provide some signal conditioning to guarantee the signal integrity is met at the other end of the cable. Sample adapters for the PC, laptop and CompactPCIe are shown in Figure 4. Because these adapters are simple, they are inexpensive. Because they don’t convert the PCIe protocol into anything else, they are very high-performance and don’t require any software drivers (for the I/O expansion models).

Figure 4

As an I/O expansion protocol, PCIe can be used in place of custom protocols, Star Fabric, External SAS, Fibre Channel and other high-end I/O cabling schemes.

Compared to each of these, PCIe is the highest performance since there are no protocol conversions or timing delays. No cable connection can transfer data faster than the PCIe slot, and PCIe over cable is by definition at 100% performance. Any adapter that has to convert PCIe into a different protocol, send the data over the cable, and then convert it back to PCIe at the other end of the cable so that it can communicate with I/O devices, will necessarily be slower—both in throughput and latency—than a pure PCIe over cable solution.

Four Cable Sizes

In the same way that there are four different connector sizes for PCIe slots, there are also four different cable sizes.

These are known as x1 (pronounced “by one”), x4, x8 and x16. The numbers relate to the number of parallel lanes included within each link. A x1 contains a single link, meaning one transmit pair and one receive pair of wires. A x4 contains four sets of these wires and thus can achieve 4 times the performance. The performance

PCIe over cable bus adapters are available for PCs, laptops and CompactPCIe.

SOLUTIONS Engineering

Application Layer TCP Layer IP Layer

DDT

ExpressNet Driver PCI Express Transaction Layer Data Link Layer Physical Layer

Figure 5

} }

Software Implementation Sockets API Hardware Implementation

A diagram of the ISO 7layer model as it relates to ExpressNet communications using PCIe over cable.

It is expected that the adapter boards will need to be upgraded to handle the higher speeds, but the cables will remain unchanged.

PCIe Can Go over Cable at Full Speeds

Traditional buses—such as the original PCI—cannot operate over cables at full performance. The signaling is single-ended with each signal line being defined as relative to a ground signal. Al-

though this technique works well in circuit boards over short distances, it breaks down over longer distances due to signal line transmission noise effects. In addition, traditional buses are designed such that the skew and noise on the clock line compared to each of the parallel data lines makes the transfers unreliable after only a few feet of cable length.

PCIe is different in two key ways.

First, each signal is defined based on the voltage difference between tightly cou-

rates of the four cable sizes are as follows: • x1 = 2.5 Gbits/s • x4 = 10 Gbits/s • x8 = 20 Gbits/s • x16 = 40 Gbits/s Each of these performance rates will double as PCIe transitions from the currently available Gen 1 timing to Gen 2 timing. The first Gen 2 PCs and add-in boards have recently begun to ship, and should be commonplace by the end of 2008. A x16 connection running Gen 2 timing will be able to transfer data at 80 Gbits/s.

With four sizes available, PCIe over cable spans a wide range of price and performance. At the low end, the x1 cable operates at 2.5 Gbits/s with adapters and cables priced under $100. The x1 solution is particularly attractive for laptop slot expansion, where cost-effective I/O expansion is needed. At the mid-range, the x4 solution operates at 10 Gbits/s with adapters and cables priced at about $200. This level of performance is an excellent fit for most high-performance I/O and networking applications. The x8 level provides another doubling of performance to 20 Gbits/s with adapters and cables priced at about $300. This performance level is particularly attractive for RAID arrays and solid-state disks where most of the adapters are x8 products. The x16 size is the highest performance and highest priced variation, with adapters and cables priced at about $400. This size is primarily being used for connections to high-performance graphics subsystems.

It appears that the Gen 2 products will provide double the performance at each size level with little or no cost premium.

December 2007

21

SOLUTIONS Engineering pled wire pairs. This differential signaling technique works because any noise introduced into one of the wires is also introduced onto the second wire. Then when the voltages are compared, the noise element is eliminated. The second technique that changes PCIe is that the signal clocking is buried within the signal bit stream of each differential pair. This means that the clock and the signals are always in sync. The combination of these two factors—differential signaling and embedded clocking—enables PCIe to operate at full performance over cable distances of up to 7 meters.

PCIe was originally defined to support CPU-to-I/O communications, with the basic PC serving as the controller host.

CPU-to-CPU communications are more critical within the bus-board industry as designers commonly utilize multiple CPU boards to achieve complex solutions. Typically one CPU board captures incoming data then passes the data onto one or more CPUs to perform data manipulation. Then another CPU is often used to display the resulting graphical representation. This style of multicomputing is being added

to PCIe through a combination of nontransparent bridging and CPU-to-CPU communications software. This technology expands the applicability of PCIe to a wide variety of high-end applications, including radar and sonar analysis, medical imaging, test and measurement and communications equipment. For CompactPCI applications that currently utilize 2.16 Ethernet over the backplane, the advent of CPU-to-CPU communication over PCIe represents a compelling reason to upgrade to the new CompactPCIe architecture.

PCIe as a Network – ExpressNet

Special hardware and software drivers are required in order to utilize PCIe over cable as a network connection between multiple PCs. In the networking model, CPU components that normally initialize and control their local PCIe buses are interconnected. If each CPU tried to initialize and control the PCIe bus, the system wouldn’t work. The solution is to use nontransparent bridge technology on the cable adapter boards to isolate each side of the bus. With non-transparent bridges, each

PC/104+ Cards with a difference!

1553 & 429

Right on target

Embedded Interfaces Rugged, Reliable, Full Featured Single or Dual Stream Interface Module for PC/104+

Key features include: • Single or Dual Channel MIL-STD-1553 Dual Redundant Interface • Each channel independently programmable as BC, up to 31 RTs, and BM • Transformer and Direct Coupling modes simultaneously available • High and Low Speed operation • All ARINC429 Channels independently programmable as Transmit or Receive • Full Error Injection and Detection • Real-Time Recording and Playback • Extended temperature range -40°C to +85°C • High Level C/C++ API • Drivers for Windows, Linux, VxWorks, and more included

www.aimusa-online.com

• 4 or 8 ARINC429 Channels per Card

AIM-USA Tel: 402-763-9644 Fax: 402-763-9645 sales@aimusa-online.com 1 22Untitled-1 December 2007

11/29/07 9:21:54 AM

CPU can control its side of the bus, but not interfere with the portions of the bus controlled by other CPUs. Another feature required for networking over PCIe is the ability to isolate the spread-spectrum clocking coming from both sides of the non-transparent bridging. This can also be accomplished within the cable adapter board.

The software drivers—known as ExpressNet—include features that allow direct data transfers as well as TCP/IP transfers. A diagram of the ISO 7-layer model for communications is shown in Figure 5. The software drivers initialize memory address translation registers in the non-transparent bridge components that allow data to be transferred from one CPU’s memory to another. With TCP/IP added, the interface is identical to a normal Ethernet port, except much faster. In addition to driver support, ExpressNet software handles hot-swap events and other networking functions. Currently ExpressNet software support is available for Linux and Windows, with additional OS support planned for 2008.

Even though PCIe is already one of the fastest bus structures in the market, the PCI-SIG is committed to driving several generations of backward-compatible performance upgrades. The first performance upgrade, known as Gen 2 timing, doubles the transfer rate of each lane of PCIe from 2.5 Gbits/s to 5.0 Gbits/s. Since most boards utilize x4 or x8 lane connections, the Gen 2 data rates will typically be 20 or 40 Gbits/s. The first PCs to include Gen 2 timing are expected to be generally available in 2008. The PCI-SIG recently announced the basic timing and performance for Gen 3 PCIe. The individual lane performance for Gen 3 will double again, increasing transfer rates to 10 Gbits/ s per lane. Gen 3 products are expected to become available by 2011. Backward compatibility will be achieved by each bus interface component starting the bus training cycle using the Gen 1 timing. If both sides of the interface are compatible with Gen 2 or Gen 3 timing, they will both shift to the higher performance.

One Stop Systems Escondido, CA. (760) 745-9883. [www.onestopsystems.com].

45 Main Street Suite 319, NYC, NY 11201 www.fastwel.com/rtc Email: sales@fastwelcorp.com

Call Today Toll Free 1.877.RURugged (7878443)

From Building Industrial CPU’s for Mission Critical Applications to Providing Complete Solutions

solutions engineering

compactpci express

CompactPCI Express Comes of Age CompactPCI Express is an excellent complement and enhancement to the world of PCI standards. It is now possible to use hybrid backplanes to cost-effectively upgrade systems.

The standard could still benefit from some enhancements with additional I/O standards.

by S tephen Cunha MEN Micro

I

n the two years since CompactPCI Express (CPCIe) was formally adopted as a standard by PICMG, several companies in the industrial, transportation, medical, and test and measurement industries, to name a few, have begun to incorporate this new technology into a variety of embedded computing systems.

CPCIe enables increased bus performance as well as enhanced data transfer rates and throughput for applications that have traditionally used a PCI or 3U CompactPCI (CPCI) bus, making it suitable for applications requiring complex communication, powerful visualization and digital and analog signal processing. Such improved performance is also particularly attractive for high-volume data transfer requirements, as found in data-intensive computing, Gigabit Ethernet or graphics applications.

The significant advantage of the CPCIe bus, as compared to the older CPCI bus approach, is that it uses full-duplex, point-to-point, high-speed serial link connections—each comprising one or more “lanes”—instead of forcing all data through a common parallel bus connection. This scalable, packet-based architecture allows multiple bus participants to transfer data concurrently at full speed (250 Mbytes/s for each lane). The net result is the ability to handle higher data volumes—the equivalent of 2 Gbytes/s for an 8-lane link and 4 Gbytes/s for a 16-lane link.

24

December 2007

Figure 1

New hybrid configurations ease the migration to CompactPCI Express.

If a designer is constructing a new system around CPCIe, there will be virtually no issues with backward compatibility, since all components will be up to the standard’s specifications. However, not all applications require brand new systems. And, if careful consideration is not taken, the costs associated with implementing CPCIe within existing systems can be exponential since the designer needs to work around existing technologies and components while ensuring that the upgrades provide the best incorporation of existing technologies.

Cost-Effectively Including CompactPCI Express

Fortunately for current CPCI users, the new CPCIe interface is compatible with all software utilized in existing CPCI applications. But there are multiple

hardware configuration considerations for CPCI users seeking to enhance existing applications with faster speeds and increased throughput made possible by the CompactPCI Express format—each with its own capabilities and costs.

Starting from scratch and instituting a “pure” CPCIe solution will enable you take advantage of higher CPCIe transmission speeds for all peripheral card slots, but requires all new—and typically more expensive—CPCIe peripheral card and backplane hardware. This approach could be cost-effective for new applications, yet less so for partial upgrades of legacy applications that can still utilize existing CPCI cards for some of their functions.

One approach to legacy systems is to install a bridge that receives the CompactPCI Express signal from the systems slot and converts it to CompactPCI but will require you to sacrifice a slot on the backplane to hold a bridge board supporting the active logic to convert the signals.

Using a bridge at the rear of the system avoids the necessity of sacrificing a slot in the backplane, but requires the use of a bridge clip that adds cost for duplicating functionality already existing in the latest chip sets, such as the Intel 945 and 965.

Another alternative is to adopt a hybrid backplane solution. Incorporating both CPCI and CPCIe capabilities in one board provides a cost-efficient migration

Fastwel 45 Main Street Suite 319 New York, NY 11201

Phone 877.RURugged sales@fastwelcorp.com www.fastwelcorp.com

PC/104-Pluz AMD Geode LX800 Based SBC

EPIC Intel Pentium M SBC

CPC 304

CPC800

CPC304 is a PC/104-Plus single board computer for embedded applications. It is designed for use in systems requiring low power consumption and wide operating temperature range. CPC304 is based on AMD Geode LX800 and I/O companion CS5536. CPC304 provides full support for PC/104 and PC/104-Plus expansion modules and data exchange via both 16-bit ISA and 32-bit PCI buses.

CPC800 is a compact single board computer in EPIC formfactor. The board is based on the embedded Intel® Pentium® M processor up to 1.8 GHz and 1 Gb of DDR SDRAM.

All components are soldered on-board providing excellent vibration stability and increased reliability.

For demanding applications there is a CompactFlash socket for cards of up to 8 GB.

CPC304 offers display capabilities including VGA interface with resolution up to 1920x1440 or 24-bit LVDS interface.

Two Gigabit Ethernet ports make CPC800 an ideal platform for robust redundant systems. Very compact size of CPC800 – 115 x 165 mm - combined with video and audio controllers and a new modication - CPC800-02 provides an additional LVDS interface to support dual, independent VGA and LVDS displays.

A single-channel IDE controller is able to drive any two devices selected in BIOS setup. Available IDE devices include two external hard drives connected via on-board connectors, CompactFlash card, or soldered on-board 128 MB ash disk.

For data exchange, CPC304 uses two independent Fast Ethernet ports, four COM ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and eight programmable discrete input/output lines.

System management includes two watchdog timers, optoisolated remote reset, system wake-up controller, reserved BIOS, and possibility to save system conguration and emergency parameters in FRAM. CPC304 has two options: CPC304-01, full function version, and CPC304-02, “lite” without LVDS interface, on-board 128 MB NAND ash disk, one Fast Ethernet channel and three COM ports.

All components including CPU, SDRAM and 32 MB solidstate disk are soldered onboard thus providing superior shock/vibration resistance.

Onboard 32K nonvolatile RAM allows users to save critical data in case power failure. CPC800 also has 64K EEPROM memory for user applications.

One of the board’s benets is a PC/104 Plus connector with PCI and ISA interfaces, that allows Fastwel CPC800 and PC/104 modules work together as an integral system.

Four USB2.0, four COM and two S-ATA add to the I/O functionality.

The board can withstand shock up to 50g and vibration up to 5g with working temperatures from -40°C to +85°C. A three year warrantee assures this the most reliable product on the market.

CPC304 is designed for i operation from -40°C to +85°C. CPC304 supports MS DOS, QNX, Windows 2000, XPe, Windows CE5, RTOS32, and Linux.

Fastwel is participating at the Embedded World in Nurnberg in February, booth number 12-541

SOLUTIONS Engineering path for upgrading to CPCIe performance in areas where it is needed most, without having to scrap or modify legacy CPCI peripheral card applications that still function acceptably through a CPCI bus.

Hybrid Technology Eases Migration

This hybrid system approach has provided a cost-effective way for companies currently employing CPCI to take advantage of the enhanced CPCIe capabilities.

26

December 2007

Through components that enable both CPCI and CPCIe to function in the same system, engineers can cost-effectively utilize the technologies built on this new standard to reduce component obsolescence, incorporate technological refreshes into existing designs, and provide a simple migration from CPCI to CPCIe. These blended systems preserve compatibility with existing CPCI systems while at the same time providing the high serial data rates of CPCIe, so users can achieve the

rugged requirements necessary for their specific applications at a reasonable cost.

For example, MEN Micro and Schroff have collaborated to develop a CPCI/CPCIe system that partners a Schroff backplane with MEN Micro’s scalable Intel product family, a CompactPCI Express extension board and an XMC carrier board to provide flexible system configurations. This hybrid configuration also eliminates the need for software re-writes and expensive new software for serial link connections, and helps save costs by enabling the Express function to be used only where high data rates are required, such as in high-end graphics and Ethernet functions (Figure 1).

With CompactPCI on one side and CompactPCI Express on the other, a smooth migration path from parallel to serial is provided and the 3U form-factor is maintained. Expensive bridge boards with active logic, which waste space on the system, and bridge chips on the backplane that reduce speed because of multiple bridges in the system, are unnecessary. In addition, with a hybrid solution, future applications will not need to have a high-speed serial connection to devices like the typical industrial I/O, so it is pointless to buy pricey backplanes and connectors.

Figure 2 shows an 8-slot hybrid backplane with no bridge or active logic that allows four slots for CPCI cards and four for CPCIe cards. The CPCI slots are arranged with 32-bit CompactPCI bus and rear I/O on P2. The CPCIe slots include the CompactPCI Express system slot arranged as a 4-link configuration connected to three type-2 peripheral slots, each with a x4 link. An additional x4 link directed to the slot situated at the farthest right position also makes a x8 link configuration possible from that slot. Both the CPCI and the CPCIe buses are accessed from one CPU board.

Commercially available hybrid backplanes that provide such dual capability transparently—at costs comparable to those of standard CPCI backplanes— enable you to maintain an existing 3U form-factor and existing CPCI peripheral cards where desired, so you can concentrate your investment in CPCIe components needed only for more demanding applications.

SOLUTIONS Engineering

Legacy Peripheral Slots System Slot 32-bit with Rear I/O CPCI

System Slot CPCIe

Peripheral Slots Type 1

x4

D7 Xeon® Blade Server 6U CompactPCI®

x4 x4 x4

Access to CPCI Bus

The Harsher the Environment, the More You Need MEN Micro!

Access to CPCIe CPU

Figure 2

Functional diagram of a hybrid backplane.

Room for Improvement

Although CompactPCI Express offers significant cost-saving and technology upgrade benefits, a few simple enhancements to the data storage and transfer functions would provide exponentially increased opportunities for CPCIe and would help to further the adoption of this standard within several industries.

With the performance advantages that it provides to embedded computing, multiprocessing will remain a soughtafter feature for many generations of systems and subsystems. Multiprocessing functions are intensifying, resulting in significant increases in data capture, sharing and transfer requirements. Gigabit Ethernet, the widely used networking technology, could be incorporated via the backplane’s I/O to provide exponentially more multiprocessing capabilities.

Currently used in common applications, such as game controllers, printers, scanners, digital cameras, MP3 players, hard disks and flash drives, wireless USB (WUSB) is a wireless adaptation of the industry-standard USB protocol, which is currently used in more than two billion connection arrangements. A simple WUSB interface incorporated into the CPCIe standard would provide high-bandwidth wireless connectivity with high data transfer rates, providing more flexibility, ease-of-use and mobility.

A SATA interface would also provide faster, more reliable data transfers, with CRC (cyclic redundancy check) error checking on all data and control information, and hot swap capabilities for connecting 2.5” hard disk drives. SATA on the backplane would enable the user to accomplish data storage subsystems, including RAID expansion, on a much higher level.

New and improved standards claiming to be the next best thing for embedded computing applications have been popping up in an almost alarming number over the past few years. However, the standards that will bring true benefit to the market are those that exhibit a sound roadmap for future usage, offer cost-effective migration within existing systems and provide significant performance advancements.

With a little forethought and enhancement, CompactPCI Express could easily be one of the standouts that will help developers realize the best return on their investment. It has shown great progress over the past few years, and it is poised to become a critical standard in the embedded community.

MEN Micro Ambler, PA. (215) 542-9575. [www.menmicro.com].

For mission-critical applications, MEN Micro offers the D7 6U CompactPCI Blade Server: ■

■

■ ■ ■

■ ■ ■ ■

2 dual core Xeon® 1.66 GHz ULV processors (4 cores total) cPCI system slot with PCI 64-bit/ 66MHz or PCI-X 64-bit/133MHz 4 GB DDR2 SDRAM with ECC Non-volatile SRAM and FRAM SATA and PATA support for hard disk, CompactFlash and more I/Os include UARTs, USBs, Ethernet 2 XMC or PMC slots Up to 2 GB Ethernet channels Long-term availability: 5 years+

2007

ICA Technology Showcase

WINNER!

MEN Micro, Inc. 24 North Main Street Ambler, PA 19002 Tel: 215.542.9575 E-mail: sales@menmicro.com

www.menmicro.com December 2007

27

HARTING 1370 Bowes Road Elgin, IL 60123 USA

Phone 847.741.1500 Fax 847.717.9420 more.info@HARTING.com www.HARTING-USA.com

AdvancedTCA® Power

MicroTCA™ Output Power

AdvancedTCA® Zone 1 Power Connector (Power & Signal Hybrid)

MicroTCA™ Output Power (Power & Signal Hybrid)

HARTING’s AdvancedTCA® hybrid power connector is a perfect t for Zone 1 of ATCA® backplanes and daughter cards. Designed in accordance with the PICMG 3.0 specication, these connectors have 8 power contacts (AWG size 16), rated to 16A, and 22 signal contacts (AWG size 22) for critical management functions.

HARTING’s 96-position MicroTCA™ hybrid power connector is ideal for use in MicroTCA™ Power Supply Units (PSUs). The 24 power contacts are rated to 9.3 A @ 80% derating (IEC 60 512 method), and the 72 signal contacts supply crucial management and power functions to the system.

Selective gold plating is used to guarantee a minimum durability of 250 mating cycles. Four stage sequential contact engagement ensures hot-swapping capability. The robust design includes a guide receptacle (female connector) and a peg (male connector) for reliable blind mating. Both the female backplane connector and angled male daughter card connectors use HARTING’s proven press-in contacts and can be pressed-in with a standard at rock die.

HARTING’s connectors use four-stage sequential contact engagement ensures that the PSUs are easily hot swappable.

Integrated coding and included guiding features ensure accurate placement and blind mating reliability. Reliable gold and palladium nickel platings guarantee a minimum durability of 200 mating cycles. Both backplane and module connectors use HARTING’s proven press-in contacts, and the connectors are designed in accordance with the PICMG MTCA.0 R1.0 symmetric footprint.

con:card+

70

the most reliable AdvancedMC connectors

A new standard in reliability con:card+ is a new quality seal that identifies connectors possible offset between connector contacts and module pads providing the highest level of mating reliability for by 60%, thus significantly increasing the mating reliability of con:card+MicroTCA EvenTMunder high and shock and vibration, con:card ® backplanes AdvancedTCA carrier blades. + connectors AdvancedMCTM modules.

will keep the AdvancedMC™ modules in the correct position ™ ™ con:card+ connectors feature the unique GuideSpring By preventing the connector, con:card+ connecmodules. helping tomodule assurefloat the in reliability of your MicroTCA backplane technology. The GuideSpring pushes and holds the tors also enhance the reliability of AdvancedMCTM systems under ® and carriade.

AdvancedMCTM module against the connector housing. shock andAdvancedTCA vibrations. ™ module precisely within the slot prior to By systematically positioning the module precisely in the connector,™con:card+ connectors reduce the maximum

system tremendously.

innovation by +

HARTING + ept – at

www.concardplus.com

Learn more about the 5 con:card+ features at www.concardplus.com

INDUSTRY INSIG H T

standards

SAS Sharpens Blade Servers Blade servers benefit from Serial Attached SCSI (SAS). In fact, the entire blade chassis benefits from SAS.

by C ameron T. Brett and Jesse Molina PMC-Sierra

B

lade server systems shrink computing and storage capabilities that could fill up an entire rack, into a compact package as small as 7U and as large as 19U. The advantages of a blade server system include increased performance, density, manageability and power savings. The portfolio of new blade server systems includes server blades, multiple processor choices, multiple operating systems, new networking options and new storage options.

To continue providing end customers with more options and to drive the growth of the blade server market, blade server OEMs have introduced Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) into their blade server designs.

By moving to SAS, blade server architectures can support both enterprise-class applications with SAS disk drives and provide low-cost storage options with Serial ATA (SATA) disk drives. SAS also has the ability to be used as an interconnect fabric using SAS expanders for communication between servers and storage. To better appreciate how SAS plays well in a blade environment, it pays to know what goes into a blade chassis architecture (Figure 1).

A blade is an ultra-dense server that contains processors, memory, local disk storage, on-blade network interface card (NIC) and fabric connectivity. Other components include power, cooling and networking, and are contained and shared within the blade chassis. By consolidating servers and storage into a blade chassis, IT centers save precious data center real estate and power, and simplify server management.

SAS Components

Controllers create the connection between SAS disk drives and the host

30

December 2007

Blades

Mid-Plane PCI/PCIe Slots/Modules

Switch Modules Management Modules Cooling Fans/Blowers Power Supplies Source: Focus Consulting

Figure 1

Common blade server architecture with I/O, management, power and cooling modules.

system, typically a server or an external RAID controller. The host connections used today are made via PCI-X or PCI Express (PCIe) and the controller is embedded on the motherboard or mounted on an add-in card.

• SAS I/O controller (IOC) – typically a PCI-X or PCIe host interface with four or eight ports of SAS connections on a chip or card.

• SAS RAID-on-Chip controller (ROC) – typically a PCI-X or PCIe host interface, hardware RAID 5/6 and four or eight SAS connections on a chip or card.

Expanders are essential to SAS systems by allowing a single SAS link (commonly four x1 links combined into a single “wide” port) to connect to many SAS ports, ranging from 12, 18, 24 or 36 ports, creating very large storage configurations (Figure 2). The expander provides all of the routing for link usage internally with the added benefit of a management interface that allows for statistics gathering and fault

isolation. Expanders are typically found on backplanes or add-in cards typically connecting 12, 18, 24 or 36 disk drives.

Expanders can be cascaded, connecting expanders to expanders, for connectivity to an even greater number of devices.

Expanders can connect to multiple hosts as well as to other expanders. In this case, the expander acts as a switch, similar to that in an Ethernet or Fibre Channel environment.

SAS disk drives are highly reliable drives designed for enterprise IT applications, such as 24/7 operation or other applications with very high duty cycles. They are also higher performing with RPM speeds of up to 15K, but capacities are typically limited to 300 Gbytes per disk drive today.

The high reliability and performance come at a high price as well, typically 3x to 5x the price of a SATA disk drive.

SATA disk drives are part of the SAS ecosystem due to compatibility with SAS and come from the low-cost, parallel ATA line of disk drives, and have a different connector on the back. SATA drives have

INDUSTRY Insight SAS Expander Component SAS x4 “Wide” Link

SAS HBA

x1 SAS Link

SAS or SATA Disks

x1 SAS Link

Figure 2

x1 SAS Link

SAS or SATA Disks

x1 SAS Link

SAS or SATA Disks

SAS Expanders & Drives in External JBOD Enclosure

SAS or SATA Disks

ETX form factor single board computer NANO-9452

Expanders connect a single SAS link to many SAS links.

Blade Server System

Midplane

Primary SAS Switch Module

CPU CPU

SAS Host SAS or SATA Local Disks

CPU Blade

Figure 3

SAS Expander with Zoning

Socket M Intel® Celeron M 1.0GHz CPU

External Storage

RAID SAS Expander with Zoning

JBOD

Secondary SAS Switch Module

JBOD

Intel® 852GM + ICH4 chipset / DDR2 memory up to 1GB / 10/100 Ethernet / Dual channel 18-bit LVDS LCD panel / 4 x PCI support / ISA support / 2x IDE / 4 x USB/ 2 x RS-232

Fanless AMD LX-800 Universal Controller

A SAS fabric is many links between SAS controllers, switches/expanders and disk drives.

a lower duty cycle and a much lower mean time between failure than SAS disk drives.

Additionally, they have lower performance with typical 7200 RPM platter rotational speed. On the plus side, they come in very high capacities, up to 1 Terabyte today.

SATA disk drives used in a high-availability, failover system need to be dual-ported.

A port multiplier allows a SATA disk to be connected to two SAS controllers, such as a SAS I/O or RAID card. If connectivity to one of the controllers fails, the other controller can continue to read/write to the SATA disk.

The way SAS and SATA devices connect are through new serial connectors and cables that are much smaller and thinner, which promotes better airflow within a system. The connectors for SAS and SATA look very similar and both include power and data connections in a single connector. The noticeable difference between them is that the SATA connector has a small notch, or “key” between the data and power connections.

This allows a SATA drive to connect to a SAS connection, but a SAS drive could not be plugged into a SATA connection.

SAS as a Fabric

Inside the chassis, a reliable, time-tested protocol is needed. SAS is well designed to

be a fabric, certainly within a blade chassis or rack. Today’s 3 Gbit/s SAS is robust and highly reliable. This SAS fabric can utilize a 300 Mbyte/s single link to a wide port, combining four single links, up to 1.2 Gbyte/s speeds. With next-generation SAS, touting speeds of 6 Gbits/s per link, a x4 wide port will run at 2.4 Gbytes/s, and for even higher throughput applications, a x8 wide port cruises up to 4.8 Gbyte/s speeds.

SAS provides a powerful switching capability using expanders, which act as switches to end devices, enabling quick aggregation of many drives in a single SAS domain (up to 16,384 devices). Expanders are fully capable of connecting multiple hosts to multiple targets in a SAS fabric (Figure 3).

Taking advantage of SAS as a fabric, the concept of disk-less blade servers is emerging. In this configuration, the hard disk drives are moved off the server/CPU blade on to a local shared storage blade.

Storage blades are available today in configurations supporting many SAS and SATA hard disk drives, used as a flexible pool of storage for the blade servers. A global resource manager can assign and manage boot images, applications, and select server links to specific data volumes. The storage blade provides an advantage in price and

AMD LX-800 500MHz

AMD LX + AMD CS5536 chipset / 8 x COM / Ethernet / 4 x USB / Windows CE 6.0 OPC Modbus support library provide by SDK/ ideal to work with PLC, industrial communication converter/gateway, and factory automation

Intel Core 2 Quad Mini-ITX KINO-9654G4 Mini ITX

Ideal for High performance computing or network appliance

Intel Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad CPU / DDR 2 memory / 4 Gigabit Network / 6x USB / 2xGbE / 4x RS-232 / 1x PCI express expansion / 7.1 Channel Audio

http://www.ieiworld.com

emarketing@usa.ieiworld.com

1-866-276-6754 Tel :1-909-595-2819

Untitled-1 1

Fax: 1-909-595-2816

December 2007

31

10/18/07 10:50:24 AM

WinSystems, Inc. 715 Stadium Drive Arlington, TX 76011 USA

Phone 817.274.7553 Fax 817.548.1358 info@winsystems.com www.winsystems.com

Fanless 1GHz Pentium® SBC

Multifunction Analog and Digital I/O

-40º to +70º Temperature Operation

DAC Module Requires No Calibration

If you need a powerful, exible PC for demanding industrial applications such robotics, transportation, pipelines, MIL/ COTS, medical, security, machine control, and industrial automation, you will nd the EBC-855 an ideal solution. This extended temperature, high-performance, x86-based SBC operates Linux, Windows® XP embedded, and other RTOS to provide a seamless development platform. It also supports popular video and wired/wireless network standards.

The PCM-MIO is a versatile analog input, analog output, and digital I/O board designed for industrial applications requiring high-accuracy and high-channel count analog and digital I/O. The PCM-MIO requires no external calibration resulting in quick and easy set-up of analog systems.

With a list price of $595, the EBC-855 is equipped with a fanless 1GHz Intel® Pentium® M CPU, up to 1GB of DDR system memory, plus a full set of I/O functions. Interfaces include 10/100BaseT Ethernet port, with remote boot and WOL capability, VGA and dual channel LVDS at panel video, a miniPCI connector supports four USB 2.0 ports, four serial COM ports, AC97 audio, LPT and keyboard and mouse controllers plus an optional 802.11 wireless module. A software programmable 48-line digital I/O controller supplies input, output, or output with readback for each I/O line.

For specialty I/O functions, the EBC-855 has connectors to support PC/104 and PC/104-Plus expansion modules.

The EBC-855 is in stock for immediate availability. It is offered with a software developer kit that provides the necessary hardware and software to simplify program development. As with all WinSystems’ products, this SBC is supported with outstanding technical assistance provided by factory application engineers.

This PC/104-based module has two separate 16-bit A/D converters. Each supports 8-channels for a total of 16 singleended, 8 differential channels or various combinations of both. Analog input ranges are: 0-5V, 0-10V, ±5V, and ±10V. There are eight, 12-bit D/A converters. The output ranges are: 0-5V, 0-10V, ±5V, ±10V. There are also 48 lines of digital I/O individually programmable for input, output, or output with read-back. These lines are TTL-compatible and can source and sink 12 mA which allow them direct connection to industry-standard, optically isolated AC and DC signal conditioners.

The PCM-MIO operates over a -40° to +85°C temperature range. It is compatible with isolated signal conditioners that protect, lter, and isolate the analog input and output signals from electrical transients. There are many models available from third party vendors to interface to a wide variety of voltage, current, temperature, position and other analog based instrumentation. Free software drivers are available for C, Windows®, and Linux.

PC/104 Embedded Machine to Machine Connectivity Keep in touch with your industrial application by using WinSystems’ wired and wireless modular PC/104 modules.

Small, rugged, and operational over extended temperature ranges, they are perfect for transportation, pipeline, instrumentation, MIL/COTS, and homeland security applications.

Wireless • GSM/CDMA Cellular • 802.11 a/b/g Networking Ethernet • 10/100 Mbps Ethernet • Gigabit Ethernet Modem (POTS) USB 2.0 RS-232/422/485 Serial I/O Other I/O Expansion • A/D, D/A • Digital • GPS Embedded Platforms Supported • PC/104 – 3.6 x 3.8 inches • EPIC – 4.5 x 6.5 inches • STD Bus – 4.5 x 6.5 inches • EBX – 5.75 x 8.00 inches O/S Support • Windows® XPe and CE • Linux 2.6 • x86-compatible RTOS Extended Temperature Operation Off-the-shelf delivery, knowledgeable technical support, and long-term availability makes these products the right choice for your application.

TM

Call 817-274-7553 or Visit www.winsystems.com Ask about our 30-day product evaluation!

WinSystems 715 Stadium Drive • Arlington, Texas 76011 Phone 817-274-7553 • FAX 817-548-1358 E-mail: info@winsystems.com

®

INDUSTRY Insight

Diskless Blade Server System

Midplane

SAS Switch

CPU

SAS Expander with Zoning

SAS Host

CPU SAS Expander with Zoning

CPU Blade

SAS Switch SAS Expander with Zoning Storage Blade

Figure 4

To External Storage

SAS enables disk-less booting from a storage blade used with zoning.

performance by maximizing storage utilization across multiple blade servers instead of having dedicated drives on every blade server that cannot be shared.

SAS zoning further enhances the blade server architecture and increases security by separating data traffic between hosts and resources, restricting blade access to only a specific set of disk drives, as not all servers need to access all data. SAS zoning is key for disk-less blade architectures, because each blade server’s protected boot drive will be located on a shared storage blade. Zoning is required to protect each server blade and associated storage from unauthorized access and security breaches (Figure 4).

Zoning also adds a layer of management and control in blade environments. Frequently, the traffic needs to be separated for efficiency. Some data may need to be dedicated to one server, and other data may need to be shared across multiple servers. Access controls prevent unauthorized access, malicious attacks or corruption of data by operator error on the server. Access controls ensure that if a server is compromised, only data that is accessible by the compromised server is at risk of being lost and not the entire network.

Flexibility and Cost Savings

SAS has built-in support for SATA disk drives through the Serial ATA Tunneling Protocol (STP). This allows a SATA disk drive to establish a direct link to a SAS controller through its native protocol and process. Additionally, connectors and cables are similar between SAS and SATA for seamless connectivity. One key difference is the construction of the SATA

34

Untitled-4 1

December 2007

12/5/07 5:21:50 PM

connector. This connector allows a SATA drive to connect to a SAS cable, but a SAS drive cannot connect to a SATA cable.

Compatibility with SATA disk drives allows more flexibility in the architecture, capacity and cost of the blade server and storage. SATA disk drives tend to be lower performance, higher capacity and lower reliability and are meant for a lighter duty cycle.

Introducing SATA storage in a blade chassis on a storage blade enables tiered storage where fewer drives (used less frequently) store aging data. They could also be used as a less expensive mirror of primary SAS drives. If the data is not mission-critical, SATA drives could be used to create the largest array possible with 1 Terabyte capacities.

Blade servers and storage are quickly becoming mainstream, from enterprises to small businesses. With the fastest growth rate of all server types, at more than 30% per year, blade chassis architectures and requirements are also evolving at a rapid pace. SAS is rapidly evolving as well, keeping pace with the growing requirements of blade server environments. Today’s 3 Gbit/ s SAS and the future’s 6 Gbit/s SAS bring high performance and reliability into a fabric within a blade chassis. Flexible architectures with disk-less blades and storage configurations combining SAS and SATA disks give blades new capabilities and better security. Blade servers are certainly cuttingedge and SAS helps keep them sharp.

PMC-Sierra Santa Clara, CA. (408) 239-8000. [www.pmc-sierra.com].

How would you put a harness on that?

Imagine how it would feel to ride 250 horses at one time. Like you’re sitting on thunder, out of control — wild. Now imagine the performance from those same 250 horses altogether in one beast, like the Intel® chopper. Same kind of power — different form factor. It’s the difference between raw performance, and really efficient performance.

The same kind of really efficient performance you get with new Intel® multi-core architecture. Where you’ll find two, four, and eventually 80 of our most powerful execution cores on a single chip. All together in one smartly designed package that doesn’t use any more power or take up any more space than our previous single-core processors. The kind of power you can control, even when the ride gets wild.

How would you harness that kind of performance? What kind of form factor would you use?

To learn more go to: http://developer.intel.com/design/info/915.htm

Intel Embedded Technology. Igniting Innovation.

Intel and the Intel logo are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

Copyright © 2007 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.

Software & development TOolS

multicore software

Multicore – What’s the Big Deal?

Multicore is being talked about a lot and is getting plenty of attention in the press. Why do we need it, what is the state of multicore and how do we make it work?

by S ven Brehmer PolyCore Software

W

hy do we need multicore? The simple answer is that with multicore we continue pushing the performance/power envelope through parallel processing rather than increasing the clock speed as we have done for many years. With multiple cores, the processors can run at lower frequencies, with lower supply voltages, and cores can be turned on and off based on the system load. This means that higher MIPS/watt can be achieved—that is, if the software executes in parallel.

The availability of multicore-enabled applications will drive multicore silicon revenue, but existing applications are mostly single threaded. The current software infrastructure is almost entirely aimed at single-threaded, single-processor applications. Even though some embedded applications are multi-threaded, it is not easy to migrate them to multicore because the different threads, which executed in sequence on a single-processor system, may now execute at the same time, which requires precaution to avoid destruction of shared data. The lack of multicore software and standards presents a significant barrier to entry for multicore, which must be reduced to enable broad adoption and continued silicon revenue growth.

While parallel processing has been

36

December 2007

• Different/Multiple • Operating systems • Cores - CPU/DSP • Connections - Physical & Logical

One Communications API MCAPI

User Application Software

User Application Software

Task1A Task2A

Task1B Task2B

Task3A

Task3B

Abstraction Communications Framework

Middleware USB, Bluetooth

TCP/IP

Linux/Windows/RTOS/DSP-OS

Multi-Channel

Hardware CPU+I/O

Priority 2 Priority 3

Multi-Priority

Poly-Messenger

Multi-Level Bus BUS Level 3 BUS Level 2 BUS Level 1

Figure 1

Communications API

Priority 1

Physical Connection Cross Bar AND/OR

RTOS/DSP-OS Hardware CPU/DSP+I/O

Network

AND/OR

Abstracting the communications layer between cores makes use of the underlying hardware communication mechanisms with a common API.

used in high-end applications (aerospace, defense, industrial and high-performance computing) for many years, it is a poorly understood concept in the broader markets now being “exposed” by the proliferation of multicore silicon. In PCs with two going to four cores, it is currently relatively simple to take advantage of multicore with multiple (contained) applications running in parallel (SMP),

which may become more challenging as the number of cores increase.

What Is the State of Multicore?

There is a variety of multicore silicon from commercially available “standard” parts to custom SoCs. For simplicity, let’s take a look at standard parts, there are: • Homogenous cores • Heterogeneous cores

Software&DevelopmentTools • Wide ranging number of cores; two to many • Shared memory • Local memory • Different types if interconnect Homogenous is sometimes associated with Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) and heterogeneous with Asymmetric Multi-Processing (AMP). While there is some logic to that labeling, as SMP requires homogenous cores and shared memory, I believe it is more relevant to look at application requirements when we talk about SMP and AMP as programming models; more on that below.

The number of cores on a die will influence the approach to parallel processing, as two cores can be quite powerful and have substantial memory per core whereas many cores imply simpler cores and less resources per core.

Shared memory, commonly used in today’s multicore chips, has the advantage of being visible to all the cores, but the disadvantage of being shared between the cores, which creates contention for memory access, and limits scalability.

Local memory has the opposite properties and will be more common as the number of cores per die goes up. A combination of shared and local memory can provide flexibility and scalability.

The bus is currently the most common interconnect; it is simple as all the cores are connected to the bus and can “see” one another. However, the bus doesn’t scale very well and will over time be combined with or replaced by other types of interconnects such as direct links between cores making up a network on chip (NoC) and others. A combination of a bus and other interconnect(s) can make migration from legacy systems easier and provide higher throughput and performance.

• Lack of multicore software tools • Lack of standards Migrating single-threaded applications to multicore can be quite a challenge since the C & C++, the most popular languages in embedded systems, are sequential (no parallel concepts), so the partitioning has to be done at the system level (not counting parallelizing compilers that operate primarily with data parallelism).

Which programming model to use,

SMP or AMP, depends on several factors such as the requirements of the application in terms of deadlines and throughput and the application’s characteristics that may offer opportunity for parallel execution and may or may not have global and static variables and pointers. One must consider the structure of the existing code: Is it modular or monolithic? Will two cores be enough for future scalability or will more be needed down the road? Then one must look at which hardware to select in terms

Software

Since the current software “infrastructure” is primarily targeted to single processing there is a lot of work to be done to make the software multicore “friendly.”

Some of the challenges are: • Single-threaded applications – Lots of them!

• Choice of programming model • Lack of multicore-enabled system software Untitled-6 1

December11/26/07 2007

37

3:46:44 PM

ACCES I/O Products, Inc. 10623 Roselle Street San Diego, CA 92121 USA

Phone 858.550.9559 Fax 858.550.7322 contactus@accesio.com www.accesio.com

NANO I/O Server CD (Core Duo)

USB/104 Data Acquisition Series

Small, Fanless Intel® CoreT Duo System With PC/104 I/O Expansion

USB/104 Embedded OEM Data Acquisition Boards

The NANO I/O Server CD (Core Duo) fanless system is one of the smallest embedded systems available featuring an Intel Core Duo 1.66GHz CPU. The system was designed to support an extensive collection of available COTS PC/104 modules and external USB I/O devices. This allows for added versatility and is useful in a wide variety of applications.

The system is housed in a rugged, black anodized aluminum enclosure measuring only 5” wide, 6.25” deep and 3” high.

The enclosure offers physical protection for industrial environments and features a bulkhead mounting provision.

The unit is quietly powered by an included 12VDC to ATX power supply with no fans. External connections provided include VGA, four USB 2.0 root ports, one RS-232 and one RS-232/422/485-selectable COM ports, PS/2 keyboard and mouse, 10/100 Ethernet and standard PC sound. This tiny system is the rst fanless Intel Core Duo to highlight full PC/104, PCI-104 and PC/104-Plus I/O expansion. The small system has room to support up to two PC/104, PCI104 or PC/104-Plus I/O modules. A removable plate can be customized to bring out customer-specied I/O cables or connectors.

Choose from a broad range of USB-based analog, digital, and serial I/O modules. What makes our USB/104 form factor unique is that its PCB size and mounting holes match the PC/104 form factor (without the bus connections).

This allows our rugged line of boards to be added to any PC/104-based stack simply by connecting it to a USB port usually included on-board the variety of available embedded CPUs. Our USB/104 boards can also be added into many pre-existing non PC/104-based embedded systems and enclosures by using the board’s pre-drilled mounting holes which allow for installation using standoffs. Also available are desktop versions which include a rugged steel enclosure and screw terminal board, a DIN-rail mounting provision, and extended temperature options. The exibility these boards offer is perfect for a variety of embedded applications such as industrial automation and control, embedded OEM, data acquisition, medical, and portable laptop.

Software&DevelopmentTools

Topology definition Core A

Core B

OS 1

OS 2

Core A

Core A

OS 3

OS 4

XML

Topology-Generator C+headers (.h)

Compile

Link

Application.exe

• Application • Topology • IPCF.lib

Figure 2

A topology generator enables the application and the communication topology to be separated so that the communications can be reconfigured without requiring modifications to the application.

of the types of cores, the memory architecture and interconnects and the available operating systems.

Most operating systems, except those that are SMP-enabled, control one processor. A multicore system may have multiple instantiations of one or even different types of OSs. This requires both efficient on-chip communication and dynamic management above the OS level. Commonly used communication stacks such

1 40Untitled-5 December 2007

as TCP/IP, UDP/IP are not well suited for communication in a closely distributed computing environment like multicore.

A few tools that would come in handy for multicore software development are: • Communication topology generators/ configurators • Programming model tools • Tools for application partitioning, a potentially very complex task • Debuggers that can “focus” in and out

to view information both at the detail and function levels and that can stop execution on selective cores, without “breaking” the application • Simulators, which can focus in and out of scope • Optimization tools Standards that are specifically targeting the closely distributed computing environment are needed to enable the multicore ecosystem. Efforts are underway in the Multicore Association (http://www. multicore-association.org) to address this. The software is clearly lagging behind the hardware for multicore, presenting formidable challenges for developers and opportunity for vendors.

How Do We Make it Work?

The software approach depends on whether you can choose the hardware or not. Matching the processor (or hardware accelerator) to the task can make a significant difference both for performance and power consumption. Having multiple types, for example a CPU and a DSP, gives you flexibility to divide the application and

11/26/07 3:37:06 PM

Software&DevelopmentTools match some portions to the CPU and some to the DSP. Heterogeneous cores also add complexity as they may require different tools and/or operating environments. As a general guideline, a CPU is well suited for control tasks and a DSP to data processing tasks. A simple first partitioning would be to assign the control tasks such as keyboard control, user interface and general office application to the CPU, and signal processing and multimedia applications to a DSP, in a mobile multimedia-enabled device like a smart phone.

You have to decide which programming model, SMP or AMP, to choose, which may be dictated by the hardware (SMP requires homogenous cores and shared memory). Beyond the hardware the choice depends on the application requirements and the structure of the existing code. If enough cores are available, a combination of the two models may be a good choice. Generally it will be easier to scale an application to a larger number of cores with a larger number of functional modules or threads.

The performance of your application running on multiple cores requires efficient data movement between the cores to keep the cores working in parallel as much as possible (comparable to cache efficiency on a single processor). Equally important is that this communication can be done with a consistent API, such as the upcoming MCAPI from the Multicore Association, even if the underlying hardware and software changes. Changes may include the number and types of cores, memory architectures, different physical (and logical) interconnects as well as operating systems. The Internet provides a macro scale analogy, with a variety of different types of computers (PCs, Macs, etc.), OSs (Windows, Linux, etc.) and interconnects, “speaking” TCP/IP. Multicore communication is best handled by a lightweight interprocessor communication framework (IPCF) designed to address the requirements specific to a closely distributed multi-processing environment and with a consistent programming API. The programming API abstracts the underlying cores, memory architectures, interconnects and OSs. Key considerations are high throughput, low latency, predictability and small footprint.

Because a multicore environment is static

from a hardware perspective (the number of cores is fixed) and interconnects can be considered reliable, a multicore IPCF doesn’t require some of the dynamic functionality needed on the Internet. The static nature allows efficient lightweight IPCF implementations, such as Poly-Core Software’s Poly-Messenger (Figure 1).

Additional functionality such as dynamic system management functions or object oriented framework, etc. can be layered on top of or use a multicore IPCF to take full advantage of a multicore system’s capabilities.

There is a need for more multicorespecific tools for tasks such as topology generation, debugging, partitioning, optimization and more. The “first-generation” multicore debuggers are available from a few different OS and development tools vendors. Which one to choose will probably depend on the silicon and/or OS and tools vendor(s) of choice.

It is important to be able to easily reconfigure the communication topology both for optimization purposes and to reuse application code on multiple and future hardware platforms. Separating the topology definition from the application makes reconfiguration easier, and an application that has been partitioned can potentially be remapped to different cores without modification.

A structured approach makes separating the topology configuration and application feasible, and a tool that generates the specified topology makes it easier and less error prone. The topology can be defined in terms of structure, such as the communication endpoints; the nodes, which are equivalent to a core (or an SMP cluster); the channels and priorities as well as the amount of resources assigned to the communication “components.” By using a higher level language such as XML to define topology, it can easily be reconfigured, reused and also be integrated in higher level tools.

An example of the flow from topology definition to application integration is outlined in Figure 2. The topology file is processed by the topology generator, which outputs the communication software topology in C. The C files are compiled and linked with the application and the IPCF run-time library resulting in a communication-enabled application. To-

pology changes are easily handled with modifications in the XML topology file.

The topology is scalable (up and down) from one to even thousands of cores by using a topology generation tool that allows you to reconfigure your topology outside your application, using an XML-based topology definition.

Application partitioning is at this stage up to the developer as there are no generally available tools. This can be a very challenging task, particularly if the existing application has a lot of shared data structures that will have to be protected with some form of locks to avoid accidental destruction and pointers that can create unexpected results in a multicore environment. A reasonable approach would be use a stepwise procedure starting with distributing existing tasks and/or “independent” functions among cores, as they are likely fairly well contained with a defined input/output. If the first step is not sufficient, the next will be to break the application into smaller parts, distribute and evaluate, and so on.

The emergence of standards specifically targeting closely distributed computing will help to drive the availability of run-time software and tools, and I would encourage everyone who is or thinks they will be using multicore to participate in the Multicore Association’s efforts to enable the ecosystem!

We are still in the early stages of embedded multicore software, with some run-time software and development tools available, but much more is needed. If you are involved in some form of high-performance embedded computing, chances are that multicore is coming to a “project near you.” The “big deal” with multicore is not the concept of parallel processing, which has been around for many years; it’s that multicore is spreading parallel computing to the broader embedded market segments without a software infrastructure to support it.

PolyCore Software Foster City, CA. (650) 570-5942. [www.polycoresoftware.com].

December 2007

41

BittWare, Inc. 9 Hills Avenue Suite B Concord, NH 03301 USA

Phone 603.226.0404 Fax 603.226.6667 info@bittware.com www.bittware.com

GT-3U-cPCI

GX-AMC

Ruggedized Hybrid Signal Processing 3U CompactPCI Board

Altera Stratix II GX AdvancedMC

BittWare’s GT-3U-cPCI (GT3U) is a ruggedized 3U CompactPCI board that has been designed for demanding multi-processor based applications requiring complete exibility and adaptability. The GT3U features a large Altera Stratix II GX FPGA, one cluster of four ADSP-TS201S TigerSHARC processors from Analog Devices, a front panel interface supplying four channels of high-speed SerDes tranceivers, and a back panel interface providing RS232/ RS422 and 10/100 ethernet. Simultaneous on-board and offboard data transfers can be achieved at a rate of 2 GB/s via BittWare’s ATLANTiS framework implemented in the Stratix II GX FPGA. The board also provides a large amount of onboard memory including 1 GB of DDR2 SDRAM or 64 MB of QDR SDRAM, as well as 64 MB of ash memory for booting the FPGA and DSPs.

Based on Altera’s Stratix II GX FPGA, BittWare’s GX-AMC (GXAM) is a mid-size, single wide AdvancedMC that can be attached to AdvancedTCA (Advanced Telecom Compute Architecture) carriers or other cards equipped with AMC bays, and used in MicroTCA systems. The GXAM features a high-density Altera Stratix II GX FPGA, BittWare’s ATLANTiS framework (implemented in the FPGA), a front panel I/O interface, a control plane interface via BittWare’s FINe interface bridge, an IPMI system management interface, and a congurable 8x SerDes interface supporting a variety of protocols. It also provides 10/100 Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, two banks of DDR2 SDRAM, one bank of QDR2 SRAM, and Flash memory for booting the FPGA and FINe.

Ruggedized. Conduction Cooled.

COTS Compliant.

Defense applications need signal processing hardware solutions that can withstand harsh environmental conditions — heat or cold, humidity, altitude, shock, vibration — and must be able to fit into space constrained platforms. Our military depends on fast time to deployment, low risk, flexibility in design and ensured long term availability — all coupled with the ability to process complex, compute intensive algorithms.

BittWare offers the essential building blocks — signal processing hardware, silicon & IP frameworks, development tools, and systems & services — that the defense community depends on for developing mission critical innovative solutions.

Visit www.BittWare.com to learn more.

Signal Processing HW

Silicon & IP Frameworks

Development Tools

Systems & Services

Essential building blocks … Innovative solutions.

FeaturedProducts Soft Core System Architecture Fires FPGA Platforms

A new generation of embedded processing solutions for FPGA platforms provides design teams with enhanced system-level performance, expanded flexibility and increased design environment productivity covering a broad range of applications. Based on the 32-bit MicroBlaze soft RISC processor, now with MMU, from Xilinx and anchored by an enhanced 32to 128-bit Processor Local Bus (PLB), a component of the IBM CoreConnect bus standard; the platform delivers performance and scalability.

The MicroBlaze processor is a configurable 32-bit RISC processor soft core optimized for Xilinx FPGAs. The soft processor is configurable in that a designer can implement only the specific features required by the design, thereby optimizing silicon area and/or performance. Every aspect of the MicroBlaze processor is customizable, including functional requirements like pipeline depths, caches, floating point units, multipliers, dividers and more importantly, the use of optional and/or custom coprocessors based on the target application.

With the new memory management unit (MMU) in the MicroBlaze v7, designers can exploit a full-fledged embedded operating system like Linux, increasing their productivity using its virtual memory capabilities while developing more robust software applications using its memory protection capabilities. Embedded software developers that choose to create their own custom real-time kernels or executives can also configure the MMU to provide only the memory protection function, further reducing the logic area utilized in the FPGA. Xilinx has added support for LynuxWorks’ Blue Cat Linux 2.6 RTOS, enabled by the MicroBlaze MMU.

The key ability to flexibly configure with standard and custom peripherals is enhanced with the new 32- to 128-bit CoreConnect Processor Local Bus (PLBv46) that supports both MicroBlaze and PowerPC processorbased systems from Xilinx. The new system architecture supports shared connections as before for smaller implementation area, reducing cost while also supporting point-to-point connections for higher bandwidth needs.

Another architectural enhancement is the Multi-Port Memory Controller (MPMC) as the centerpiece of high-performance embedded system design with FPGAs. The MPMC core delivered with the Platform Studio tool suite provides optimal memory throughput by providing the flexibility to select the appropriate external memory from a wide range of SDRAM, DDR or DDR2 DIMM modules or memory chips with data widths from 8 to 64 bits. In addition, MPMC supports up to eight ports with configurable buffering and arbitration to fine-tune the system.

The latest MicroBlaze Development Kit, Spartan-3E 1600E Edition, provides a comprehensive kit including MicroBlaze, a board and a complete embedded development suite. Pre-verified references designs, communication cables and a single JTAG probe supporting both FPGA

44

December 2007

image download and SW/HW debug tools provide the difference between an efficient evaluation platform and a “stand-alone board.”

Intelligent embedded tools with guided wizards make evaluation easy, automating the steps required to set up the board, choose the processor, customize specific IP, and generate matching peripheral drivers as well as sample test code. Using a working FPGA evaluation board and an example design, designers save valuable time by beginning code debugging immediately, rather than waiting for new hardware or manufacturing defects to appear.

Xilinx, San Jose, CA. (408) 559-7778. [www.xilinx.com].

NEBS-Compliant PCI-X Packet Processors Address Speed, Security, Flexibility

Two intelligent, high-performance, 4-port Gigabit Ethernet packet processors have been introduced in PCI-X formfactor by GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms. The WANic 3850 and WANic 3860 packet processors are designed for applications such as session border control, secure access, network address translation (NAT), traffic management and firewall. The WANic 3850 and 3860 are available with NEBS (Network Equipment – Building System) compliance, the most common set of safety, spatial and environmental design guidelines applied to telecommunications equipment. They are also competitively enhanced by the provision of either twisted pair Small Form-factor Pluggable (SFP) or short-range SX fiber SFP transceivers.

At the heart of the WANic 3850 is a Cavium OCTEON 12-core 500 MHz CN3850-SCP Secure Communications Processor, while the WANic 3860 features a Cavium OCTEON 16-core 500 MHz CN-3860NSP Network Services processor, enabling secure high-speed connectivity and complex security processing for content-aware applications—such as the ability to examine packets at layers 2-7—at wire speed. The processor, which delivers up to 4 Gbit/s line speed packet processing, is complemented by up to 4 Gbytes of high-speed DDR2 packet memory. The WANic 3860 additionally features 256 Mbytes of RLDRAM. A dual-issue, five-stage pipeline, very low latencies, auto instruction pre-fetching and advanced data pre-fetching minimize memory delays and optimize application performance. High-speed communications are facilitated via a PCI-SIG 1.0b-compliant 54-bit/133 MHz PCI-X bus interface.

The RoHS-compliant WANic 3850 and WANic 3860 derive their flexibility from their support of multiple front panel configuration options, including four front panel ports of Gigabit Ethernet supporting IEEE 1000BaseT or four front panel ports of Gigabit Ethernet supporting IEEE 1000BaseSX via SFP transceivers.

A comprehensive supporting software suite—designed to improve time-to-revenue—is available including support for Debian Linux (other operating systems may also be supported), embedded boot loader and POST, sample application code and a well-defined API. The software development package is optimized to simplify application integration for multicore processor development environments.

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, Charlottesville, VA. [www.gefanuc.com].

INTO TECHNOLOGY COMING TO A CITY NEAR YOU rtecc.com

&TECHNOLOGY

Products

PCI Express Gen2 Line Has Four New Switch Solutions

Four new PCI Express switching solutions are optimized to address the I/O connectivity challenges faced in the volume and value server markets. Specifically, the new PCI Express Gen2 devices from IDT provide high performance-per-watt and low total power consumption critical for server markets. Moreover, the devices are designed to enable the cost-effective development of new systems by simplifying board layout, reducing system design and manufacturing cost, thus speeding time-to-market. The four new PCIe Gen2 switching solutions—a 24-lane, 6-port; a 24-lane, 3-port; a 6-lane, 6-port; and a 4-lane, 4-port—join the company’s existing portfolio of PCIe Gen2 switches. The IDT Gen2 PCIe switches are fully compliant with the PCI-SIG PCIe base specification 2.0 and provide customers the option of doubling the throughput bandwidth of existing PCIe lanes to 5 gigabits per second of data transfer or allowing a 50 percent reduction in the number of PCIe lanes and board traces necessary to support link throughput requirements for a more cost-effective design.

Each of the IDT PCIe switching solutions has a dedicated evaluation and development kit for device testing and analysis, and system emulation. Each kit consists of a hardware evaluation board with representative upstream and downstream connectivity, and an IDT-developed, GUIbased software environment that enables the designer to tune system and device configurations to meet system requirements. Moreover, to ensure that each OEM system design is optimized for production and meets its time-t- market objectives, IDT provides customers with extensive, collaborative technical support including system modeling and signal integrity analyses, and schematic and layout review services. All of the devices are available in a 19 mm flip chip BGA package with 1 mm ball spacing. They will begin general sampling in January 2008.

Modular Liquid-Cooled ATR Enclosure Offers Various Configurations

A new liquid-cooled air transport rack (ATR) chassis is modular and can be configured in various sizes and configurations without starting from scratch, saving time, effort and money. The liquid-cooled ATR chassis from Elma Electronic can fit up to ten 6U x 160 mm slots in a 1 ATR Short size. Designed to ARINC 404A, the chassis accepts conduction-cooled modules in various architectures such as VME/64x, cPCI, VXS, VPX and more.

The independent dual liquid-cooled sidewalls dissipate in excess of 100 watts per slot. Various cooling fluids can be used including glycol, kerosene, PAO, salt water, or others. The unit is highly ruggedized and meets MIL-STD 810E, 461D and 704E.

IDT, San Jose, CA. (408) 284-8200. [www.idt.com].

Industrial-Grade Rugged Cased Module Delivers Navigation Data through RS-232 or RS-422

Qualified to automotive specifications and designed for commercial or professional vehicles operating in poor signal environments, the HEOL-N101 GPS cased module is a high-sensitivity (152 dBm/-182 dBw), low-power consumption (30 mA -12 volts) series of GPS navigation modules. GPS antenna voltages are selectable in the range of 3V - 5V and protected against short circuit and overvoltage, and the antenna connect via an automotive-grade FAKRA socket (SMA, MCX or other connectors) are available on request. There are options for either RS-232 or RS-422 configurable ports, which allow the customer/installer to select the input/output protocols (NMEA, TAIP and TSIP) and the baud rate transmission speed. The RS-232 or 422 lines are fault protected (60 volts and 15 kv for ESD). There is also a high level of protection for the power supply (9V-75V), which is protected against transients and reverse polarity. The N101 is RoHS compliant (lead-free) and has successfully completed compliance testing in accordance with the Directive and passed ETSI standard ETS300830; e-mark certification 95/54/EC pending.

Heol Design, Lannion, France. +333 (0) 06 08 96 65 68. [www.heoldesign.com].

With a modular design, the ATR can be designed in various configurations. The chassis can easily be scaled up or down while using the same liquid-cooled sidewalls (i.e., the walls for a 1 ATR are the same as the ones for a 1/2 ATR). To reduce costs, the liquid cooling can be optionally limited to one sidewall.

Various plug-in power supply modules and front I/O configurations are possible in this design. Elma also offers a wide selection of backplanes in various architectures and has different milled card cage sizes off-the-shelf.

The unit is powered via 28V DC/270V or optionally 1- and 3-phase 115 VAC @ 400 Hz. The liquid-cooled chassis can take up to 1 KW of input power. Custom I/O solutions are optional including MIL-STD wiring and connectors.

Elma also offers ATR chassis in several sizes for convection- (forced air), conduction- and hybridcooled applications. Pricing starts under $25,000 depending on volume and options.

Elma Electronic, Fremont, CA. (510) 656-3400. [www.elmabustronic.com].

46

December 2007

Wireless I/O Modules Monitor What Would Tangle Wires

Many devices that were impractical or impossible to monitor with traditional cable solutions can now be monitored with wireless I/O modules from Sealevel Systems.

Wireless capability is the newest addition to the SeaI/O family of data acquisition solutions. The SeaI/O W-series is compatible with industry standards, communicating over 802.11b/g wireless networks using WEP, WPA-TKIP and WPA2-AES encryption standards.

All SeaI/O modules operate from 9-30 VDC, are powered by terminal block or DC jack, and are available with host connection options including Ethernet, USB, RS-485 and RS-232. They also boast features that have solidified the SeaI/O product line as the industry leader in field-friendly implementation: software or switch addressing, removable screw terminals for field wiring and comprehensive software configuration/diagnostic tools.

SeaI/O modules are suitable for a wide variety of applications including process control, data acquisition, broadcast automation, security and facility management. They have an operating temperature range from 0° to 70°C and optional extended range from -40° to +85°C. SeaI/O W-series module prices start at $589 and product is available immediately from stock.

Sealevel Systems, Liberty, SC. (864) 843-4343. [www.sealevel.com].

PCI Express FPGA Computing Platform Based on Xilinx Virtex-5

A PCI Express computing platform incorporates Xilinx Virtex-5 technology to provide users with a low-cost FPGA carrier card featuring an onboard Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA, high-bandwidth 8-lane PCI Express host interface and DIME-II expansion module slot—a powerful COTS platform suitable for FPGA application development and deployment.

The BenONE PCIe from Nallatech includes PCI Express capability within Nallatech’s DIME-II product portfolio and addresses the growing market requirement for increased host bandwidth and flexibility. The onboard DIME-II expansion module slot supports a wide range of high-performance analog and digital I/O interfaces, memory types and Xilinx User FPGAs from Nallatech’s extensive COTS product range. This product, supplied with software, drivers and IP cores, delivers an easy to use, low risk solution, addressing the requirements of many demanding applications within the defence and security markets.

PCI Express is emerging as the dominant PC bus standard for the next decade, as is being illustrated by initiatives such as Geneseo from Intel. The BenONE-PCIe allows developers to take advantage of the PCI Express bus standard providing higher performance, increased flexibility and scalability as well as providing a seamless migration path for next-generation FPGA systems. With the FPGA industry’s first built-in PCI Express Endpoint, Virtex-5 FPGAs give designers an off-the-shelf solution that saves time, reduces power consumption and frees up valuable FPGA fabric resources.

The host interface is a x8 PCI Express connector for a theoretical maximum performance of 2 Gbyte/s full duplex. The board provides one DIME-II expansion slot, which can provide additional user FPGAs on the various expansion modules. Software support includes the Nallatech FUSE API for Windows and Linux. FUSE also includes an application and development API for C/C++

16-bit Analog Input M-Module for High-Resolution Data Acquisition

An analog input mezzanine board provides high resolution and precise data acquisition for analog signals found throughout automation, measuring and simulation applications. Available in 16- or 18bit versions, the new M36N M-Module from MEN Micro can be used as an I/O extension for CompactPCI, PCI, PXI or VME embedded systems as well as on stand-alone single board computers (SBCs).

The new M-Module provides up to 16 single-pole grounded channels for voltage or current, or alternatively, eight channels for differential voltage or current. Each channel and input range is adjusted separately and is fully automatic, giving users exceptional flexibility for specific data acquisition requirements. The board’s 16-bit resolution provides an accuracy of at least 0.05% over the whole temperature range from -40° to +85°C (-40° to +185°F). A fast A/D converter and automatic increments of the multiplexer channel enables a total acquisition time of only 130s for the full 16 bits. Separate supply voltages generated via a DC/ DC converter are suited for the board’s extended temperature range.

A Cyclone II FPGA implemented on the M36N controls signal conditioning and offers space for application-specific function extensions of the assembly. The accompanying Altera Nios II Softcore processor can be implemented into the FPGA for intelligent pre-data-processing or additional functions, such as noise-shaping, enabling the incorporation of up to 32 Mbyte DDR2 DRAM and up to 6 Mbyte non-volatile memory.

In compliance with the RoHS directive, all M-Modules, including the new M36N, have either been adapted or redesigned and will now be available for at least 10 more years. Pricing for the M36N is $850.

MEN Micro, Ambler, PA. (215) 542-9575. [www.menmicro.com].

Nallatech, Eldersburg, MD. (410) 552-3352. [www.nallatech.com].

December 2007

47

Extreme Engineering Solutions, Inc. 3225 Deming Way, Suite 120 Middleton, WI 53562 United States

Phone 608.833.1155 Fax 608.827.6171 sales@xes-inc.com www.xes-inc.com

XPedite7040

XPedite8040

Intel® CoreT2 Duo Processor AMC with Gigabit Ethernet, USB, and SATA

P.A. Semi Dual-Core PWRficient PA6T-1682 Processor-Based AMC

The XPedite7040 is a single-width, mid-size or full-size Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) single-board computer designed to provide maximum performance and I/O options while minimizing power consumption. The Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) Intel® CoreT Duo processor or Low Voltage (LV) Intel® CoreT2 Duo processor provides the XPedite7040 with a signicant performance-per-watt processing advantage. Additionally, the Intel 3100 chipset combines the functionalities of an integrated server-class memory controller (Northbridge) and an I/O controller (Southbridge) into a single device that is specically intended for power- and board-space-sensitive embedded applications.

The XPedite8040 is a single-width, mid-size or full-size Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) single-board computer based on the P.A. Semi PWRcient PA6T-1682 processor. The PA6T-1682 combines dual PA6T Power Architecture cores capable of running up to 2.0 GHz each, two DDR2 ECC SDRAM channels, and a highly congurable SERDES I/O interface.

The XPedite7040 can be installed in an AdvancedTCA (ATCA) AMC.0-compliant carrier or a MicroTCA.0 ( TCA)-compliant backplane. The XPedite7040 supports an AMC.1 x4 PCI Express Fat Pipe interface, dual AMC.2 Gigabit Ethernet 1000Base-BX interfaces, and dual AMC.3 SATA interfaces.

Additional serial and general-purpose I/O is provided through the backplane connector.

The XPedite7040 supports two PC3200 SO-RDIMM modules and up to 4 GB of NAND ash for ample on-card memory capacity. 4 MB of Firmware Hub (FWH) space is also supported for redundant BIOS or OS kernel storage.

On the XPedite8040, the PA6T-1682 supports dual frontpanel Gigabit Ethernet ports, dual AMC.2 backplane Gigabit Ethernet ports, and two AMC.2 10 Gigabit Ethernet XAUI ports or one AMC.1 x8 PCI Express Fat Pipe interface. The XPedite8040 supports up to 2 GB of DDR2 ECC SDRAM per memory channel. Up to 4 GB of NAND ash, 3 MB of LPC NOR ash, and 2 MB of SPI NOR ash are also provided for non-volatile storage.

The XPedite8040 can be installed in either an AMC.0 AdvancedTCA (ATCA) carrier or a MicroTCA.0 ( TCA)compliant backplane. The XPedite8040 provides a feature-rich solution to support the next generation of high-performance and power-sensitive embedded applications. VxWorks and QNX Board Support Packages (BSPs) along with a Linux 2.4 and 2.6 LSP are available.

All the cards...

…for all the solutions Bringing P.A. Semi to PMC, Extreme Engineering Solutions introduces the XPedite8000, the highestperformance, lowest-power PrPMC (Processor PMC) solution available today. With the P.A. Semi PA6T-1682 integrated platform processor, the XPedite8000 offers: • Dual 2.0-GHz Power Architecture processor cores.

• Two independent DDR2 SDRAM channels for maximum bandwidth.

• Two front-panel Gigabit Ethernet ports.

• Two PTMC-compliant P14 Gigabit Ethernet ports.

• PCI /PCI-X PMC interface operating at up to 133 MHz. • Linux, VxWorks, and QNX support.

For customers looking for one vendor to provide the complete system solution, X-ES provides full component selection, operating system support and integration services.

www.xes-inc.com www.xes-inc.com

©2006 Extreme Engineering Solutions sales@xes-inc.com

©2007 Extreme Engineering Solutions

Products&TECHNOLOGY Server-Class Manageable Intel Dual-Core Xeon VMEbus Blade

A new server-class manageable VMEbus blade uses the low-power Intel dual-core Xeon processor, Intel’s most advanced low-power x86 technology. The PENTXM2 from Thales uses the 1.67 GHz dual-core Xeon, combined with the Intel E7520 server-class memory controller hub (MCH). The single board computer is available with up to 4 Gbytes of DDR2-400 SDRAM. When paired with the support of VITA 31.1 backplane networking, the PENTXM2’s VITA 38 intelligent platform management interface (IPMI) feature provides for easy scaling into a multiprocessing system. The PENTXM2 provides a dual SATA-150, a triple USB 2.0 port and an EIDE interface for an onboard disk or compact-flash support.

The PENTXM2 runs Red Hat Linux and features as an extensible firmware interface (EFI) standard BIOS/Firmware, which is able to boot Linux 2.6, VxWorks, Lynx OS, Microsoft Windows and Red Hat Linux operating systems. The PENTXM2 is available as a stand-alone board component or pre-integrated in large systems (PowerMP6) with full data transport and management software based on standards such as MPI and HTTP. A rugged, conduction-cooled version of the PENTXM2 will be available in the third quarter of 2006. The PENTXM2 is covered by Thales Computers’ Long Term Supply program.

This offer guarantees defense customers a multi-year supply of the product beyond its active life, a unique offering for Intel processor-based products. Pricing for the PENTXM2 starts at $3,950 in small volume and subject to specifications.

Thales Computers, Edison NJ (732) 494-1010. [www.thalescomputers.com].

Laptop Connectivity with PCI Express x1 ExpressCard Cable Adapter

An expansion cable adapter for PCI Express enables laptop connectivity to storage devices, video monitors and other x1 PCIe-enabled devices. The PCI Express (PCIe) x1 ExpressCard cable adapter from One Stop Systems enables laptops to operate with high-speed expansion capabilities. The x1 ExpressCard provides cable connectivity from a laptop to any device with a PCIe x1 cable connector.

OEMs include the x1 ExpressCard in their prepackaged systems to provide the added flexibility of laptop access to their products. Laptop providers include the x1 ExpressCard as an option to their product to allow use with many PCIe x1 devices now on the market. No additional drivers are required for the x1 ExpressCard.

One Stop Systems’ PCIe expansion systems are designed to extend the PCIe bus from a host system to additional PCIe, PCI, PCI-X, PXI or CompactPCI expansion slots. The 1U PCIe switch provides further expansion to multiple chassis.

One Stop Systems’ expansion systems are available in numerous varieties of backplanes and enclosures. The PCIe x1 ExpressCard cable adapter is priced at $250 per unit.

One Stop Systems, Escondido, CA. (760) 745-9883. [www.onestopsystems.com].

PICMG 1.3 System Host Board with Core 2 Duo and Intel Q35 GMCH Chipset

Equipped with multicore Intel Core 2 Duo processors up to 3.0 GHz (E6850) and combined with advanced remote management features based on Intel’s AMT 3.0 technology, a new system host board (SHB) is targeted at performance-hungry applications. The PCI-760 from Kontron boosts power to 4 x 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Quad processors (Q6700), which is suitable for asynchronous real-time embedded multiprocessing applications. The PCI-760 is also designed to meet the requirements of the upcoming 45 nm processors—a feature that will extend the availability for long-life applications.

The PCI-760 is equipped with Intel’s builtin, comprehensive Intel AMT 3.0 remote management engine, offering enhanced security, remote manageability and cost savings for the embedded computing market. System managers of densely packed, space-saving servers can remotely carry out tasks such as installation of a new OS or setting BIOS parameters without the need for additional remote management hardware or an on-site presence. If there is an operating system failure, the Kontron PCI-760 allows the system manager to run diagnostics, update patches and reboot the system via the network from a central service system within a few minutes. The Kontron PCI-760 provides state-of-the-art system security since it supports the Intel Trusted Execution Technology and has an onboard trusted platform module— TPM 1.2—for software and data protection.

With up to 1333 MHz front-side bus, the PCI-760 supports up to 8 Gbytes of fast DDR2 SDRAM and features a full range of interfaces: 1 x PEG, 4 x PCIe x1 and 1 x PCI routed to the backplane, 6 x 300 Mbit/s SATA II (2 via backplane) and RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 functionality, 3 x 10/100/1000 base-T Ethernet (1 via backplane), 12 x USB 2.0 (4 via backplane), one parallel and two serial interfaces (16550 UART-compatible) and 7.1+2-channel HD-Audio Codecs (including digital input and output). An optional onboard rugged USB Intel Z-U130 flash module with a capacity of up to 8 Gbytes and a MTBF of 5 million hours makes it possible to build up maintenance-free systems without rotating non-volatile memory.

Kontron, Poway, CA. (858) 677-0877. [www.kontron.com].

50

December 2007

2.0 GHZ EPIC SBC Combines CPU Performance with Advanced Data Acquisition

A single-board computer based on the EPIC form-factor integrates data acquisition. The Poseidon from Diamond Systems utilizes the VIA C7 and VIA Eden ULV processors, operating at speeds up to 2.0 GHz, and provides features such as a 400 MHz front side bus, four USB 2.0 ports, S-ATA hard drive interface and advanced 2D/3D graphics with AGP 8x level performance and MPEG-2 hardware acceleration. The dual graphics display engines support simultaneous, independent CRT and LVDS flat panel displays, driving different images at different resolutions. Poseidon offers 512 Mbytes of DDR2 DRAM operating at 533 MHz, soldered on-board for increased shock and vibration resistance, an Intel 82541 Gigabit Ethernet controller, four RS-232 serial ports (two with RS-422/485), keyboard, mouse and IDE hard drive interfaces.

Interface Delivers 10 Gbit Ethernet to Real-Time and Embedded Applications

A 10 Gbit Ethernet (10GbE) networking interface for embedded, military and avionics applications incorporates Silicon Stack technology that offloads TCP/IP protocol stack processing to hardware.

The new XGE 10GbE interface family from Critical I/O thus allows wire speed transfers, minimal host processor overhead, very low latency and solid determinism. As a result, the 10GbE XGE interfaces permit users of high-performance systems to benefit from the low cost, interoperability and networking capabilities of Ethernet, even in such demanding applications as radar, sonar, flight simulation and scientific applications.

The problem users often run into with high-speed Ethernet has to do with the software-intensive nature of Ethernet’s TCP/IP protocol stack. Many embedded systems have struggled to keep up with the stack processing associated with 1GbE connections, so dealing with 10GbE presents 10 times the challenge. The use of Silicon Stack technology offloads protocol processing to silicon and reduces host processor loading so as to deliver 10Gb performance. The XGE 10Gb family is currently available in the XMC form-factor with dual 10GbE ports, and employs an 8-lane PCI Express host bus interface. AMC and PMC versions are also planned. Native support for IPv4 and IPv6 is included.

The XGE 10GbE XMC interfaces are available now.

Critical I/O, Irvine, CA. (949) 553-2200. [www.criticalio.com].

Poseidon’s integrated data acquisition functions utilize Diamond’s patented Automatic Autocalibration technology. Poseidon calibrates the A/D and D/A circuits automatically whenever required without user intervention, providing highly accurate analog I/O performance. Poseidon has 32 analog inputs with 16-bit A/D and 250 KHz sample rate, four analog outputs with 12-bit D/A and 100 KHz waveform output capability, 24 digital I/O lines and two counter/timers. It supports both interrupt and DMA A/D transfers and uses an enhanced FIFO for maximum flexibility and data reliability. Diamond’s Universal Driver programming software for Linux, Windows XP and CE .NET and QNX is included.

Also available for immediate delivery are Poseidon Development Kits and the Triton enclosure for Poseidon. Each kit contains the selected Poseidon SBC, an IDE flashdisk with Linux pre-loaded, all necessary cables, a panel I/O board, an AC adapter and detailed “getting started” documentation. The Triton enclosure provides an easy to assemble, rugged and flexible enclosure for Poseidon and other EPIC SBCs. The Poseidon SBC is available in both the 1.0 GHz and 2.0 GHz versions, with and without data acquisition.

Prices start at $695 with volume discounts available.

PC/104 Plus Extension Card With Two PC Card Slots

Diamond Systems, Mountain View, CA. (650) 810-2525. [www.diamondsystems.com].

Digtal-Logic, Luterbach, Switzerland. +41 (0)32/ 681 58 40. [www.digitallogic.ch].

A PC Card adapter with two 16bit slots, the PCMICA 2.1-compliant Microspace MSMJ104+ PC/104 Plus extension card from Digital-Logic is based on a Texas Instruments PCI1520GHK controller. It can take two type I/II or one type III card and supports SCSI, WLAN, GSM and ISDN PC cards. Further technical features are the 32-bit data transfer to the cardbus, hot insertion capability and onboard generation of the 12V/50 mA programming voltage. The card is connected to the 32-bit PCI bus and requires only one PCI resource. It is available with a range of driver software for Windows CE and Linux including the drivers for the TI1520 controller.

The MSMJ104+ has dimensions of 90 mm x 96 mm x 17 mm (L x W x H) and a weight of 120 grams. It requires a 3.3V or 5V power supply and operates within the standard temperature range of -25° to +70°C at a humidity of 5% to 90%. The board is also available for the extended temperature range of -40° to +85°C.

December 2007

51

ACT/Technico 760 Veterans Circle Warminster, PA 18974 USA

Phone 215.956.1200 Fax 215.956.1201 sales@acttechnico.com www.acttechnico.com

Scalable Storage Solutions

Network Centric AppliPak

Pentium Core 2 Duo SBC with ShuttleStors

VME5800 SBC with RAIDStor NAS and Gigabit Ethernet Switch

ACT/Technico pairs an Intel or Power Architecture based SBC with PMC ShuttleStors to provide a removable storage module with a hot swap spare. The bundled assembly can also be set up to accommodate two drives in a RAID 0 conguration. Scalable solutions are available providing up to six drives using either rotating or solid state ash drives.

Today’s network centric environments can now accommodate blade level Network Attached Storage (NAS). Available solutions include ACT/Technico’s RAIDStor, a rugged VME NAS with capacities up to 256 GB (solid state) in a single slot. The RAIDStor also supports rotating drives, is available in both conduction and air cooled versions, and supports Gigabit Ethernet network infrastructures.

Two PMC ShuttleStors can provide up to 320 GB in rotating drives, and 256 GB in solid state ash drives in a single slot.

Check our website for the latest drive capacities as they change regularly.

Applications can include: • Redundant data repository • System Disks / Hot Spare • Data acquisition or logging • Transaction logging • Event recording Visit our website for more details, or give us a call to ask about a conguration that ts your requirements.

ACT/Technico offers a full line of Gigabit Ethernet L2/L3 switches in VME and CPCI that support front panel I/O and rear I/O via VITA 31.1 or the newer VITA 41 / VXS form factor.

A complete solution called an AppliPak can be provided which includes: • PowerPC or Intel Core2 Duo SBC • One or more RAIDStors • Gigabit Ethernet switch, up to 26 ports in a single slot • Any additional I/O functionality • Optional powered chassis • Linux or VxWorks BSP load • Fully tested before shipment Visit our website for more details, or give us a call to ask about a conguration that ts your requirements.

Products&TECHNOLOGY Debugging Tool for Infineon’s New XE166 Family

Featuring extensive peripherals, the Infineon 16/32-bit XE166 microcontroller family has just been introduced. At the same time, corresponding tool support is being announced. The TantinoXC from Hitex offers a powerful JTAG debugger providing access to the XE166 architecture’s OCDS features. The TantinoXC supports the complete run control features such as breakpoints, single-step, registers and memory access and allows programming of internal and external flash. In addition, a time analyzer function can be implemented to measure and analyze the application’s run-time behavior.

A special feature allows expanding the TantinoXC by an extensive trace function and a performance analysis function. As a result, users can visualize the run-time behavior and quickly locate and improve critical areas.

As with all Hitex tools, the TantinoXC is controlled by HiTOP, the universal user interface, allowing complete development and high-level language debugging. Thanks to open interfaces, additional tools such as the Tasking VX-Compiler can be integrated easily into HiTOP, and the user can perform the entire development directly from this universal interface.

Hitex Development Tools, Irvine, CA. (949) 863-0320. [www.hitex.com].

High-Performance Rugged 3U CompactPCI Solution

A new rugged 3U CompactPCI module features a Freescale PowerPC MPC8641 operating at up to 1.33 GHz with either a single- or dual-core processor. The CM6 from GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms supports up to 1 Gigabyte of DDR2 SDRAM ECC memory. Designed for applications including military/aerospace, telecommunications, simulation/ training and test and measurement, both system mode and non-system mode are supported.

The CM6 derives its functionality from a high degree of integration, which includes two Gigabit Ethernet ports and two serial ports (RS-232 and RS-422/RS-485) together with eight general-purpose I/Os and flash memory, thus freeing the user to leverage the capabilities of the 64-bit/100 MHz PMC interface for application-specific purposes.

In either the single core or dual core version, AltiVec support is provided for advanced floating-point applications. Each core is provided with its own Level 1 and Level 2 cache, allowing for a high degree of parallelism. To enable operation in harsh environments, the CM6 is available in three ruggedization levels with an extended temperature range of -40° to +85°C and optional conformal coating. Shock and vibration immunity is designed in with stiffener bars and wedge locks: conformal coating can also be applied on request. Support for Linux is available as standard; support for Integrity, LynxOS and VxWorks is optionally available.

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms Charlottesville, VA. [www.gefanuc.com].

6U cPCI Board Boasts Core Duo / Core2 Duo Processor in Three Rugged Levels

A 6U CompactPCI PICMG 2.16-compliant board features up to 4 Gbytes of soldered RAM and soldered application flash and comes in three rugged levels, defined as R1, R2 and R3.

Based on the Intel Core Duo / Core2 Duo processor and mobile chipset, the CP6001 from Kontron features high performance with a low thermal design power and a set of data, communication and multimedia interfaces. All three versions are available with E2 capabilities (extended temperature range from -40° to + 85°C).

The R1-version is designed for standard application requirements in air-cooled environments. The R2-version is ruggedized for high shock and vibration environments in accordance with the VITA 47 EAC6 specification.

The R3-version is fully conduction-cooled and meets VITA 47’s ECC4 requirements. These three versions make the Kontron CP6001 a suitable partner for the Kontron CP6923 PICMG2.16 Ethernet switch board, which Kontron has already deployed as a R1-version and will make available for the R2 and R3 rugged levels. Together, these 6U CompactPCI boards provide a cost-effective alternative for rugged, high-demand systems in a variety of markets, including military and aerospace.

The Kontron CP6001 features embedded Intel dual core processors. With the1.2 GHz Intel Core Duo U2500 ULV processor and the Intel Core 2 Duo L7400 LV processor, the Kontron CP6001 has extraordinary performance-per-watt values. Based on the Intel Mobile 945GM chipset with a front side bus of up to 667 MHz and ICH7-R Southbridge, the Kontron CP6001 provides high graphics performance for the two independent digital video outputs to the rear I/O (2x DVI - 1 x DVI and 1x HDMI) as well as AC97 audio capabilities. The board provides safety and security via a trusted platform module, (TPM) 1.2, two redundant 8 Mbit firmware hubs (fail-over) and Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) support. The CP6001 supports Linux, Windows XP, XP embedded and VxWorks 6.x.

Kontron, Poway, CA. (858) 677-0877. [www.kontron.com].

54

December 2007

Smart Cameras Provide All-in-One Systems for Machine Vision and Industrial Inspection

Two new smart cameras from National Instruments are embedded devices that combine an industrial controller with an image sensor and integrate with NI vision software to offer image processing directly on the cameras. This makes them suitable for applications such as locating parts, inspecting packaging, verifying assembly and reading 1-D and 2-D codes. The two cameras, the NI 1722 and NI 1742, are shipped with National Instruments Vision Builder for Automated Inspection (AI), an interactive software environment for configuring, benchmarking and deploying machine vision applications without programming.

With this menu-driven software, engineers can build complex machine vision applications incorporating not only vision algorithms, but also state-based execution with looping and branching using the built-in state diagram editor. For more advanced applications, NI Smart Cameras also integrate with National Instruments LabView software and the full NI library of image processing and machine vision algorithms such as edge detection, pattern matching, 1-D and 2-D code reading and optical character recognition.

Machine vision applications can migrate between platforms with few modifications because LabView and Vision Builder AI support this entire range of hardware.

Built for use in harsh industrial environments, the NI 1722 features a 400 MHz PowerPC processor and the NI 1742 features a 533 MHz processor.

The monochrome VGA (640 x 480) image sensor used in both cameras is a high-quality Sony charge-coupled device.

The cameras also provide builtin industrial I/O, including two opto-isolated digital inputs and two opto-isolated digital outputs, one RS-232 serial port and two gigabit Ethernet ports with support for industrial protocols, including Modbus TCP. In addition, the NI 1742 includes quadrature encoder support and a built-in controller featuring NI direct drive lighting technology. With quadrature encoder support, engineers can easily synchronize inspections with linear and rotary drive systems. The NI direct drive controller features a built-in LED lighting drive that provides up to 500 mA constant current and up to 1A strobed current. Strobe lighting offers increased lighting intensity by up to four times without harming the light head. Pricing for the NI 1722 is $1,999 and for the NI 1742 is $2,499.

National Instruments, Austin, TX. (512) 683-9300. [www.ni.com].

100 Watt DC/DC CompactPCI Card Converts +28 VDC to Quad Outputs

A high-power-density, lowprofile, single-slot CompactPCI DC/DC converter card provides up to 100 watts of output power at full load over its operating temperature range of -55° to +85°C (measured at the wedgelocks). The 55LQ2 from North Atlantic Industries operates from an input of +16 VDC to +36 VDC and provides quad outputs of +5 VDC, +3.3 VDC, +12/+15 VDC and -12/-15 VDC. The 55LQ2 plugs into a standard cPCI backplane. With its low noise output and rugged design, the 55LQ2 is suited for military and aerospace programs, including airborne, shipboard and ground applications. The 55LQ2 is designed and manufactured to NAVSO P3641 component derating guidelines, and each unit receives ESS screening, including burn-in and temperature cycling. The unit is designed to meet the EMI/RFI requirements of MIL-STD-461E and the Input Transient requirements of MIL-STD-704, when installed within the system.

The efficiency of the 55LQ2 is 75% minimum. Noise and ripple is 50 mV p-p and output load transient recovery is 0.5 milliseconds.

The unit includes remote error sensing and numerous fault protection features, including continuous short circuit protection (with automatic recovery), output current limiting and output overvoltage protection.

The MTBF of the 55LQ2 is 500,000 hours in a ground benign environment with a +50°C baseplate temperature. Pricing for 100 pieces of the 55LQ2 starts at $2,020.

North Atlantic Industries, Bohemia, NY. (631) 567-1100. [www.naii.com].

Server-Class Computeron-Module Supports Intel Pentium M Processors

A server-class computer-on-module based on the PICMG COM Express form-factor, the Express-IW400 from Adlink Technology supports a Dothan Intel Celeron M or Pentium M processor and includes Intel’s new 3100 chipset; a combination ideal for high-performance data streaming applications such as data communications, telecommunications, storage, display processing and video acquisition. The form-factor and pin out of this module is fully compliant with the PICMG COM Express Basic formfactor, type 2 specification.

This module is based on Intel’s new direction in embedded chipsets, the Intel 3100. The Intel 3100 chipset combines server-class memory and I/O controller functions into a single component, creating the first integrated Intel chipset specifically optimized for embedded, communications and applications requiring high bandwidth. The ExpressIW400 is currently available and is competitively priced at $595 with discounts in volume.

Adlink Technology, Irvine, CA. (970) 377-0385. [www.adlinktech.com].

December 2007

55

Vector Electronics & Technology Inc. 11115 Vanowen Street N. Hollywood, CA 91605 USA

VME64X Backplanes

Phone 800.423.5659 Fax 818.985.7708 inquire@vectorelect.com www.vectorelect.com

Tower and Slimline Chassis

vector bonus page 56 VME64X

Series 800 portable ‘Tower’ chassis and Series 440 ‘Slimline’ chassis

VME chassis are available for horizontal or vertically mounted cards in addition to standard VME 96-pin or 160pin VME64X. Chassis are all IEEE 1101.10 compliant and are available in custom sizes and conguration from 1U to 12U and depths extending over 400mm.

The Series 800 portable “Tower” chassis has a removable internal subrack and an attractive outer enclosure, and is available in 5,7 and 12 slots with many power supply options.

Our Vectorbord® backplanes are available in VME64 Extension, VME64 monolithic (J1/J2) or separate J1 or J2 and are usually in factory stock. STD-bus and DIN Uncommitted/ Universal backplanes are available in 2 through 21 slots.

Our Series 440 “Slimline” chassis is a space-saving 7U (for vertical 6U cards) and will accommodate up to 21 slots.

Vector manufactures all chassis and backplanes in the USA and boasts the shortest lead times. We offer excellent 1-800 factory support. Contact Vector for your next chassis or backplane requirement.

Products&TECHNOLOGY Bustronic Announces 3U VPX Backplanes

A new high-performance 3U VPX backplane joins the selection of VPX backplanes from Bustronic, which are now available in 3U, 6U and 6U Hybrid (VPX/VME mix). A 6-slot 3U version now features a twisted-ring topology and is compliant to the latest VITA 46 specifications. Utilizing a twisted-ring versus a mesh topology allows for more I/O pins and the ability to use mezzanines like XMC. The backplane facilitates two channels at the top of the J1 connector, typically for Gigabit Ethernet traffic in a fat pipe (4x bi-directional links). The remaining channels in J1 together with those in the J2 leave 24 XAUI-capable ports that can be utilized entirely for rear panel I/O. The 24 thin pipe (one or two bi-directional links) channels remaining can be used by a PMC or XMC mezzanine or simply allow the 3U VPX modules to interface with external equipment, networks, displays or storage systems.

The VPX backplane also incorporates the Gigabit Ethernet control plane per VITA 46.20.

This sub-specification adds a GigE switch, providing a separate star or dual star network for out-of-band communication. This can be particularly important for system management, software and firmware upgrades, and initiating new processes on specific boards. The backplane was designed with a 12-layer controlled-impedance stripline design. To ensure optimal performance, signal integrity analysis was performed on the backplane. Pricing for the 3U VPX backplane is under $1,500 depending on volume and configuration requirements.

PCI Express Oscilloscope Card Sports up to 2 Gsamples Signal Memory

A PCI Express oscilloscope card from Strategic Test has two 100 Msample/s 12-bit ADCs for simultaneous sampling and up to 2 Gsamples of onboard memory so that signal lengths of up to 10 seconds can be recorded when both channels are operating at maximum rates. The UF2e-3027 includes the options for dual-timebase sampling, synchronous digital inputs, asynchronous digital I/O and the possibility to synchronize up to 542 channels. Each channel has six voltage ranges from ±200 mV to ±10V, a programmable offset of 100% and input impedances of 50 ohm or 1 Mohm, allowing each channel to be individually configured for the signal source.

Elma Bustronic, Fremont, CA. (510) 490-7388. [www.bustronic.com].

I²C LED Dimmer Drives 16 LEDs in Parallel

A 16-bit LED driver with dimmer and blinker control functions can also be used as a general-purpose I/O expander.

The CAT9532 from Catalyst Semiconductor is a drop-in replacement for the company’s PCA9532. The CAT9532 can drive 16 LEDs directly in parallel and provides LED dimming in 256 brightness steps for backlighting and RGB color mixing.

The device can also turn each LED on, off or to blinking at one of two programmable rates for sensor control, power-switch, push-button and status indicator light applications with I²C or SMBus interfaces.

Features include 16 LED drivers with dimming control and 256 brightness steps; 16 open drain outputs drive 25 mA each. There are two selectable, programmable blink rates: with frequency from 0.593 Hz to 153 Hz and duty cycle from 0% to 99.6%. The I/Os can also be used as general-purpose I/Os and are 400 kHz I²C bus compatible. The CAT9532 is packaged as 24-lead SOIC, TSSOP and 24-pad TQFN (4 x 4 mm). Pricing is $0.75 each in 10,000 piece quantities.

Catalyst Semiconductor, Santa Clara, CA. (408) 542-1000. [www.catsemi.com].

Key specifications include 32 Msamples memory—expandable to 2 Gsamples and continuous streaming to the host PC at over 120 Msamples/s. The effective number of bits is greater than 10.6 LSB; the signal-to-noise ratio is greater than 65.5 dB and the total harmonic distortion is less than -72.0 dB. The standard -3 dB bandwidth is better than 40 MHz, although the Wide Bandwidth option can increase this to over 90 MHz. Drivers and programming examples for Microsoft Windows Vista, XP64, XP and Linux (RedHat, Fedora, SuSe, Sarge) are supplied with the card, as well as the SBench 5.3 oscilloscope program. SDKs for Matlab, LabView, Agilent-VEE, DASYLab and LabWindows/CVI are available as options. Prices start at $7,390 with volume/OEM discounts available.

Strategic Test. Woburn, MA. (617) 621-0080. t[www.strategic-test.com].

58

December 2007

MicroTCA-Compliant JTAG Multiplexer Provides 18 Secondary and 3 Master Ports

A MicroTCA-compliant single-chip JTAG multiplexer provides 3 arbitrated master ports and 18 independent secondary ports, which can be cascaded for up to 36 secondary ports. For simplified design and ease of use, the DS26900 from Maxim Integrated Products provides port autodetection that allows the master to detect device presence on secondary ports, as well as transparent communication between an arbitrated master and a selected secondary port. The DS26900 is suitable for MicroTCA applications, AdvancedMC carrier blades, system-level diagnostics, test equipment, board-level JTAG applications and ATCA applications.

A solution for star architecture JTAG, the DS26900 also features two 32-bit scratchpad registers, internal pullup/pulldown resistors, and operation up to 50 MHz. This device is available in a leaded or lead-free, tiny, 20 mm x 20 mm, 144-pin LQFP package. It is fully specified over the -40° to +85°C extended temperature range. Pricing starts at $6.50 (10,000-up, FOB USA).

Maxim Integrated Products, Sunnyvale, CA. (408) 737-7600. [www.maxim-ic.com].

Rugged Quad Channel Serial FPDP Board Leverages FPGAs

A rugged, quad channel Serial Front Panel Data Port (SFPDP) card delivers sustained data rates up to 247 Mbytes per second on each of its four channels. The FibreXtreme SL100/SL240 Serial FPDP card from Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing is based on Altera’s Stratix II GX FPGAs and connects distributed devices through a highly specialized communications protocol optimized for maximum data throughput. The cards, available in both PCI and XMC mezzanine formats, are designed for use in applications that require high data rates such as digital signal processing, radar and sonar, medical imaging, range and telemetry systems. The SFPDP card off-loads the host processor, enabling data transfers without the CPU overhead and non-deterministic latencies associated with many layers of complex software protocols.

The FibreXtreme SL100/SL240 Serial FPDP card supports a 2.5 GHz serial data link that utilizes the VITA 17.1-2003 communications protocol, which is specially optimized for maximum data throughput.

The card’s onboard DMA engine handles single transactions up to 64 Mbytes for data throughput without processor intervention. DMA and register byte/word swapping provide additional system flexibility. With support for 2.5 Gbit/s transmission rates (1 Gbit/s data rates supported on the SL100, and 2.5 Gbits/s on the SL240) between interconnected subsystems separated by as much as 50 kilometers and low-latency performance to match, SL100/SL240 Serial FPDP technology is ideal for many of today’s high-throughput DSP applications. Software support includes drivers for today’s popular operating systems, including Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows XP, VxWorks and Linux. The price for the Quad version of the multi-channel board is $9,445 in small quantities.

Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing Dayton, OH. (937) 610-5457. [www.cwcembedded.com]

Micro PCs for Decentralized Control Applications

A line of ultra-compact computer systems for decentralized control application, called the MPC21 series, is based on Digital-Logic’s 3.5” single board computer MSB800 with all its interfaces.

In addition to the functions of the MSB800, the MPC21 has two COM ports (1x external, 1x internal), one LPT interface and a PCI/104 slot available. The video input allows connection to a camera.

A MiniPCI socket permits the integration of WLAN or field buses. Additional functions of the MPC21A system include four COM ports, one LPT interface, four relay outputs and four optically isolated inputs. As an option, COM3/4 can be fitted with a galvanized, isolated RS-422/485 interface. The MiniPCI socket also serves for the integration of WLAN or field buses. Further functions incorporated in the MPC21B are two COM ports, one LPT interface and two CAN ports with galvanic isolation. In this model the MiniPCI socket allows the integration of WLAN. All computers are able to boot from CompactFlash, LAN, USB or the optionally integrated 2.5” 40 Gbyte hard drive.

Housed in robust metal cases, the miniature computer systems are remarkable for their small dimensions of only 165 mm x 110 mm x 46 mm (W x D x H). The systems require no cooling fan; instead they rely solely on passive cooling techniques. This makes them the ideal solution for reliable, cost-effective, long-term operation in industrial and commercial applications. MPC21/21A/21B run with all PC-compatible operating systems, such as Windows XP, QNX, Linux etc., and work with any application software written for PCs. Power is supplied directly with 12/24V or with a 110/220V power supply. Designed for low power consumption (typically 10 watts), the systems operate within the temperature range of -25° to +70°C. The MSB800 board contains an AMD Geode LX800 processor with passive cooling. The processor runs at 500 MHz and obviously provides a performance equivalent to that of an 800 MHz chip. As a chip set the SBC uses the Geode CS5536. The main memory of the SBC can be equipped with DDR RAMs from 256 Mbytes up to 1 Gbyte.

Digtal-Logic, Luterbach, Switzerland. +41 (0)32/ 681 58 40. [www.digitallogic.ch].

December 2007

59

Acromag 30765 S. Wixom Rd. Wixom, MI 48393-7037 USA

Phone 248.295.0310 Fax 248.624.9234 solutions@acromag.com www.acromag.com

PMC-VLX/VSX Virtex-5 FPGA I/O

AXM-A30 High-Speed A/D with Virtex-4 FPGA

New Reconfigurable Virtex-5 FPGA PMC with Plug-in I/O

New 16-bit 100MHz A/D with Reconfigurable Virtex-4 FPGA

Acromag’s new PMC-VLX/VSX modules enhance the recongurable computing power, speed and exibility of Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGAs. You can select FPGAs optimized for logic or DSP to execute your custom instruction sets. The Virtex-5 FPGA is supported with a high-speed I/O interface and plenty of memory for efcient data handling. Highperformance DDR2 SDRAM stores captured data prior to FPGA processing. Generous dual-port SRAM buffers optimize DMA transfer between the bus and FPGA. A PCI-X interface ensures fast data rates. And to get you running quickly, our design kit provides example VHDL code for many functions.

Acromag’s new AXM-A30 analog input extension module interfaces two 100MHz 16-bit A/D channels to a recongurable Virtex-4 FPGA. The AXM-A30 extension module plugs into the front mezzanine on Acromag’s PMC-SX35 which features a user-programmable Xilinx Virtex-4 SX35 FPGA with 35k logic cells and 192 DSP slices. Together, they provide high-speed digital signal processing for custom pre/post/co-processing hardware or high-performance lters. Typical applications include sonar and radar processing.

Three models provide a choice of Virtex-5 FPGAs to match your requirements. You can select a VLX85T, VLX110T, or VSX95T FPGA with up to 110k logic cells and up to 640 DSP48E slices. All models support -40 to 85°C operation or conduction-cooling. Typical applications include hardware simulation, communications, military servers, in-circuit diagnostics, signal intelligence, and image processing.

64 I/O lines are provided via the rear (J4) connector.

Additional analog and digital I/O processing is supported on mezzanine cards that plug into the PMC module. A variety of these external I/O cards offer an interface for 16-bit 100MHz A/D, RS-485 differential, CMOS, and LVDS I/O.

The analog input card has an external clock and trigger that can be used to control sampling. An internal precision clock conditioner handles the functions of jitter cleaning/ reconditioning, multiplication, and distribution of a reference clock. Each clock distribution block includes a programmable divider, a phase synchronization circuit, and a programmable delay.

Plenty of DRAM is available for receipt and transfer of highspeed data from the I/O data ports on the front and rear of the board. Dual Ported SRAM is supplied for storage of data to be passed, via DMA transfer, to the PCI bus. One port is attached to the FPGA and the other to the local bus. The PCI bus interface is handled by a PLX PCI 9656 device which provides 64-bit 66 MHz bus mastering with dual-channel DMA support.

If you need dependable I/O, Acromag has your board.

With more than 45 years of I/O experience and an unmatched selection of Industry Packs and I/O boards, Acromag is the one to trust. Our boards deliver uncompromising performance supported by time-saving software tools and cost-cutting high channel density—to ensure your projects stay on schedule and within budget.

Call us or visit our website today — for proven solutions in VME, PCI, CompactPCI, Industry Pack, and PMC.

Industrial-strength designs with extended temperature ranges make Acromag I/O ideal for COTS and manufacturing applications. And with actively managed product life cycles, you’re ensured of long-term availability.

Count on us for PMC, too.

Our newest boards deliver impressive performance and outstanding value to PMC, PCI, and CompactPCI formats.

Whatever your I/O need, Acromag has an I/O answer— depend on it.

www.acromag.com/dependable.cfm 800-881-0268 or 248-624-1541 ANALOG I/O

DIGITAL I/O

Manufactured in Wixom, Michigan, USA

SERIAL I/O

FPGA

COUNTER/TIMER

Q UA D R AT U R E

All trademarks are the property of their respective companies.

NEWS, VIEWS &

Comment December 2007

Global Economy

I

t’s hard these days to read the financial section of the paper or listen to a business report without hearing the term “global economy.” A lot of things are happening off our shores. At the recent Dubai air show, for example, more than $85 billion in orders were placed for aircraft of all types. In an interview, GE chairman and CEO Jeffery Immelt said that GE’s non-U.S. business is growing faster than domestic business. And, if that’s not enough, take a look at trade with China. Then, there’s the exchange rate with the dollar closing in on $1.50 to the euro, the price of oil jumping to nearly $100 a barrel and gold topping $860 an ounce.

What impact does all this have on the embedded-computer business? A quick survey of some of the players indicates that embedded-computer makers are indeed enjoying the global economy. For companies with overseas divisions, the currency imbalance is found money. And, many have found the export business a boon because of the relatively cheap dollar.

What’s ahead? As indicated last issue, the embedded-computer market continues on a significant upslope. And, there is little on the horizon that would point to a change. While the dark clouds of a possible recession are ominous, there’s little to indicate that the embedded-computer business has anything to worry about. We’ll continue to follow the market, taking a look at bookto-bill ratios next month.

Not Just For Radio Anymore

We recently returned from Milcom 2007 where we were able to see and hear about the latest military communications technology. This year attendance swelled to a record 5600, more than a 10% increase over last year. While this conference is probably more in the domain of RTC’s sister publication, COTS Journal,

62

December 2007

$12 9 6 3 0

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007 (Est.)

Figure 1

there was a growing number of commercially oriented companies joining the ranks of traditional military suppliers.

What made this event particularly interesting—outside of the conference program that focused on interoperability—was the range of products displayed by the vendors. In the past, vendor offerings focused primarily on traditional radio communications’ products. And while it was good to see traditional radio suppliers such as EF Johnson, Harris and others in addition to a growing crop of software-defined radio vendors such as Spectrum Signal Processing, single-board computers, board-level components, I/O and networking boards and subsystems were much more in evidence than in years past. SBC and board makers such as Curtiss-Wright Embedded Controls, GE Fanuc, Advantek, Mercury Computer, Aitech and others made a strong showing as did digital storage vendors such as Ciprico and Phoenix.

The Fast Get Faster

Next time you’re looking at one of your designs as being a performance leader, just try and get on the list. According to a list of the 500 fastest computers, provided twice a year by academic researchers, an IBM supercomputer in the Lawrence Livermore national nuclear lab topped the performance numbers. The socalled BlueGene/L was upgraded from its 360 Teraflop performance to perform at an amazing 478 Teraflops. The number 2 slot was also from IBM and delivered a paltry 167 Teraflops followed up by a Silicon Graphics machine that weighed in at 127 Teraflops. IBM accounted for 46% of the computers on the list compared with 33% for HP. Intel processors powered 64% of the machines on the list while rival AMD appeared in only 16%.

And while on the subject of big computers, the world of multicore processors has allowed tremendous increased performance opening up all kinds of new applications and experiments.

And as a result, this extended performance has helped push the worldwide sales of high-performance computer systems. Sales of these big machines are expected to reach $11 billion this year (see Figure 1).

Semiconductors Strong and Changing

We often look to the semiconductor sector as a predictor of how the embedded industry can be expected to perform. The SIA (Semiconductors Industry Association) has a very bright outlook for the industry, projecting a compound growth rate of 7.8% through 2010. Sales this year are expected to top 2006 by 3.8%. The SIA’s latest projection is higher than predicted in June, with the total forecast to exceed $321 billion in 2010. That’s the good news. The less than good news is that in the same period, the Asian-Pacific region, excluding Japan, is expected to have the greatest share of the growth—an increase of 51.1% in 2010.

And while the SIA sees the glass at least half full, you may find some bargains if you’re out looking for memory chips. South Korea-based Hynix reports that its profit dropped 56% in its third quarter based on a sharp fall in memory-chip prices. And while Hynix, the world’s second largest memory-chip maker is cutting capital spending 9% as a result, its rival Samsung, the number one memory-chip make,r is increasing capital spending 25% (see NV&C: Nov. 2007).

To add to the drama in the chip business, Sony is selling its production lines for its cell processor to Toshiba, hoping to cut its non-core business and focus on consumer electronics. The cell processor is the multicore IC jointly developed by Sony and IBM that Sony has bet on for its PlayStation 3 games. Play Station competes with Nintendo’s Wii based on a custom variation of an IBM processor called Broadway, and Microsoft’s X-Box reportedly uses another IBM multicore processor. Sony, Toshiba and IBM plan to work together to develop a 45-nm version of the cell processor, which now uses 65-nm design rules.

And, in any chip discussion, Intel gets into the act, announcing sterling reviews for its next-generation processing technology incorporating hafnium to replace the silicon-dioxide gate dielectric and other new materials to replace polysilicon gate electrodes. The resulting process is reported to reduce gate leakage more than 100 fold. Chips based on this process in 45-nm design rules are expected soon.

SMA (200) MRCY Daily RSYS

15

17

INPH PTIX

19

23

11/15/07

25

29

31NOV

5

7

9

13

15

+40% +35% +30% +25% +20% +15% +10% +5% +0% -5% -10% -15%

Figure 2

And while printed-on transistors may not reach the dizzying heights of transistors in Intel’s process, startup company, Kovio, claims to have developed a kind of silicon ink that can be deposited on flexible surfaces using conventional printing devices—not much different than an ink-jet printer. The thin-film transistors produced are fast enough for a lot of applications, particularly for use in RFID systems.

Publically Traded

As of the date of this writing, publically traded stocks in the embedded-computer space have shown mixed results. Stocks that we regularly track in this space are Mercury Computer Systems (NASDAQ: MCRY); Performance Technology (NASDAQ: PTIX); Interphase (NASDAQ: INPH); and RadiSys (NASDAQ: RSYS). Both RadiSys and Mercury recovered somewhat from the doldrums of earlier last month but still remain well below their 52-week highs. Both Interphase and Performance Technology are deeply involved in the communication infrastructure, which continues to struggle, therefore explaining the relatively lackluster stock performance. And while RadiSys is also in the communication infrastructure business, its performance may reflect the acquisition of Intel’s board business (see NV&C: October 2007) and a resulting favorable earnings report.

Warren Andrews Associate Publisher December 2007

63

Performance Technologies 205 Indigo Creek Drive Rochester, New York 14626 USA

Phone 585.256.0200 Fax 585.256.0791 info-request@pt.com www.pt.com

x86 AdvancedMC™ Single-Board Compute Modules

PowerPC® AdvancedMC™ Single-Board Compute Modules

AMC111 and AMC121 compute modules

AMC131 and AMC141 compute modules

Fully compliant with AdvancedMC.0 R.2 specications, these x86-based modules are designed for use in AdvancedTCA® carriers or MicroTCA™ chassis to create NEBS-complaint, highly-reliable solutions that combine state-of-the-art management with high performance and cooling. AMC modules from Performance Technologies are ideal for high-end packet processing or multi-threaded software applications found in compute-intensive applications.

Designed for use in AdvancedTCA® carriers or MicroTCA™ chassis, and fully compliant with AdvancedMC.0 R.2 specications, these PowerPC® -based boards are ideal for creating NEBS-complaint, highly-reliable solutions that combine state-ofthe-art management with high performance and cooling. AMC modules from Performance Technologies are the ideal processors for high-end packet processing or multi-threaded software applications found in many compute-intensive applications.

Both modules feature support for 32 and 64-bit operating systems including our NexusWare® software suite. CGL registered and POSIX compliant, NexusWare is a Linux®based operating system and development environment that enables shorter development cycles through tight integration.

Both modules feature support for 32 and 64-bit operating systems including our NexusWare® software suite. CGL registered and POSIX compliant, NexusWare is a Linux®based operating system and development environment that enables shorter development cycles through tight integration.

The AMC111 features the single-core AMD Turion™ 64 processor. A Broadcom® HT-2000 server I/O chipset is linked to the CPU through a 16-lane hypertransport bus running at 1000MHz. This front-side bus is completely non-blocking to the dual 1000 Mbps Ethernet and eight-lane PCI Express the HT-2000 supports. On-board program and OS storage is provided by an included 4GB MiniSD™ site.

Utilizing a Freescale™ dual-core 1GHz MPC8641D processor, the AMC131 offers a cost-effective, network-optimized approach to performing packet processing and general computing tasks. It features a real-time clock with battery back up and an optional USB interface. The AMC131 can be congured with up to 2GB of DRAM, dual 64GB boot ROM, and features a 4GB miniSD™ card for global storage.

The AMC121 features a dual-core Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor that is linked to the Intel 3100 embedded chipset via a 667MHz Front Side Bus. The 3100 also supports 2 SATA interfaces and eight-lane PCI Express to the backside of the board. An included 4GB MiniSD site, allows on-board program and OS storage.

The AMC141 features a P.A. Semi™ dual-core 2GHz PA6T1682 processor offering a cost-effective, network optimized approach to performing packet processing and general computing tasks. It can be congured with 1 or 2GB of DRAM per core and supports up to 8GB of type I or II CompactFlash® memory.

Looking for the right Linux development environment?

You've just found it.

NexusWare® is a suite of Linux-based software products that enables users of our application-ready platforms and blade products to rapidly develop and deploy lawful intercept, monitoring, wireless, IMS and VoIP solutions.

Why waste valuable resources trying to piece together hardware and software from different vendors!

NexusWare ®, Per f ormance Technologies' CGL 3.2 registered Linux-based operating system and development environment, is a comprehensive Linux distribution that is fully pre-integrated with our industry-leading application-ready platforms and robust blades. Customized to fit your application development needs and extendable through installable Protocol software packages (MTP2, SIP, HDLC, Frame Relay, X.25…), NexusWare is the development package that meets your needs today, tomorrow and beyond.

NexusWare is here. Stop searching start getting your products to market on time!

Learn more at:

www.pt.com/nexusware

NexusWare® An integrated software/hardware solution

Annual Article Index December 2006

January 2007

PC/104 Rises to Meet Bigger Control Challenges

CompactPCI Growth Tackles Unexpected New Applications

Editorial Web and Print or Web vs. Print or Both?........................................13

Editorial EPCs on Our Foreheads? Where Will RFID Take Us?......................7

Industry Insider.................................................................................17

Industry Insider...................................................................................9

Solutions Engineering—Standards Update XMC: Enhanced Connector Design Solves Insertion/Removal Stress..................................................................................................24

Technology in Context—CompactPCI Growth CompactPCI Thrives in Military and Aerospace Applications......12

Ivan Straznicky, Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing and David Givens, Samtec

CompactPCI – A Growing Alternative to COTS VMEbus Systems.....18

Industry Insight—PC/104 for Control Systems PC/104 Enables Mobile Networking Technology Deployment.....28

CompactPCI / PICMG Standards on the Move: A Look at CPCI Express...............................................................................................22

Mike Southworth, Parvus Corp.

Integrated CPUs and PC/104 Increase Control Performance........40 Derrick Lavado, Kontron America

Special Report—Useful Industry Web Sites Mining the Web for Interesting Industry Info................................50 Tom Williams

2006 Annual Article Index A Complete Guide to the Year’s Technical Feature Articles...........62

David Pursley, Kontron Reeves Mollman, Performance Technologies

Valerie Andrew, ACT/Technico

Solutions Engineering—High-Speed and Hybrid Backplanes Trends in High-Speed Backplane Design........................................26 David Helster, Tyco Electronics

Designing High-Speed Backplanes with PCI Express....................30 Steve Cooper, One Stop Systems

Industry Insight—RFID Structure Supply Chain Management Challenges RFID Technology............34 Ann R. Thryft, Senior Editor

RFID Tag Data Security Infrastructure Strengthens Pharmaceutical Supply Chain..........................................................36 Joseph Pearson, Texas Instruments Radio Frequency Identification Systems

SDR-Based Readers Keep Pace With Changing RFID Technology.....42 Margaret Wasserman, ThingMagic

Executive Interview RTC Interviews Jeffry Milrod, President and CEO, BittWare........46 Software & Development Tools—Software for Multicore Software for Multicore Processors...................................................52 Arun Subbarao, LynuxWorks

Industry Watch Serial Attached SCSI Explodes into the Embedded Arena.............64 Matthew Knowles, Intel

Publisher’s Letter The (Truly) Ubiquitous PC Heads Growth in EmbeddedComputer Market.............................................................................70

66

December 2007

Annual Article Index February 2007

March 2007

Options Abound for ATCA System Design

Motion Controllers Take on Loads Big and Small

Editorial Just When You Thought it Was Safe..................................................7

Editorial The Pervasive PC in Control and Automation.................................7

Industry Insider...................................................................................9

Industry Insider...................................................................................9

Technology in Context—ATCA System Design Options CP-TA Aims for Interoperability in ATCA Systems........................12

Technology in Context—Mezzanines and Small Form-Factor Boards Right-Sizing FPGA Mezzanines Expands Application Space.........12

Rajesh Poornachandran and Todd Keaffaber, Intel, and Nirlay Kundu, Motorola

ATCA Offers Design Options for Telecom......................................16

Joe Primeau, Acromag

XMC Delivers a Future-Proof Mezzanine Standard.......................18 Rodger H. Hosking, Pentek

Stuart Jamieson, Emerson Network Power

ATCA and General-Purpose Processing: Doing a Lot with a Little.......22 John A. Long, Intel

Solutions Engineering—10 Gigabit Ethernet Solutions FPGA-Based Stack Acceleration and Processor Board Architecture Underpin 10GbE Performance........................................................26 Rob Kraft, AdvancedIO Systems

10 Gigabit Ethernet: The Promise and the Challenge....................32 Jack Staub, Critical I/O

Consolidating Network Fabrics to Streamline Data Center Connectivity......................................................................................38 Dan Tuchler, Mellanox Technologies

Solutions Engineering—Motion Control Optimize Motion Control by Matching Motor Types to Applications......................................................................................24 Chuck Lewin, Performance Motion Devices

Digital Motion Controllers Provide Precise Motion in a Wide Range of Applications.......................................................................30 Andy Herum, Galil Motion Control

Motion Control and Mixed-Signal FPGAs.....................................36 Glen Young, Actel

Industry Insight—Machine to Machine M2M Applications Challenge Design Security...............................40 Alan Singer, Connect One

Industry Insight—Power Management and Control VPX-Based Systems Need Board-Level Power Management Solutions............................................................................................42

Device Networking Enables M2M Technology...............................44

Ernie Domitrovits, Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing

Executive Interview RTC Interviews Christian Jebsen, CEO, VMETRO.........................50

Executive Interview RTC Interviews Saeed Karamooz, CEO of VadaTech.....................46 Software & Development Tools—Network Security Securing the Future by Confining the Code...................................51 David N. Kleidermacher, Green Hills Software

Industry Watch Safety for Data at Rest: New Industry Standard for Storage Security..............................................................................................58

Shaye Shayegani, Lantronix

Software & Development Tools—Embedded Windows The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Windows Vista for Embedded Engineers...........................................................................................55 Shelley Gretlein, National Instruments

Designing Scenarios with New File-Based Write Filter..................61 Milong Sabandith, Microsoft

Michael Willett, Trusted Computing Group Storage Work Group and Seagate Research

Simulation-Based Device Software Development: A Must-Have to Stay Competitive...............................................................................62 Marc Serughetti, CoWare December 2007

67

FEATURED ADVERTISEMENT

A COALITION FOR COTS SOLUTIONS

The MOUNTAIN VIEW ALLIANCE Specification Development Organizations (SDO) and Special Interest Groups (SIG) coordinate efforts to enable COTS environment in telecom and wireless infrastructure

M

ountain View Alliance - the name alone may conjure a vision of Silicon Valley executives sitting around an oversized redwood conference table preparing a forward looking statement for the upcoming year.

Actually, for those unfamiliar with it, the Mountain View Alliance (MVA) is a loose coalition of nine (9) Specication Development Organizations (SDO) and Special Interest Groups (SIG) who have a common interest in accelerating the development of modular, commercial-offthe-shelf (COTS) equipment adoption in the communications market.

The MVA announced its formation in June 2005 with a primary objective to promote real-life interoperability.

Founded by three representatives from leading open specication organizations: PICMG, the Service Availability Forum, and the Optical Internetworking Forum - originally called the Network Processing Forum, the alliance members work to coordinate their efforts and facilitate communications aiming to avoid gaps, overlaps and inconsistencies that may lead to technical conict. The MVA acts as a clearing house for communication

68

December 2007

among its members; individual issues are usually resolved by bilateral interaction between member organizations.

On the marketing side, the MVA‘s role is coordinating efforts and messages between groups to accelerate the growth of the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) ecosystem for open communications platforms.

“This alliance is best understood as a classic example of the whole being stronger than the sum of the parts”, said Russ Dietz in 2005, chairman of the Network Processing Forum. Joe Pavlat, president of PICMG had this to say, “the efforts of the Mountain View Alliance recognize that users are now looking at the ‘overall solution’ and this requires closer cooperation between our respective organizations” Today’s nine member organizations of the MVA represent over 1,000 total companies. The organization’s specications and documents address most of the elements of the stack for Telecom equipment.

Tom Williams, Editor-in-Chief of RTC interviews Rob Davidson, PICMG

Tom Williams: How did the Mountain View Alliance form?

The Mountain View Alliance started in 2005 when Henry Turko of the SA Forum contacted other organizations to explore ways of working more closely together. At that time, PICMG and SAForum were already coordinating their efforts around the HPI management interface and we felt it was time to explore coordination between other organizations.

I think we all felt that this type of coordination was needed as the COTS market was beginning to mature and those who were building complete systems were using documents from multiple organizations. At the same time these organizations were interested in accelerating the adoption of their documents and felt that

FEATUREDAdvertisement the combined story was stronger than the individual messages. We all agreed that the time was right for this organization.

What type of coordination does it do?

We like to call the MVA a clearing house for information. Members discuss what their organizations are doing and if that generates interest, we nd the relevant contacts in each organization so they can pursue the issue directly. The MVA also provides an excellent entry point for organizations wanting to establish connections in this space. A good example is the TM Forum that recently joined; they want to extend the work they do in system management further down the telecom platform stack and the MVA is the perfect place to start.

What organizations constitute the MVA?

Currently, the Mountain View Alliance member organizations are the Communications Platforms Trade Association (CP-TA), the Linux Foundation (LF), Open Communication Architecture Forum (OCAF), Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), PICMG, RapidIO, SCOPE Alliance, the Service Availability Forum (SA Forum), and the TM Forum..

What are MVA’s main activities?

Aside from the clearing house activities, the MVA has produced white papers, and a coordinated calendar of events for the industry on our web site. The most signicant activity the group has established, is the the MVA Communications

Ecosystem Conference (MVACEC). This event extends the principle that end results are best achieved by bilateral relationships to the individual level; it brings together companies and individuals from the ecosystem of suppliers and customers who are interested in advancing the adoption of open specication COTS base products. There are many events that focus on some of the individual technologies such as AdvancedTCA, but we felt that we needed to step up and initiate an event that focused on the overall stack. We began this with a joint meeting of PICMG and the SA Forum in 2006 that grew into the rst MVACEC in 2007.

08

20

The MVA agship event brings together members of the entire communications industry. Launched in February 2007, this event is a conference and exhibition program that includes CTOs from established and new Network Equipment Providers as well as leaders of the vendors, system integrators and service providers.

It is open to anyone interested in the development of the COTS ecosystem. It is the one event to get the bigger picture with technical and business developments.

Eric Heikkila, Director of Embedded Hardware & Systems at VDC, a research rm that tracks this space recently said: “Adopting ATCA and COTS based systems is such a major change for the NEPs that it is paramount that marketing and

sales efforts should be aimed at the ofce of the CTO where these decisions are ultimately made”.

The MVACEC is the event where these inuential people will gather to give their views and gather information on the latest developments.

2008 promises to have an excellent program which was compiled by the talented technical chairs: Timo Jokiaho from Nokia Siemens Networks, Magnus Karlson from Ericsson, Mark Kent from BT, and Paul Steinberg from Motorola.

They are attracting top notch keynotes and panelists and have selected technical presentations from a large number of submissions.

Jorge Magalhaes, Motorola’s Director of Marketing, Embedded Communications Computing remarked about the 2007 MVACEC, “We were most impressed by the broad spectrum of service providers, network equipment providers and communications vendors represented by both the speakers and on the associated panels. There was a high level of engagement in the breakout sessions, which signicantly contributed to the overall experience.”

Mountain View Alliance www.mountainviewalliance.org www.cp-ta.org www.linux-foundation.org www.itu.int/ITU-T/ocaf/ www.oiforum.com www.picmg.org www.rapidio.org www.scope-alliance.org www.saforum.org www.tmforum.org

The Mountain View Alliance puts you in the driver’s seat!

Now you can become part of this fast-paced 2-day conference March 11th -12th 2008. Take your place in the design and evolution of commercial-off-the-shelf implementations in the telecommunication and wireless infrastructure. Set your plans to include this dynamic event that brings companies and individuals together from the entire COTS ecosystem.

08

REGISTER NOW www.mvacec.com

20

December 2007

69

Annual Article Index April 2007

VME, CompactPCI and DSP Team for Science

Editorial How May I Network Thee? Let Me Count the Ways........................7 Industry Insider...................................................................................9 Technology in Context—Controllers for High-End Science VME, CompactPCI & DSP Team Up to Control Giant Telescope.....12 Tom Williams

Solutions Engineering—Industrial Ethernet Ethernet Powerlink: A Deterministic Alternative for Distributed Control..............................................................................................20 Frank Foerster and Bill Seitz, IXXAT

EtherCAT: Implementing Deterministic Control over Ethernet Hardware...........................................................................................24 Untitled-6 1

10/8/07 1:16:08 PM

Torsten Sehlinger, Sysgo and Gerhard Spiegel, Koenig Prozessautomatisierung

RapidIO and Ethernet for Backplane Applications: A Practical Technical Comparison......................................................................28 Greg Shippen, Freescale Semiconductor and RapidIO Trade Association

Industry Insight—Thermal Management on ATCA Thermal Interoperability Challenges ATCA Systems......................36 Dave Baker and Dan Carter, Intel

Designing ATCA Cards for Optimal Thermal Performance in Managed Chassis...............................................................................40 Mike Coward, Continuous Computing

Automated Thermal Characterization of ATCA Shelf, Blades Delivers Thermal Interoperability...................................................46 Todd Keaffaber and Rajesh Nair, Communications Platforms Trade Association

Executive Interview RTC Interviews Tom Quinly, CEO, Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing.....................................................................50 Software & Development Tools—Real-Time Java Trade-offs in the Design of Hard Real-Time Java Technologies......54 Kelvin Nilsen, Aonix

70

Untitled-5 1

December 2007

10/8/07 11:54:09 AM

Annual Article Index May 2007

IMS Speeds Multimedia over IP

Editorial The Logic of IMS................................................................................5 Industry Insider...................................................................................7 Technology in Context—MicroTCA Systems MicroTCA Offers High Availability in a Small Form-Factor.........10 David Pursley, Kontron

Keeping Your Cool with MicroTCA................................................14 Stuart Jamieson, Emerson Network Power

Solutions Engineering—IMS ATCA Systems Offer Flexible Building Blocks for IMS Network Growth...............................................................................................20 Dan Leih, Motorola Embedded Communications Computing

IMS: A Future of Diverse and Integrated Services..........................26 Eric Gregory, RadiSys

Standard Building Blocks Accelerate the Deployment of IMS Services..............................................................................................30 Asif Naseem, Ph.D., GoAhead Software

Industry Insight—Data Acquisition & Recording Tools Target Real-Time Data Acquisition Systems.........................38 Rodger Hosking, Pentek, Inc.

Optimizing Data Recorder System Architecture.............................44 Ralph Barerra, Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing

PC-Based Platforms Serve Up High-Speed Data Acquisition Systems..............................................................................................48 Tom Wagner and Anthony Hunt, Signatec

Executive Interview RTC Interviews Dr. James Truchard, President, CEO and Cofounder, National Instruments....................................................54 Software & Development Tools—Embedded Data Management DDS Information Backbone Reduces Mission-System Complexity........................................................................................58 Hans van ‘t Hag, PrismTech

Industry Watch VPX and the Brave New World of Flexible Hybrid Backplanes.......66 Michael Munroe, Elma Bustronic

Untitled-1 1

December 2007

71

12/13/07 10:05:36 AM

One Stop Systems 2235 Enterprise Street Suite #110 Escondido, CA 92029 USA PCI Express-over-Cable

Phone 800.GET.CPCI Fax 760.466.1664 sales@onestopsystems.com www.onestopsystems.com

High-Speed Networking with

PCI Express-over-Cable I/O Expansion

Industry-First PCI Express SuperSwitch™ for Host-to-Host Communication

PCI Express x8 Expansion Kit Enables Greater Bandwidth

SuperSwitch™ 1 with One Stop Systems’ ExpressNet™ software suite enables host-to-host communication over the PCI Express bus at speeds up to 10Gb/s. SuperSwitch offers greater performance, lower costs and less overhead than Ethernet or Inniband solutions.

One Stop Systems’ PCIe x8 Expansion Kit gives OEMs a powerful advantage by expanding the number of slots in their PC up to an additional 20-slots. The Expansion Kit enables users to enjoy greater bandwidth and higher data transfer speeds at 20Gb/s. To enable this expansion, the PCIe x8 host interface board installs in a x8 or x16 slot of a motherboard, and cables to the PCIe x8 expansion link board located in the system host slot of a PCIe backplane.

Features • SuperSwitch™ 1 includes a PCIe x4 host adapter attached via a PCIe x4 cable to One Stop Systems’ CompactPCI Express x4 cable adapter, PCIe x4 cable adapter, or PCIe x4 Express Card • Using One Stop Systems’ ExpressNet™ utility software, data transfers between two systems occur at 10Gb/s • ExpressNet™ software supports 64 bit CPUs as well as multi-threaded environments • One Stop Systems offers PCI Express cables in 1m, 2m, 3m, 5m and 7m lengths Also Available • SuperSwitch™ 2 – allows communication between up to ve computers • SuperSwitch™ 3 – provides full network communication of up to eight compute nodes Ordering Information for SuperSwitch™ 1: Part # OSS-SS1-PCIe-Xm, Switch-based Adapter to PCIe x4 Adapter Part # OSS-SS1-EC-Xm, Switch-based Adapter to PCIe x4 Express Card Part # OSS-SS1CPCIe-Xm, Switch-based Adapter to CompactPCI Express x4 Adapter

PCIe x8 Expansion Kit Features • The PCIe x8 Expansion Kit includes a PCIe x8 host interface board, a PCIe x8 expansion link board and a 2M PCIe x8 cable • Enables data transfer speeds at 20Gb/s • Expands the number of slots in the PC up to an additional 20-slots • PCIe x8 cables are available in 1m, 2m, 3m, 5m and 7m lengths Ordering Information: Part # OSS-KIT-EXP-7000

Annual Article Index 2

C OTS Your product

June 2007

cPCI PMC VME PCI ATX choice of OS

Medical Systems Pack Power and Portability

Standard & custom designs Extended temp. conduction or convection cooled SBCs

Editorial Say, Didn’t the Automobile Used to be All About Freedom?...........5

Fast, flexible, reliable

Industry Insider...................................................................................7 Technology in Context—PCI Express PCI Express 2.0: The Next Frontier in Interconnect Technology.....10 Ali Jahangiri, PLX Technology

Solutions Engineering—I/O and Sensor Technology Deploying Standards-Based Wireless Sensor Networks.................14

ISO 9001:2000 Certified 321-452-1670 Visit us: www.OTIsolutions.com

Brian Bohlig, Arch Rock

From FPDP to VPX: Back-End Management and Processing of Sensor-Derived Data.........................................................................20 Robert Nokes, GE Fanuc Embedded Systems

Untitled-1 1

11/8/07 9:42:51 AM

Industry Insight—Embedded Choices for Medical Systems Multicore Blade Servers Help Advance 3D Ultrasound Technology........................................................................................26 Frank Setinsek, TechniScan Medical Systems

Choosing the Processor Brain to Control Heart, Lungs.................30 P.J. Tanzillo, National Instruments

Executive Interview RTC Interviews Fred Ruegg, President, Elma Americas.................36 Special Section—Automation and Control in a Networked World The Guts That Make It Go: Processor Control Modules Get Smaller, More Connected.................................................................42 Ann R. Thryft

Connecting the Brains: Connecting Embedded Devices Moves Toward an All-IP World...................................................................48 Tom Williams

Software & Development Tools—Embedded Data Management Embedded Software Development Needs a More Automated, TestDriven Approach...............................................................................56 Mark Underseth, S2 Technologies

74

December 2007

Annual Article Index July 2007

Dual-Core Processors on AMC, cPCI and VME

PC/104 Small Boards Doing Big Jobs

AdvancedMC™ Editorial What Is it About Linux?.....................................................................5 Industry Insider...................................................................................7 Technology in Context—Vision and Inspection Systems Advanced Vision Platforms Based on AdvancedTCA Architecture......10 Stephen Huang, Adlink Technology

� up to 2.0 GHz Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® processor LV � up to 16 Gbytes DDR2 ECC SDRAM � double-width/full-height � for AdvancedTCA® or MicroTCA™

Featured Products.............................................................................18 Solutions Engineering—PC/104 New Stacking for PC/104: USB Grows Up – and Up and Up........20 Jim Turley, Micro/sys

PC/104 Data Acquisition for Industrial Applications.....................24 Robert A. Burckle, WinSystems

Industry Insight—DSP vs. Multicore Systems DSP and x86 – Getting Past the Hype in Processor Architecture.......28 Brian Peebles, Dialogic

Software & Development Tools—Linux Linux and FOSS: End-to-End (and Top-to-Bottom, Too).............34

3U/6U CompactPCI® � choice of Intel® Core™ Duo processor, ® Intel Core™ 2 Duo processor or ® ® dual Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors � up to 8 Gbytes DDR2 ECC SDRAM � extended temperature operation available � rugged versions available

Bill Weinberg, LiPS Forum & Linux Pundit

VME/VXS � choice of Intel® Core™ Duo processor, ® Intel Core™ 2 Duo processor or dual Dual-Core Intel® Xeon® processors � up to 8 Gbytes DDR2 ECC SDRAM � extended temperature operation available � rugged versions available

http://www.gocct.com Email: info@gocct.com Tel: (781) 933-5900 All Trademarks acknowledged

Untitled-1 1

Sept07/US

December 2007

75

9/5/07 10:02:17 AM

Annual Article Index August 2007

September 2007

Mezzanines Make Comm Systems Fast and Flexible

3U VPX On Target for Small “Ruff and REDI?”

Editorial The World Is Bigger than We Think..................................................5

Editorial There’s Got to be a Better Way...........................................................5

Industry Insider...................................................................................7

Industry Insider...................................................................................7

Technology in Context—Mezzanines in Communication Mezzanine Board Strategies for Communications.........................10

Publisher’s Letter Small Form-Factor Boards Up and Coming...................................11

Rodger H. Hosking, Pentek

Mezzanines Enable Next-Generation Communication Design.....16 Stuart Jamieson, Emerson Network Power

Solutions Engineering—High Availability The SCOPE Alliance Carrier Grade Base Platform Middleware........24 Paul Steinberg and Tapio Tallgren, SCOPE Alliance

Latest Specifications from SA Forum Enhance Middleware Services..............................................................................................28 Asif Naseem, Service Availability Forum

Featured Products.............................................................................30 Industry Insight—DSP SoftDSP Migrates Toward DSP........................................................32 Ilan D. Shallom, AudioCodes

Software & Development Tools—Fault Management Interoperable Firmware Upgrades for PICMG Management Controllers.........................................................................................36 Mark Overgaard, Pigeon Point Systems

Technology In Context—The Future Face of Backplanes PCI Express.......................................................................................12 Steve Cooper, One Stop Systems

Solutions Engineering—VME, VPX and Beyond 3U VPX: Small, Rugged and REDI..................................................20 Michael Munroe, Elma Bustronic

3U VPX: Rugged, High-Performance Small Form-Factor COTS Comes of Age....................................................................................28 Jing Kwok, Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing

Industry Insight—From Multiprocessor to Multicore Moving from Multiprocessors to Multiple Cores...........................34 William Lundgren, Kerry Barnes and James Steed, Gedae

Software & Development Tools—Managing High Availability Driving High-Availability Operating Environments through Open Source................................................................................................38 John Fryer, Motorola Embedded Communications Computing

Building a Highly Available Base Station Controller Using COTS Components......................................................................................46 Asif Naseem, GoAhead Software

76

December 2007

Annual Article Index October 2007

November 2007

Safety-Critical Systems Beyond Reliability to Safe Operation

Editorial Embedded Interconnects Are Winding Down to the “Magic Three”..................................................................................................5 Industry Insider...................................................................................7 Technology in Context—Configurable Processing Platforms FPGAs Deliver for Next-Generation Signal Processing Systems........10 Craig Sanderson, Nallatech

Tools Open FPGAs to Expand into New Domains.........................14

Server Blades: Many Choices for the Right Slot

Editorial Yes, Virginia. There is an ATCA.........................................................7 Industry Insider...................................................................................9 Technology in Context—Server Blades Server Blades: The “Bricks and Mortar” of Telecom......................12 Stuart Jamieson, Emerson Network Power

Why Are There So Many AdvancedTCA Blades?............................16 Todd Etchieson, RadiSys

Rick Kuhlman, National Instruments, and Derek Palmer, Xilinx

Solutions Engineering—Remote Monitoring and Management Alternatives and Trade-Offs for Remote Monitoring and Management of Embedded Devices................................................20 Rahul Shah, Lantronix

Industry Insight—Solid-State Storage Flash: Not Just for Consumers Anymore........................................32 Kelly Stone and Woody Hutsell, Texas Memory Systems

Software & Development Tools—Safety-Critical Systems Managing Flash Memory in Safety-Critical Devices......................36 Randy Martin, QNX Software Systems

Implementing Safety in Real-Time Systems with Non-Volatile Memory Technology.........................................................................42 Rich Paulson, Simtek

Solutions Engineering—Embedded Switch Boards Ethernet: Embedded & Switch Boards Form the Path for Industrial Control.............................................................................22 Siva Raghavareddy, Motorola

Networking for Embedded Switches and Routers: A Primer.........28 Nauman Arshad, CWCEC and S. Rajesh Kumar, Aricent

Featured Products.............................................................................46 Industry Insight—Wireless Infrastructure It’s Not About Milliamps Alone When Building an Effective Sense and Control Network.......................................................................36 Niek van Dierdonk, GreenPeak

Industry Watch—Small Form-Factor SIG The Case for Smaller Form-Factors in Industrial Systems.............42 Robert A Burckle, Small Form Factor SIG

News, Views and Comment Alive, Well, Small and Rugged..........................................................64

News, Views and Comment Embedded Computer Market Continues to Fly High....................59

December 2007

77

is to research the latest datasheet from a company, speak directly with an Application Engineer, or jump to a company's technical page, the goal of Get Connected is to put you in touch with the right resource.

Whichever level of service you require for whatever type of technology, Get Connected will help you connect with the companies and products you are searching for.

www.rtcmagazine.com/getconnected

Advertiser Index Get Connected with technology and companies providing solutions now Get Connected is a new resource for further exploration into products, technologies and companies. Whether your goal is to research the latest datasheet from a company, speak directly with an Application Engineer, or jump to a company's technical page, the goal of Get Connected is to put you in touch with the right resource. Whichever level of service you require for whatever type of technology, Get Connected will help you connect with the companies and products you are searching for.

www.rtcmagazine.com/getconnected

Company

Page

Website

Company

Page

Website

ACCES I/O Products...........................21,38,39.......................www.accesio.com

Intel........................................................35.................................www.intel.com

Acromag............................................... 60,61........................ www.acromag.com

McObject LLC..........................................70..........................www.mcobject.com

ACT/Technico....................................... 52,53....................www.acttechnico.com

MEN Micro, Inc..................................... 20,27.......................www.menmicro.com

Products

Advanet Technologies........................... 13,40...................www.advanettech.com Advantech Technologies, Inc....................37........................www.advantech.com

End of Article

Micro Memory LLC...................................80................... www.micromemory.com Microsoft Windows Embedded................ 2,3........www.microsoft.com/embedded

AIM - USA ...............................................22.................. www.aimusa-online.com

Motorola.............................................. 14,15........................ www.motorola.com

BittWare............................................... 42,43......................... www.bittware.com

Mountain View Alliance......................... 68,69.......................... www.mvacec.com

Get Connected with companies and Concurrent Technologies Plc....................75............................... www.gocct.com

Get Connected One Stop Systems. ............................... 72,73.............www.onestopsystems.com

products featured in this section.

Corvalent................................................70................................. corvalent.com www.rtcmagazine.com/getconnected

with companies mentioned in this article. www.rtcmagazine.com/getconnected

Orion Technologies,Inc............................. 74......................www.otisolutions.com

Digital Logic AG....................................... 17....................... www.digitallogic.com

Pentek, Inc........................................... 18,19........................... www.pentek.com

Elma Bustronic Corp................................26.................. www.elmabustronic.com

Performance Technologies.................... 64,65.................................. www.pt.com

Extreme Engineering Solutions, Inc....... 48,49...........................www.xes-inc.com

Phoenix International............................... 74.......................... www.phenxint.com

Fastwel Corp........................................ 23,25...................www.FastwelCorp.com

Get Connected with companies mentioned in this article.

Radian Heatsinks, a div. of Intricast Co., Inc....6................ www.radianheatsinks.com

Get Connected companies and products featured in this section.

GE Fanuc Embeddedwith Systems. ................

4,8........... www.gefanucembedded.com

Real-Time & Embedded Computing Conf....... 45................................www.rtecc.com

Harting, Inc.............................................12.............................www.harting.com

Red Rock Technologies, Inc......................6...................... www.redrocktech.com

Harting, Inc. EPT................................... 28,29.....www.harting.com, www.ept.com

Sealevel Systems................................. 10,11......................... www.sealevel.com

Hybricon Corporation............................... 71...........................www.hybricon.com

Technobox...............................................79........................www.technobox.com

IEI Technology.........................................31..................... www.usa.ieiworld.com

Vector Electronics & Technology, Inc..... 56,57.....................www.vectorelect.com

Innovative Integration..............................34..................www.innovative-dsp.com

WinSystems......................................... 32,33.................... www.winsystems.com

www.rtcmagazine.com/getconnected

www.rtcmagazine.com/getconnected

U.S. Postal Service Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation Required by 39 USC 3685.1)Title of Publication: RTC magazine. 2) Publication Number 10921524. 3)Filing Date 10/01/2007 4)Frequency of issue is monthly. 5)Number of issues published annually: 12. 6)Annual subscription price: n/a. 7)Complete Mailing Address of Known Offices of Publication: The RTC Group, 905 Calle Amanecer, Suite 250, San Clemente, CA 92673 Orange County. 8)Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters of General Office of Publisher: The RTC Group 905 Calle Amanecer, Suite 250, San Clemente, CA 92673 Orange County, California. Publisher: John Reardon, The RTC Group, 905 Calle Amanecer, Suite 250, San Clemente, CA 92673 Orange County, CA 92673. Editor: Tom Williams, 245-M Mt. Hermon Rd.BMP#F, Scotts Valley, CA 95066. Managing Editor: Marina K.Tringali. The RTC Group, 905 Calle Amanecer, Suite 250, San Clemente, CA 92673 Orange County, CA. 10)Owners: James Lizzio, Jim Reardon, John Reardon, Zoltan Hunor. The RTC Group; 905 Calle Amanecer, Suite 250, San Clemente, CA 92673 Orange County, California.11)Known Bondholders Holding 1 Percent or More of Total Amount of Bonds, Mortgages, or Other Securities: None. 12)Tax Status: The purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes has not changed during the preceding 12 months. 13)Publication Title: RTC magazine. 14)Issue date for Circulation data: August 20067 RTC magazine. 15)Extent and Nature of Circulation: average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months (Net press run): 22,501 Number copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 20,001 a)Total number of copies (net press run). b)1. Paid/requested outside-county mail subscriptions stated on form 3541. (Include advertiser’s proof and exchange copies)/Average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months:20,180, number copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 18,486. b)2. Paid in-county subscriptions (include advertiser’s proof and exchange copies)/average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months/number copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: n/a. b)3. Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors, counter sales and other non-USPS paid distribution/average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months: n/a, number copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: n/a. b)4. Other classes mailed through the USPS/average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months: n/a, number copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: n/a. c)Total paid and/or requested circulation [sum of 15b. (1), (2), (3) and (4) average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 20,180, number copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 18,486. d) Free distribution outside of the mail (carriers or other means)/ average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months: n/a, number copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: n/a. f) Total free distribution (sum of 15c. and 15e.)/ average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 2,253, number copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 1,472g) Total distribution (sum of 15c and 15e)/ average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months:22,443 number copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 19,958. h) Copies not distributed/ average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 68, number copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 43. I) Total (sum of 15f and g)/ average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 22,501 number copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 20,001. i) Percent paid and/or requested circulation (15c divided by 15f times 100)/ average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 89.95, number copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 92.62 16. Publication of statement of ownership. Publication will be printed in the December issue of this publication. 17)Signature and title of the editor, publisher, business manager or owner: Marina K.Tringali(Managing Editor)10/01/2007.

I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or misleading information on this form or who omits material or information requested on the form may be subjected to criminal sanctions(including fines and imprisonment)and/or civil sanctions (including multiple damages and civil penalties).

RTC (Issn#1092-1524) magazine is published monthly at 905 Calle Amanecer, Ste. 250, San Clemente, CA 92673. Periodical postage paid at San Clemente and at additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to RTC, 905 Calle Amanecer, Ste. 250, San Clemente, CA 92673.

78

December 2007

PCI-to -PMC

Technobox produces custom and off-the-shelf PMCs.

Serial

Ultra320

FPGA

async I/O, SATA, Ethernet, and IDE controllers. Plus a variety of adapters, extenders, and tools for PMC development or integration.

Adapters SCSI

solutions includes versatile FPGA-based digital I/O,

Quad Ethernet

Async

Our extensive range of

Make us your first stop for

SATA

PMC Solutions.

Reconfigurable

RoHS

CardBus

Digital I/O

Fast/Wide

SAS

PrPMC

PMC-to-PCI

IDE

www.technobox.com

CompactFlash

Your Source for PMCs, Adapters, and Tools.

RS-232/422/485 LVD/SE

PMC-X

PIM

Test Access & Bus Analysis

Carriers Extenders

140 Mount Holly Bypass – Unit 1 Lumberton, NJ 08048 Tel. 609-267-8988 Fax 609-261-1011

Ò

Á

MD<Û:8II@<IJÛ=FIÛJN@K:?Û=89I@:J £xÝäÊEÊ £ÈÝä UÊ/Ü Ê - iÊÓ6*ÇäÒÊ-ÞÃÌi «Ã UÊ/Ü ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Ê6 {Ê-8xxÊ ÀÊ 8£Èä Á

Ê - iÊ «> Ê iÛ Vià UÊ/Ü Ê8 É* Êà ÌiÃ

UÊ£{Ê `i«i `i ÌÊ i ÀÞÊ>ÀÀ>ÞÃÊÜ Ì ÊÌ Ì>

Ê L> `Ü `Ì Ê vÊ ÛiÀÊ{äÊ ÉÃ

UÊ ÕÀÊi Li``i`Ê* ÜiÀ* ÒÊV «ÕÌiÀÃ UÊ « iÌiÊ L >À`Ê-iÀ > Ê,>« ` "Ê

Ê ÃÜ ÌV Êv>LÀ VÊV iVÌ Û ÌÞ

£xÝä

UÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ6 / Ê{£Ê ÀÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ6 / Ê{ÈÊv À >Ìà UÊ,Õ}}i`Ê ÀÊ i`Ê> `Ê `ÕVÌ

Ê i`ÊÛiÀÃ Ã

£ÈÝä

Ê >à ÞÊÌ iÊ ÃÌÊ «ÀiÃà ÛiÊL >À` ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊiÛiÀÊLÕ ÌÊv ÀÊ * Ê«À ViÃà }° ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ+Õ ÌiÊ« Ãà L ÞÊÌ iÊ ÃÌÊ «ÀiÃà Ûi ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊiÛiÀÊLÕ ÌÊv ÀÊ6 ° Á

,"Ê ",9 x{äÊ6>ÃÃ>ÀÊ Ûi Õi]Ê >ÌÃÜ ÀÌ ]Ê > v À >Ê £Î££Ê1°-° ° ­1-®Ê/i Ên£nÊ nÊääÇäÊÊUÊÊ­1-®Ê >ÝÊn£nÊ nÊ{{x ÜÜÜ° VÀ i ÀÞ°V ÊÊUÊÊÃ> iÃJ VÀ i ÀÞ°V