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January 2006
Bus & Board Briefing
Motorola Sets Comms Technology Course
To meet the evolving communications needs of the embedded computing market, Motorola will extend its offerings to include MicroTCA-based communications servers that will complement its current and future VMEbus- based products. This coexistence strategy is designed to help equipment manufacturers and system integrators bring new communications capabilities to the embedded market quickly while preserving the real-time I/O capabilities of the VMEbus. Next-generation embedded solutions are becoming increasingly communications intensive, demanding capabilities such as high availability, broadband and wireless support, high throughput switching and routing capabilities, and high serviceability. Motorola believes that these expanding communications requirements cannot be met by a single technology. Rather, a mix of technologies is likely to be much more effective in delivering advanced communications capabilities to the market.
Developed initially for the telecommunications industry, MicroTCA meets these evolving communications requirements and shares many of the same characteristics, such as small physical size, scalability and low entry cost, which initially made VMEbus successful in the embedded market. For these reasons, Motorola is developing MicroTCA-based solutions that will coexist with its VMEbus product lines. And because MicroTCA is expected to be widely adopted in many industries, it should create economies of scale advantages for the market. Motorola currently offers AdvancedTCA-based communications servers and is developing extensions to the product line based on the MicroTCA standard. At Bus & Board 2006, Motorola is showing a proof of concept demonstration that links VMEbus and MicroTCA platforms using NDDS over Ethernet. This system implementation allows cooperating applications to run on the most appropriate platform, giving greater flexibility in system architectures, simplifying platform upgrades and helping to protect investment over the product lifecycle. Motorola, www.motorola.com .
Industry Updates
Alliance Forms to Promote IEEE 802 Ethernet Technologies
The Ethernet Alliance, an industry group dedicated to the continued success and expansion of Ethernet technology, recently announced its formation. With a scope that includes all IEEE 802 Ethernet standards, the Ethernet Alliance will serve as an industry resource and support the advancement of existing and emerging Ethernet technologies. "Although Ethernet has existed for more than 25 years, it does not have an industry voice that represents the spectrum of IEEE 802 Ethernet standards developments and serves the IEEE 802 Ethernet industry as a whole," said Brad Booth, president of the Ethernet Alliance. "With the strong support of our founding members, the Ethernet Alliance will be that voice, and we will move aggressively to accelerate the growth and expansion of IEEE 802 Ethernet technologies." Unlike past alliances that support single IEEE 802 Ethernet projects, the Ethernet Alliance will exist for as long as it remains relevant to IEEE 802 Ethernet technology. Activities for 2006 will focus on three key areas: Ethernet technology incubation, interoperability demonstrations and education. To promote these, the Ethernet Alliance has started the incubation process for 100 Gigabit Ethernet, has initiated efforts to demonstrate 10GBASE-T, 10GBASE-LRM and backplane Ethernet
interoperability, and is planning to show Consumer Electronic applications. Ethernet Alliance, www.ethernetalliance.org .
New Products
High-Density Storage Blades for Comms Applications
Targeting high availability communications, defense, homeland security and commercial applications, Performance Technologies has introduced the CPC5900 Storage Blade and CPC5910 Storage ExpansionBlade. Combined, the CompactPCI 2.16 and 2.9 compliant blades offer two Terabytes of storage for embedded database, data caching and file serving applications. Adding the CPC5910 to the company's CPC5564 64-bit single board computer results in a high-end compute and storage solution. The CPC5900 is a high-density, high availability NAS or SAN storage blade with two hot-swappable SATA hard drives and an onboard, high-performance PowerPC processor. The product supports applications requiring full RAID arrays (0, 1, 0+1, 4, 5, 6), and is suited for embedded database servers, as an application server for storage intensive services, as a storage appliance, or as a mission-critical logging device in defense and homeland security applications. The CPC5910 is a low-cost, high-density SATA storage expansion blade, expanding the storage capacity for either the CPC5564 or CPC5900 blades. It features two hot-swappable, enterprise-class SATA hard drives. Performance Technologies, www.pt.com .
Network Processor-Based Multi-Service AMC Released
SBS Technologies added to their line of AdvancedMC modules with the Telum 1204-O3, an intelligent multi-service interface module. Targeted at convergent gateway and ATM to IP interworking applications like convergent 3G wireless, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Media Gateways, DSLAMs and Switch/Routers, the Telum 1204-O3 offers flexible functionality and high performance in an AdvancedMC form-factor. The Telum 1204-O3 is essentially a gateway in an AdvancedMC module format specifically designed to facilitate the migration from legacy networks to IP-based networks. The full height module enables high-performance packet processing, directly terminating and switching traffic on the card rather than by sending traffic to an off-board processor. This enables system designers to build high-performance communications systems using a distributed processing architecture. The module's interworking capability allows the Telum 1204-O3 to independently interconnect between any supplied protocols, which can be selected on a per-port basis. For increased adaptability, a full set of IP services can be offered over any Layer 2 protocol including ATM AAL5, PPP and Ethernet. Pricing starts at $2,799.00. SBS Technologies, www.sbs.com .
High Density ATCA Signaling Blade and Gateway
Artesyn recently announced AdvancedTCA (ATCA) implementations of its SpiderWareSS7 signaling blade and SpiderWareSG signaling gateway. SS7 (Common Channel Signaling System No.7) is a signaling protocol used to provide services such as call set up, teardown, routing, local number portability, and call forwarding in legacy public switched telephone networks. SIGTRAN (SIGnaling TRANsport) specifies a method for transporting SS7 signaling information over IP-based packet networks. The ATCA form factor of the new blades makes it easier for telecom equipment OEMs to add high-performance signaling to legacy PSTN and next-generation IP networks without compromising investments in existing SS7 code. The SpiderWare ATCA hardware platform features a 1-GHz MPC7448 processor running Wind
River's PNE LE Carrier Grade Linux. Equipped with 512MBytes of DDR SDRAM memory and 64 Mbytes of flash memory, the MPC7448 processor performs protocol processing and hosts customer applications. The blade's T1/E1 interface, which provides 8, 16, or 32 T1/E1 spans, utilizes a PowerQUICC II processor to perform data protocol processing. The high-speed PICMG 3.1-compliant ATCA fabric interface features high-speed control and data plane connections. The control plane, utilizing two Gigabit Ethernet channels, connects directly to the ATCA Base Fabric. The data plane, managed by a 24-port Ethernet switch, uses eight Gigabit Ethernet ports to connect to the ATCA High Speed Fabric. Artesyn Technologies, www.artesyn.com .
In Business
PCIe Targets Backplane Market
Furthering the penetration of PCIe technology in the system-backplane market, PLX Technology announced its PCIe interconnect technology has been designed into a range of backplane boards from SBS Technologies. SBS's Telum family of AdvancedTCA (ATCA) and Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) networking and communications boards now features PLX ExpressLane
PCIe switching and bridging devices. This development reflects the success both companies have had in bringing PCIe to the rapidly growing ATCA and AMC markets, as well as the interconnect standard's growing significance in backplane designs. The backplanes the PCIe-enabled products address are critical elements in systems supporting advanced networking and communications applications. In implementing the ExpressLane devices into the Telum line, SBS was able to leverage its legacy PCI designs and take advantage of PLX's ability to provide a smooth migration from PCI to PCIe. This ease of migration both saved SBS design resources and improved the boards' time to market. PLX Technology, www.plxtech.com ; SBS Technologies, www.sbs.com .
Cell Technology Evaluation Systems Ship
Mercury Computer Systems announced that it has shipped its first Cell Technology Evaluation System (CTES). Based on the Mercury Dual Cell-Based Blade announced in October 2005, the CTES is a turnkey system that features the IBM Cell Broadband Engine (BE) processor, and an Intel Architecture development/simulation environment, with pre-installed Mercury, IBM, and open-source Cell Technology software. These early-access systems enable customers to evaluate Cell BE processor-based computing solutions and begin prototyping advanced applications for the defense, medical, industrial inspection, and other markets. The Cell Technology Evaluation System is integrated with Mercury's MultiCore Framework (MCF) software to optimize data movement within the Cell BE processors. The MCF is part of the Mercury MultiCore Plus Advantage, which employs sophisticated middleware that abstracts hardware capabilities and manages the distribution of data across multiple computing elements working in tandem. It includes patented cooling technologies, lightweight system-on-chip (SoC) management software, multicore implementations of key algorithms, visualization tools designed for clusters, algorithm tuning, and more. Also integrated into the CTES is the Y-HPC Linux on Cell Board Support Package from Terra Soft Solutions, which enables a rapid installation and netboot-capable Linux environment. Mercury Computer Systems, www.mc.com.
Events
Real Time and Embedded Computing Conferences
www.rtecc.com
Copenhagen, Denmark
January 26, 2006 
San Jose, CA
January 26, 2006 
Barcelona, Spain
February 21, 2006
Madrid, Spain
February 23, 2006 
Melbourne, FL
February 28, 2006
Register for Upcoming RTECC shows
Internet Telephony Conference & Expo
Fort Lauderdale , FL
January 24-27, 2006
Design Con2006
Santa Clara , CA
February 2-6, 2006
Embedded World 2006
Nürnberg , Germany
February 14-16, 2006
Coming in the January Issue of RTC
Data Acquisition
Ever more applications rely on collecting large quantities of data at high speeds and getting it into useable form. This section will look at the issues affecting high-end applications such as next-generation radar. In addition we will present a discussion of the emerging VITA 49 standard that deals with a standard way of transferring IF data in a digital format.
Switched-Fabric Update
The two most popular switched fabrics have emerged as PCI Express and RapidIO. This month's update section will look at the evolution of PCI Express from a chip-to-chip connection to a replacement for PCI 64/66 at the card-to-card level and for storage system controllers. In addition, we will get a look at the latest advances in serial RapidIO.
Dual-Core Processors
Increasing processor performance has taken a new turn with the introduction of dual-core designs. Currently, AMD and Intel are fielding dual and multi-core X-86 processors primarily for the PC and server market. This section will include an introduction to some of the unique design issues involved in making these multi-core processors work in various embedded-computer products.
Graphical Development Tools
With increasing system complexity, graphical representation of both hardware and software functionality has become essential to efficient design. A smooth path from high-level representation to the actual details of the design is a must.
RTC interviews Mercury's Jay Bertelli
RTC starts off the New Year with another in its well-received interview series. January's interviewee is Mercury Computer's President and CEO, Jay Bertelli. Mercury has been one of the shining lights in the embedded-computer business with significant efforts in the military/aerospace, medical instrumentation and industrial control application areas. In the interview, Bertelli tells of Mercury's engagement with IBM's cell processor and how he expects it to be pervasive across the entire embedded-computer world. He also shares his thoughts on a number of other issues including the defense industry, ATCA and AMC, the latest standards being developed by VIT A and the company's view of RapidIO (of which Mercury was the primary developer). |
