Index Real-Time Magazine 98q2 on SBC's & MEZZANINES

Index Real-Time Magazine 2Q98

Editorial
By Martin Timmerman, Chief-Editor of Real-Time Magazine, Real-Time Consult.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.3
.

RT DOCTOR

Modular Bus Systems: Technologies & Market Perspectives, The Mezzanines Invasion.
This tutorial is a survey of today's use of buses and sub-buses from a technical and a marketing point of view. First, an overview of the different application domains will be given. Then the different features of today's buses will be reviewed, covering the history, current status, advantages and drawbacks and application domains. We will try to clarify whether the battle between VME64 and CPCI makes sense or not. A special chapter will be devoted to sub-buses. Different mezzanine technologies will be compared such as IP, PMC and M-modules. After the tutorial, you should be able to understand whether bus technologies are complementary or whether they are competitive.

By Martin Timmerman, General Manager, Real-Time Consult.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.6
Back to top
.

PMC

A PMC Based Computing Core.
PCI bus has been very successful in providing a standard interface for high performance I/O applications. On VME or CPCI single board computers modular I/O functions are usually implemented in PMC format. The "Multifunction Computing Core" (MFCC) described here has been developed by CES to provide a uniform hardware basis for all digital I/O applications that require processing power for reformatting data or handling complex protocols. The MFCC features a PowerPC based computing core (CPU, SDRAM, and FlashPROM), a PCI bridge and a large FPGA to implement a wide variety of custom specific protocols. About one quarter of the PMC surface is reserved for an electrical transition module adapting the FPGA I/O pins to the electrical signal characteristics required by the specific application. In addition, 64 I/O pins of the FPGA are wired to the VME P2 connector. A fast staging buffer (SSRAM) is directly attached to the FPGA.

By Martin Weymann, Systems Integration, Creative Electronic Systems
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.14
Back to top

Building Wireless Infrastructure Applications based on off-the-shelf building blocks.
The rapid growth of telecom services and mobile subscribers has put the telecom equipment manufacturers under additional pressure to provide new products more quickly and with ever increasing features and performance; faced with rapidly increased competition, they are outsourcing more and more of their equipment design in order to focus on their core competencies. One of the application areas placing largest demands on new technology is 'wireless'. This article describes the applicability and availability of standards based technology and shows how to integrate network elements within the wireless infrastructure - such as a Base Station Controller - based on off-the-shelf building blocks.

By Richard Lundberg, UK Marketing Manager, Mathias Renner, Product Marketing Manager, FORCE Computers.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.19
Back to top

PMC and RACEway gives new life to VMEbus 26.
High-performance embedded computer systems require an architecture that fulfils a number of demanding requirements: High bandwidth, multiprocessing, powerful interrupt capabilities, scalability, modularity, maintainability, mechanical robustness to name a few. For more than 15 years, almost all of these requirements have been met by the popular VMEbus architecture.

By Thomas Nygaard, Vice President, VMETRO Inc.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.26
Back to top
..

PC-MIP

Mezzanine Comparison: PC-MIP and M-Modules.
Industrial applications are so much diversified that identical solutions are rarely possible. The concept of one-for-all products out of shrink-wrapped cardboard boxes is not usable in industrial, scientific or medical applications. These monopoly-type products are only available for home and business applications. Even in small industrial market segments, like mezzanine cards for VMEbus or CompactPCI, diversity is needed. This will be shown using PC-MIP and M-Modules from MEN (Nuremberg, Germany) as examples. Both mezzanine families were developed by the same company but are defined for different application, manufacturing and price segments.

By Hermann Strass, Consulent for new technologies, MEN Mikro Elektronik Gmbh.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.32
Back to top

PC-MIP: Evolution of a Mezzanine Standard.
Space and flexibility are the primary objectives of industrial mezzanines. And since systems designers are not afforded the luxury of creating electronics from scratch for every program, standards evolve to address convenience, time and cost. The success of a standard is based on how well it delivers practical solutions. Embedded industrial applications are increasingly relying on off-the-shelf components that offer the flexibility to create a "customized" system. The latest mezzanine available to system designers, PC-MIP, leverages the experience of three market leaders to create the "next generation" of density, modularity and cost-efficiency.

By Kim Rubin, Chief Technical Officer, SBS Computer Group.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.37
Back to top

COMPACTPCI

Advanced Technologies on CompactPCI.
CompactPCI is establishing itself as leading bus architecture for embedded systems in the telecommunications, industrial control as well as command and control markets. Since its introduction in 1995 it has become the fastest growing industrial bus architecture. Although the architecture specification has just been around for about three years, there are already a number of new enhancements being specified for CompactPCI, including hot swap capability and the specification of sub-busses to address specific application requirements. In addition, a number of questions were raised about the capabilities of CompactPCI to address multiprocessing applications and its limitations concerning the possible slot count.
This paper, on the one hand, provides an overview of the new, most important optional extensions to the specification - Hot Swap and Computer Telephony bus (CTbus) and clarifies, on the other hand, the questions regarding multiprocessing and slot count capabilities.

By Remy David, Director Corporate Communications, FORCE Computers, Roland Chochoiek, Marketing & Technology Manager, Gespac.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.40
Back to top

VME

VME Still Dominates Defense Market 46.
The characteristics, development history, and deployed market potential of Compact PCI and VME are compared and contrasted. The author concludes that the defense sector's recent interest in CPCI will wane unless the long-term viability of PCI can be assured by significant support from the industrial and telecommunications sectors and a commitment to backwards compatibility.

By John Wemekamp, Director of Strategic Marketing and Technology, DY 4 Systems Inc.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.46
Back to top

SBC

Single Board Computers: Choosing the Appropriate "Slot One Solution"
Twenty years ago, the thought of an off-the-shelf OEM board that came fully equipped with all necessary computer system functions was not much more than a system designer's dream. Not only was it impossible to fit all necessary functions within the confines of a single board, but a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) product could not offer the flexibility to adapt to specific embedded applications. Most applications relied on Using minicomputer technology of the day such as DEC PDP-11's or designs a proprietary system.

By Clarence Peckham, President, SBS Embedded Computers.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.49
Back to top

The Convergence of Processor Architectures for Embedded Computers.
A remarkable trend in the evolution of computer board architectures in the embedded market, is the way they are today quickly merging into similar architectures, based on a common set of widely approved standards and technologies, such as PCI. Comparing today a modern Pentium VME board and a modern PowerPC VME board would bring out tremendous likenesses, not only at the overall architecture level, but also at the chip scale.

By Philippe Weber, Technical Account Manager Europe, Themis Computer.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.52
Back to top

Designing A Dual Pentium II SBC.
I-Bus, Inc. builds passive backplanes, CPU boards, and enclosures for the industrial PC marketplace. Passive backplane technology relies on a Single board Computer (SBC) to provide the processor function that is normally on a system board (i.e., a motherboard). An SBC is the size of a full length PC-AT card. The interface for ISA and PCI is defined by the PCI Industrial Computers Manufacturer's Group (PICMG). PICMG controls the connector edge specification for SBCs. This technology is used to provide a high degree of serviceability and ease of upgrade for the customer. For example, one need only replace the CPU board to upgrade a processor, as opposed to removing all installed add-in boards and replacing the system board entirely.

By Dan Beckman, Sr. Electronic Engineer, I-Bus, Inc.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.56
Back to top

Challenges in Designing Today�s High Integration, High Performance Industrial SBCs.
The design and development of today's high performance and highly integrated industrial Single Board Computers (SBC) presents many challenges to the development team. A successful design can only be obtained through proper decisions at the component selection phase, good techniques and practices in the design stage, a careful and well thought out board layout, and thorough validation and testing. This must be done in parallel with the coordination of all the required support groups such as software and BIOS development; manufacturing, assembly and test; procurement; and technical and sales support. Given the complex recipe for success, when evaluating the development of an industrial SBC for your application, serious consideration must be made to using the services of, or purchasing an existing product from, an established industrial SBC developer and manufacturer.

By Edwin Faier, Team Leader, Teknor Industrial Computers Inc.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.60
Back to top

The Problems & Limitations Of The First Generation.
This article goes into detail about the limitations on the performance potential of VME PowerPC single board computers imposed by first generation designs, and offers solutions which remove data transfer bottlenecks and improve performance. These findings are the result of extensive research and development conducted by Synergy Microsystems, involving in-depth interviews with customers and users of other boards, as well as engineering analysis of these boards. Synergy has incorporated the solutions it developed into a new line of VME PowerPC boards under the Gemini brand name.

By Ron Marcus, Technical Marketing Manager, Synergy Microsystems, Inc.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.65
Back to top

Evolution of MODCOMP's Single Board Computers.
This article provides insight into the Single Board Computers produced by MODCOMP. This includes SBC Development Background (Description of VMEbus SBC's, Description of PICMG SBC's, Operating System Information), Benchmark Comparisons and Typical Applications.

By Ron Beers, Senior Sales Analyst, MODCOMP, Inc.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.73
Back to top

P2CI

P2CI: PCI on VME P2 compatible interface.
Open bus computer system architectures have demonstrated their relevance for all operational embedded computing applications. They are based on architectures in which the user can add bus compatible boards. Openness of buses to the user has become generalized and has been continually accelerating in the Industrial, Telecom and Defense markets requiring tight coupling capacities between inputs/outputs in real time.

By Robert Negre, Technical Director, CETIA.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.78
Back to top

POWERING

Power Supply and Decoupling on cPCI Backplanes 84.
PCI technology, on which CompactPCIbus is also based, is a power-saving C-MOS technology. Why then are special measures necessary in the design of the power supply? This report is intended to give an answer and explain possible mutual interference between subassemblies, and also interference, which goes outside the system and can produce EMC problems.

By Andreas Lenkisch, Senior Research Engineer, Trenew Electronic GmbH.
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.84
Back to top

OTHERS

Bookstores
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.24

Agenda
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.90

Company Directory - SBC�s & Mezzanines
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.94

Advertisement Index
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.120

Subscription Form
SBC's & MEZZANINES - 98q2 - p.121