To:
Subscribers PICMG Europe Ezine
Subject: PICMG
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Topics:
PICMG
has announced a new initiative to expand the capabilities of the AdvancedTCA
platform to address additional markets beyond its successful telecom base.
This new effort will be addressing additional features including double-wide
boards, enhancements to power and cooling, optimizations for non-NEBS
environments, allowances for double-sided shelves and other enhancements while
maintaining forward and backward compatibility with existing AdvancedTCA
products.
Highly
successful in telecom central office environments, AdvancedTCA is the only truly
open bladed architecture available today. The original AdvancedTCA
specification, released in January 2003, includes detailed sections on power and
cooling, system management and electronic keying, and regulatory requirements
for a bladed computing architecture capable of switching and processing 2.5
terabits per second in a single shelf. The
original goal of the AdvancedTCA family of specifications was to create a
foundation for a set of common platforms with a large selection of
interchangeable modules from many companies for use in telecommunications
applications.
The
development of the AdvancedTCA Base specification and its corresponding
subsidiary specifications regarding fabric expansion and other options remains
the largest project ever undertaken by PICMG.
Since 2003, it has been widely adopted by major telecommunication
equipment providers and has penetrated additional markets, including military,
factory automation, financial and scientific research markets.
This
work will be performed by a new subcommittee and will facilitate the use of
AdvancedTCA in additional markets, including cloud computing and network data
centers.
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PICMG
announces the formation of the xTCA for Physics Coordinating Committee.
This
subcommittee was initiated by an international group of physics labs that are
using or actively exploring usage of both AdvancedTCA® and MicroTCA® platforms
in experimental research machines and detectors in such diverse fields as high
energy, photon, astro, fusion and medical physics. The Committee will tackle
AdvancedMC™ channel usage models, Rear Transition Modules definitions, timing
synchronization and the generic design of AdvancedTCA and AdvancedMC modules
needed to allow PICMG’s xTCA family of products to be used in the broad
physics community.
The
main goal of the subcommittee is to develop a set of xTCA specifications,
sub-specifications, design guides, requirements documents, and other documents
while maintaining maximum compatibility with existing xTCA specifications. This
subcommittee will serve as a coordinating committee for study of solutions,
specific tasks, resources and timelines for a number of closely coupled working
groups.
“PICMG
is very excited about the formation of this subcommittee.” stated Doug Sandy,
PICMG Vice President of Technology. “It proves PICMG’s xTCA family of
specifications, including AdvancedTCA, MicroTCA and AdvancedMC has application
beyond their telecommunications focus. It also shows how open specifications can
be enhanced within the PICMG organization to permit broader use of the
technologies.”
“The
physics scientific community was among the first to pioneer interoperable
modular instrument standards beginning in the 1960’s,” said Ray Larsen of
the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Chair of the Coordinating Committee.
“This special relationship of physics with PICMG aims to create xTCA features
to serve the new generation of intelligent, highly available large-scale physics
systems, along with strong industrial support.”
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PICMG
has announced another specification in the MicroTCA® family of open
specifications.
The Air Cooled Rugged MicroTCA specification
extends temperature, shock and vibration ranges, thereby extending the use of
the platform beyond its original Telecommunications focus to address
applications requiring enhanced environmental performance. Industries serving
the needs of transportation, industrial control, and outdoor communications
infrastructure can now take advantage of MicroTCA’s small footprint, high
compute power and communications bandwidth, and managed architecture.
“MicroTCA
is the only small open-computing platform that provides robust high-availability
features at low costs,” said Mike Franco,
Work
within PICMG to provide an even more robust MicroTCA platform continues, with
members working on a hardened, conduction-cooled version of MicroTCA that is
intended for use in military and aerospace applications. The work is expected to
be completed later this year. Engineers working in these areas understand the
benefits of MicroTCA’s managed, high-availability architecture, as the
platform can continue to operate in the event of component failures.
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Kind
regards,
Chairman PICMG Europe
NL 4200 EA Gorinchem, The
tel.: +31-183-660733
fax: +31-183-664821