PICMG completes Military Environmental Testing

of the MicroTCA Connector System

PICMG recently announced the successful completion of military environmental testing of the connector family used in PICMG’s MicroTCA specifications. Based on the requirements of the MIL-STD-801 and RTCA/DO-160 standards, the testing also included additional electro-static discharge testing to 15KV. PICMG hired the independent testing and research company, Contech Research, based in the USA, to perform the environmental testing, which included mechanical shock, random vibration, thermal shock, thermal cycling with humidity, temperature life, mixed flowing gas, insulation resistance, dielectric withstanding voltage, durability, insert and extraction force, salt, fog and sand.  

Completion of the testing was one goal of PICMG’s Conduction Cooled MicroTCA Committee, which is developing PICMG’s MTCA.3 subsidiary specification. Designed to extend the MicroTCA standard into rugged and hardened environments, the MTCA.3 subsidiary specification will be available later this year.   

The original MicroTCA specification, MTCA.0, was introduced in 2006.  This specification is bolstered by a wide availability of Advanced Mezzanine Cards, which form the basis of the architecture and provide higher performance at a lower price point than competing rugged architectures. This architecture also supports PICMG’s robust platform management system which has been a leading feature of many of PICMG’s specifications. 

“The goal of this testing was to show that the edge-mounted connector system proposed for adoption for Rugged MicroTCA (MTCA.3) products meets the stringent environmental requirements for military and aerospace  markets,” said Joe Pavlat, PICMG’s President. “Since our testing went above and beyond those requirements and was completed successfully, we anticipate an increase in the adoption rate of new MTCA.3 subsidiary specifications when it’s released.” 

A final test result and an application guide for the upcoming specification can be obtained freely at the PICMG website, www.picmg.org, under the Resources section.