VMETRO kick starts VPX system development

VMETRO, a leader in embedded computing solutions based on standards such as VXS, VPX, XMC and FMC that utilize multi-gigabit serial interconnects, today announced a five slot VPX/VXS portable tower enclosure and backplane to accelerate and simplify VPX system integration and development. A challenge of developing with VPX is there isn’t a “standard” VPX backplane which will result in delays on many VPX programs while custom backplanes are developed. The VMETRO VPX/VXS portable tower directly addresses this challenge giving engineers and software developers a head start on their integration and application development. The backplane’s design enables full exploitation of the massive backplane bandwidth of VMETRO’s FPE650 quad-FPGA and HPE640 hybrid-PowerPC/FPGA VPX boards while enabling developers to integrate VMETRO’s existing VXS boards into embedded real-time DSP systems.

The backplane is designed specifically to support the high speed and high bandwidth I/O and backplane interconnectivity of the VMETRO FPE650 and HPE640 VPX boards. The VPX/VXS backplane is equipped with 3 VPX slots and 2 VXS slots (1 payload and 1 switch). To support VPX/REDI boards, the VPX slots in are on a 1” pitch. The single VXS payload slot enables existing VXS payload boards to be utilized; the VXS switch slot supports the VMETRO CSW1 switch which provides up to 12 front panel fiber optic transceivers and flexible backplane connections between the VPX and VXS payload slots.
The chassis, model VPX-ENC-0102, can enclose a signal processing system controlled by a PowerPC processor running either VxWorks or Linux and up to 14 Xilinx® Virtex®-5 FPGAs and 6 high speed analog input FMC (VITA 57) modules. VMETRO’s FPGA development kit can be used to simplify the FPGA development and integration. The FPGA development kit provides all the building blocks to build a fully functional FPGA design to which a customer can integrate their FPGA logic and algorithms and it provides mechanisms for communication between FPGAs as well as communication between FPGAs and processors. To support the power and cooling required for such a high performance system, the VPX-ENC-0102 comes equipped with a 1332W power supply and two 190 CFM fans.

For additional information about the VPX/VXS portable tower, please visit the VMETRO website at http://www.vmetro.com/category4335.html.

About VMETRO
VMETRO [OSE: VME] provides commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) board- and system-level embedded computer products from development to deployment for applications in Aerospace & Defense, Industrial, Communications, Medical, Enterprise Computing and Network Storage. Our products offer the highest levels of performance, innovation and reliability by applying state-of-the-art technology within the framework of well established industry standards.
VMETRO is a leading supplier of 1) Embedded Computing – ruggedized and commercial grade high-performance Digital Signal Processing and FPGA Processing solutions, Analog, Digital and Fiber-Optic I/O, and Buffer Memory Nodes 2) Data Recorders & Storage – ruggedized and commercial grade real-time long-endurance recording, playback and analysis systems for high-speed sensor data 3) Protocol & Bus Analyzers – debug, validation and analysis tools for testing computer systems and 4) Network Storage devices - solid-state non-volatile cards designed to increase performance and maintain reliability in server and storage appliances.
For more information, please visit www.vmetro.com.