Gary Rutledge Amphenol Backplane & System Integration

The new generation of VPX protocols are here and the next generations are on the horizon. The exciting world of high speed has arrived and before we know it today's technology will be superseded. VPX is "evolving." The next generation of PCIe and Ethernet will add more complexities to the VPX signal channel. We are seeing data rates increase exponentially and the evolution of VPX has begun.

Steve Gudknecht Elma Electronic

The concept of modular designs in small-form-factor (SFF) electronic systems poses interesting challenges to equipment suppliers who feed the embedded computing market's demand for smaller, more cost-effective solutions. Competing expectations from designers include reduced size, lower cost, lower NRE (nonrecurring engineering) charges, and the drive for the most forward-reaching future-proof designs that enable form, fit, and functional upgrades at a reasonable cost.

Ken Brown LCR Embedded Systems

Thanks to its flexibility, performance, and suitability for harsh and varied environments, VPX - especially the size, weight, and power-cost (SWaP-C)-friendly 3U VPX - has rapidly established itself as the form factor of choice for aerospace and defense programs. The majority of new opportunities are in the 3U VPX VITA 48.2 (conduction cooled) form factor, housed in an ARINC 404 enclosure, commonly called Air Transport Rack (ATR). ATR enclosures are notorious for restrictive I/O limitations.

Ken Braund Mertiec and Bob Sullivan VITA Distinguished Fellow

The success of Meritec's VPX+ cabling system has spawned a new cabling system that replaces the need for the Multi-Gig (TE TM) connector and it is field deployable. The new VPX+ DA (Direct Attach) cabling system (product currently in development) reduces weight and cost while improving performance. Preliminary VPX+ DA SI simulations are showing 25Gigabits/seconds (Gb/s) performance. The VPX+ DA is an ideal solution for pulling various protocols from slot-to-slot and backplane to I/O at higher speeds. VPX+ DA is the ideal size, weight, and power (SWaP) solution.

Jerry Gipper Editorial Director

The FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC) standard has become the defacto mezzanine standard for anyone wanting a modular solution for platforms using an FPGA [field-programmable gate array]. The convenience of having modular I/O for any FPGA family makes it hard to not use an FMC as the I/O front-end. Consequently, the FMC standard, VITA 57, has gained worldwide acceptance and is endorsed by the major FPGA manufacturers.

Michael Munroe Elma Electronic

VITA’s Standards Organization (VSO) has been working diligently to finalize a major update to the VITA 65 standard, also known as OpenVPX. In addition, CERDEC [U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center] has been instrumental in supplying some of the additions to the standard. Even broader than these specification updates are additional efforts being made on other VITA standards that strengthen the overall VPX environment itself.

Serge Tissot Kontron

Of the two VPX mechanical form factors, 3U is very popular in certain applications, and 6U is sometimes necessary to build highly parallel systems with optimal computing density. While air and conduction cooling are often implemented to address cooling challenges, liquid cooling solutions can be effective for designs at the chassis, board, and chip levels. Today’s designs must be standardized for VPX to maintain interoperability and availability of common building blocks, and to ensure the success of this modular architecture now and in the future.

Sally Cole Senior Editor

The short life cycles of commercial components create many obsolescence headaches for military electronic-system designers as they try to integrate these high-performance devices into air, ground, sea platforms that must last for decades, that have long system development cycles, and time-consuming testing procedures. As the military looks to leverage more open architectures and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology, the challenge of managing the obsolescence that comes with COTS will only become more difficult.

Brian Roberts Dawn VME Products

The backplane is the backbone of a VPX system, contoured to the final system configuration. It would be extremely valuable for designers to have a way to evaluate the top options in a working configuration before the final backplane was developed. The following discussion presents an interesting case for using backplane overlays to effectively evaluate the best options.

Jerry Gipper Editorial Director

The September VITA Standards Organization (VSO) meeting was held in Germantown, Maryland, and hosted by DRS Technologies. This update is based on the results of that meeting. Contact VITA if you are interested in participating in any of these working groups. Visit the VITA website (www.vita.com) for details on upcoming VSO meetings.