Jerry Gipper, Editorial Director
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Embedded Tech Trends 2019 Wrap-up
In January, Embedded Tech Trends 2019 was held San Diego, California at the Andaz. Located in the heart of the famous Gas Lamp district, the attendees had ready access to great dining and local SoCal activities like the San Diego zoo and the USS Midway. The theme for 2019 was “The Future is Now!” The [...]
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Mars Exploration Rover
I was saddened in February with the news from NASA that the Opportunity Rover mission on Mars was formally concluded. What was originally supposed to be a 90-day, 1,000-meter, exploratory excursion had turned into a nearly 15-year, 28.4-mile odyssey across the surface of Mars, far beyond the expectations of anyone. This mission has held a special [...]
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VITA 57.4: FMC+
Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are utilized in many applications, with the range expanding as new variations of FPGAs emerge. By design, FPGAs are easily reconfigured as application needs change. But sometimes a change to the front-end hardware...
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VITA's switched fabrics roadmap
Over the years, VITA's charter has evolved to embrace a host of new open architecture standards for critical embedded computing. Originally founded to develop standards and an ecosystem in support of VMEbus, VITA has evolved its interconnect strategy for high performance computing to be based on leading switched fabrics. Most popular are Ethernet, PCI Express, InfiniBand, and Serial RapidIO. Today's working groups now spend their efforts on developing standards that implement the latest advancements in the roadmaps of these fabrics in various VITA form factors such as VPX, VNX, XMC, and FMC. The working groups are no longer responsible for defining the protocols but ensuring that the right connector technology is defined suitable for VITA form factors and ensuring that the correct connector technology is implemented as appropriate.
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VITA Standards Organization activity updates
The September VITA Standards Organization (VSO) standards' meeting was held in Huntsville, Alabama. 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 ...
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Visions of Sugar Plums!
We have 20 sponsors lined up for the 2019 edition of Embedded Tech Trends to be held at The Andaz in San Diego, California on January 28 and 29. Embedded Tech Trends is an industry-wide forum where suppliers of component, board and system level solutio...
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1, 2, 3, ... Slots are In
When one envisions a VPX system, the image that often comes to mind is a multislot high performance computing system full of processing and I/O boards. But there is a completely different class of VPX "systems" that range from one to three slots in size, primarily in a 3U form factor. What do these "systems" look like and what is driving their existence?
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VITA 67: VPX coaxial interconnect
One of the biggest challenges for VPX system designers is the management of I/O [input/output] to and from the modules. VPX leaves a lot of room for handling all types of I/O and the teams working on the standards have brought some excellent solutions to market.
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VITA Standards Organization activity updates
The December VITA Standards Organization (VSO) standards meeting was held in Austin, Texas. 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 ...
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Converge and merge
Two big news items have occurred since our last issue. The first is that under The Open Group, the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) standard began the process to establish itself as its own consortia. The second is the end-of-the-year Mercury Sy...
