Inrush Current Control Technology Boosts Power Converter Reliability

Technology Focus:
ATCA Blades and Systems Roundup
ATCA Base Switch Blade Provides
24 Gbit Ethernet Ports
ATCA has carved out a respectable niche in
the military where high-density computing
and net-centric communications are a priority. A
24-port GbE AdvancedTCA (ATCA) Multilayer
Base Switch Blade is based on the Broadcom
BCM56312 switch chip. It supports up to thirteen
GbE ports for a 14-slot PICMG 3.0 ATCA system,
with six egress GbE ports and two 10GbE SFP+
uplink ports via front panel access. The aTCA-
3150 from Adlink Technology incorporates
Broadcom’s Fastpath networking software and
is designed for ATCA adopters (NEPs & TEMs)
who require AMC modularity, Gigabit layer 3
switching, a scalable control-plane engine and
high-availability Base Interface.
The aTCA-3150 provides a COM Express Type
2 site for expansion with a processing subsystem,
allowing users to tailor processing power to
application demands. In addition, two mid-sized
AMC bays for I/O expansion are supported to suit
the needs of different applications. The aTCA-
3150 provides 10/100/1000Base-TX GbE and
layer 3 switching on Base Interface with support
for 14-slot shelves. It offers six front panel RJ-45
egress Gigabit Ethernet copper ports plus two 10
Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ optical uplink ports in
connection with the Base Interface domain. The
aTCA-3150’s switch blade design incorporates a
powerful Freescale MPC8313E PowerQUICC II
Pro 333 MHz processor for local management
functions. This processor is used for managing
the BCM56312 GbE switch and for hosting the
Fastpath networking software switching and
management modules. Pricing starts at $3,815.
ADLINK Technology
San Jose, CA
(408) 495-5557.
[www.adlinktech.com].
[ 56 ] COTS Journal November 2011
Xeon-Based ATCA Blade Offers
8-Core/16-Thread Performance
The multicore trend is now entrenched in the
realm of embedded processing. Exemplifying
that trend, Advantech’s first Intel Xeon
5500-based AdvancedTCA design was followed
by a dual processor ATCA blade version, the
MIC-5322. The underlying architecture and
software drivers remain identical to the MIC-
5320 single processor model making software
fully reusable. Customers can freely choose
the module that matches their application
performance needs and chassis cooling
capabilities.
In addition to supporting hot-swappable
rear transition modules (RTM) for explicit
carrier grade or HA applications that require
it, the MIC-5322 blade adheres to Advantech’s
Common RTM definition developed to
maximize interoperability and reuse between
RTMs and ATCA blades. These guidelines
clearly define the management interface and
RTM port mapping for interconnects such
as USB, PCIe, XAUI and SAS. In this way,
customized RTMs can be reused among
different blades and generation of blades.
The MIC-5322’s improved DDR3 memory
latency, faster PCI Express 2.0, and accelerated
virtualization technologies provide impressive
processing capacity. The design enhancements
in Intel’s new 82599 10 GbE controller also play
a key role in end-to-end network performance
and throughput. Compared to the previous
generation Intel 82598, the Intel 82599 is
packed with new and improved features
contributing up to a 2.5 times improvement
in LAN throughput. Corresponding hardware
optimizations in the Intel 82599 include a new
PCI Express 2.0 interface (5 Gbit/s) to improve
the entire data path as well as intelligent queue
support (VMDq) optimized for multicore
processors.
Advantech
Irvine, CA.
(949) 789-7178.
[www.advantech.com].
ATCA SBC Boasts Dual Six-Core
Intel Xeon 5600 CPUs
There’s a great deal of overlap between the
performance and reliably of telecom and the
communications needs of military networks.
Feeding such needs, Continuous Computing’s
FlexCompute ATCA-XE80 is a dual socket
single board compute blade supporting 12 cores
/ 24 threads via two high-performance Intel
Xeon 5600 series “Westmere” processors. The
XE80 provides support for four hard drives,
64 Gbyte memory and an optional RTM with
additional network interface options.
The XE80 dual Intel Xeon Westmere ATCA
compute blade was designed with performance
in mind, supporting the option of either the
Intel Xeon L5638 or the higher-performing
Intel Xeon E5645 processor. The XE80 dual
Intel Xeon Westmere ATCA compute blade
can address low entry points via a single CPU
option and scale to two processors without the
need for full re-qualification.
Featuring over 1 Terabyte of storage,
the XE80 dual Intel Xeon Westmere ATCA
compute blade has two low-cost solid state
disks on the main blade, up to 32 Gbytes of
cost-effective USB Flash and an additional two
drives on the RTM with RAID support. The
RTM also supports a high-performance 4-port
external SAS connector. The XE80 dual Intel
Xeon Westmere ATCA compute blade features
two mezzanine sites for the addition of offload
engines and a dual 10G fabric NIC supporting
iSCSI, TCP offload, VLAN tagging and
congestion control. Since the blade has been
validated with leading hypervisors, it is an ideal
platform because support for extended VT-x
and VT-d decreases the overhead associated
with virtualization.
Continuous Computing
San Diego, CA.
(858) 882-8800.
[www.ccpu.com].