For Single P ny For Single P ny ® VOLUME 12 • NUMBER 6 CompactPCI AUGUST 2008 ® and www.compactpci-systems.com AdvancedTCA Systems www.advancedtca-systems.com The Magazine for Developers of Open Communication, Industrial, and Rugged Systems FEATURES COLUMNS 8 Editor’s Foreword AdvancedTCA: Living large By Joe Pavlat 18 Small is beautiful By Tony Romero, 10 Global Technology Performance Technologies Hearing you loud and clear By Hermann Strass 13 Software Corner 21 AdvancedMCs are finding their place Switching at the speed of light By Venkataraman Prasannan, RadiSys By Curt Schwaderer PRODUCT GUIDE E-LETTER 26 ADVANCED MEZZANINE CARDS www.compactpci-systems/eletter advancedmc-systems.com AUGUST: Leveraging the communications From Host Board Adapters (HBAs) server ecosystem to card edge connectors to For Single P By Hermannny Berg and Larry Terry, modules for high-density WAN Emerson Network Power to the latest content-aware, Embedded Computing wirespeed solutions, this issue’s AdvancedMC Guide presents a comprehesive E-CASTS set of recently introduced www.opensystems-publishing.com/ecast AdvancedMCs and related offerings, with an AUGUST: expanded guide online at The hottest DSP trends, from algorithms advancedmc-systems.com. to Zulu, powering today’s military systems August 27 • Moderator: Chris Ciufo COVER: Presented by: Annapolis Micro Systems, Inc. and g Jacyl Technology, Inc. Suitable for wireless baseband and other processing- intensive applications such as WiMAX and Long Term Evolution of 3GPP (LTE), the AMC-6487C from CommAgility is based on the Texas Instruments (TI) multicore TMS320TCI6487 DSP. Additional AdvancedMC solutions can be found beginning on page 26. WEB RESOURCES Subscribe to the magazine or E-letter at: www.opensystems-publishing.com/subscriptions OpenSystems Industry news: ™ Published by: Publishing Member since 1998 Read: www.compactpci-systems.com/news Submit: www.opensystems-publishing.com/news/submit © 2008 OpenSystems Publishing ® CompactPCI, PICMG, AdvancedTCA, ATCA, MicroTCA, and their logos are registered trademarks Submit new products at: of the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group. TM AdvancedMC and CompactTCA are trademarks of the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group. www.opensystems-publishing.com/vendors/submissions/np © 2008 CompactPCI and AdvancedTCA Systems All registered brands and trademarks in CompactPCI and AdvancedTCA Systems are property of their respective owners. 4 y August 2008 y CompactPCI and AdvancedTCA Systems For Single P ny ® OpenSystems Publishing CompactPCI Advertising/Business Office Regional Sales Managers ® and 30233 Jefferson Avenue Ernest Godsey St. Clair Shores, MI 48082 AdvancedTCA Systems Central and Mountain States Tel: 586-415-6500 n Fax: 586-415-4882 [email protected] A N OPEN S Y S TEM S PUBLIC A TI O N Vice President Marketing & Sales Barbara Quinlan Patrick Hopper Midwest/Southwest Communications Group [email protected] [email protected] n CompactPCI and AdvancedTCA Systems Business Manager Denis Seger Karen Layman n C m ac P a d Ad an e T A R s u e Gu e Southern California n C m a tP I nd A a cedT A lett [email protected] ompactPCI Sales Group Sydele Starr Editorial Director Joe P lat Dennis Doyle Northern California jp vl @ pensy t ms-publishingcom Senior Account Manager [email protected] dvMa agingan Editoc dAnnTCA Fis e S [email protected] Ron Taylor [email protected] Tom Varcie East Coast/Mid Atlantic Senior Editor (columns) Terri Thorson Senior Account Manager [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Technology Editor Curt Schwaderer Doug Cordier International Sales [email protected] Account Manager Senior Associate Editor Jennifer Hesse Dan Aronovic [email protected] [email protected] Account Manager – Israel Andrea Stabile [email protected] European Representative Hermann Strass Advertising/Marketing Coordinator [email protected] [email protected] Sam Fan Assistant Editor Robin DiPerna Christine Long Account Manager – Asia E-marketing Manager [email protected] Senior Designer Joann Toth [email protected] Senior Web Developer Konrad Witte Web Content Specialist Matt Avella Reprints and PDFs Art Director David Diomede Nan Lamade: 800-259-0470 Circulation/Office Manager Phyllis Thompson [email protected] [email protected] OpenSystems Publishing ADVERTISER INFORMATION Editorial/Production office: 16872 E. Ave of the Fountains, Ste 203 Page Advertiser/Ad title For SingleFountainOpenSystem Hills,P AZ 85268 ny ™ 31 ADLINK Technology, Inc. – Dual Quad-/Dual Core Tel: Publishing480-967-5581 n Fax: 480-837-6466 Website: www.opensystems-publishing.com 23 Advantech Corporation – Advanced Blade Solutions 7 Annapolis Micro Systems, Inc. – WILDSTAR 5 Publishers John Black, Michael Hopper, Wayne Kristoff 11 Concurrent Technologies, Inc. – Dual-Core Processors Vice President Editorial Rosemary Kristoff 20 CorEdge Networks, Inc. – FPGA platforms for demanding applications 17 ELMA – Climb Above with Bustronic Embedded and Test & Analysis Group 25 ELMA – Cutting it close doesn’t cut it Editorial Director Jerry Gipper 15 Excalibur Systems, Inc. – Ready for the unexpected? Editorial Director Don Dingee 5 GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, Inc. – Looking for AdvancedMCs? Senior Associate Editor Jennifer Hesse Special Projects Editor Bob Stasonis 24 Harting Technology Group – A new standard in reliability European Representative Hermann Strass 14 Hybricon Corp. – Thermal Management Solutions 44 Linear Technology – Reliable Power for AdvancedTCA Military & Aerospace Group 9 National Instruments – Green Engineering Group Editorial Director Chris Ciufo 38 One Stop Systems Inc. – PCIe Over Cable Associate Editor Sharon Schnakenburg 12 Performance Technologies – Your path to AdvancedMC success Senior Editor (columns) Terri Thorson European Representative Hermann Strass 11 Radian Heatsinks – This may keep you cool... 22 Schroff a Brand of Pentair Electronic Packaging – PERFORMANCE CompactPCI and AdvancedTCA Systems (USPS 019-288) is published nine times a year (Feb, March, April, May, June, July/Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov/Dec) by OpenSystems Publishing LLC, 30233 Jefferson 2 Simclar Group – TurboFabric Scalable Avenue, St. Clair Shores, MI 48082. Print ISSN 1098-7622, Online ISSN 1550-0381. CompactPCI and AdvancedTCA Systems is free to qualified engineers or management dealing with or 16 Technobox, Inc. – Your Source for PMC Solutions considering open system technologies. For others, paid subscription rates inside the US and Canada are $63/year. For first class delivery outside the US and Canada, subscriptions are $90/year (advance 43 Vector Electronics & Technology, Inc. – Packaging Solution of Choice payment in US funds required). Periodicals postage paid at St. Clair Shores, MI, and at additional 36 Winchester Electronics – Power Connector Solutions mailing offices. Canada: Publication agreement #40048627. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: 16 Xalyo Systems – XS-AMC2 WDS, Station A, PO Box 54, Windsor, ON N9A 615. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to CompactPCI and AdvancedTCA Systems 3 XTech – The XTech Files 16872 E. Ave of the Fountains, Ste 203, Fountain Hills, AZ 85268. 6 y August 2008 y CompactPCI and AdvancedTCA Systems For Single P ny CompactPCI and AdvancedTCA Systems CompactPCI and AdvancedTCA Systems CompactPCI and AdvancedTCA Systems CompactPCI and AdvancedTCA Systems EDITOR’S FOREWORD By JOE PAVLAT AdvancedTCA: Living large he annual NXTcomm telecom trade show was held June 17-19 this year at the will be included in a series of CompactPCI and Las Vegas Convention Center. The show will alternate between Las Vegas and its AdvancedTCA Systems E-letters (www.compactpci- regular Chicago venue every other year going forward. Attendance topped 13,000, systems.com/eletter). A drawing for a Chumby down a bit from last year. Folks I talked to weren’t all that happy with Las Vegas as a (yes, I checked www.chumby.com, too) encouraged trade show location, in part due to its distance from East Coast cities and its triple-digit both attendeees already familiar with PICMG, Ttemperatures, but there was a lot of excitement about the products being shown. Several of the as well as those just becoming familiar with the keynotes from industry heavies drew large crowds, too. AdvancedTCA/MicroTCA/CompactPCI ecosystem, to visit the PICMG Pavilion. A brochure that included Of course this observer was interested in seeing AdvancedTCA equipment, and NXTcomm did not a map locating booths within the Pavilion and disappoint. Indeed, AdvancedTCA was almost impossible to miss, especially given the “sizable” inter- featuring product news was popular with Pavilion est in it, as evidenced at the Spirent Communications booth (Figure 1). Spirent created a 3D billboard visitors. presentation of its flagship product Spirent TestCenter featuring an AdvancedTCA board. “Tradeshow exposure and visibility always present a challenge, so we took a page from the outdoor advertising Versatile MicroTCA playbook,” said Scott Gregory, Corporate Communications Manager at Spirent Communications. Having noticed the impressive number of MicroTCA products displayed at NXTcomm, it was interesting Interestingly, many of the systems I saw were not from AdvancedTCA