New Trends with VME/VPX – Part 1

An historical perspective with a look at the future

Overview

Part 1

• VME: how it all started

• VME: motivations

• VME: electrical features

• VME: mechanical features

• VME: enhancements (VME64,

2eSST, etc)

• VME64: An example - Advme8028

• VME64x + 2eSST: An example -

Advme8027

• VME: CPU architectures

Part 2

• From VME to VPX

• VPX - OpenVPX

• OpenVPX: basics

• OpenVPX: MultiGig RT2

connector

• OpenVPX: planes and profiles

• OpenVPX: 2 level maintenance

• OpenVPX: an example

VME: how it all started

1980: Motorola + Mostek + Signetics

VME begins as the sum of two standards:

Eurocard (mechanical) + VERSAbus (electrical)

In that moment, many different proprietary solutions existed

Lack of standardization was inhibiting cross-compatibility, etc

With VME, an open standard was created.

Its adoption generated a multibillion market that is still very strong.

Being open, VME has been adopted by a significant number of

vendors that offer interoperable platforms

VME: motivations

VME promised and delivered great value to the customer:

• Simple maintenance

• Rugged and reliable systems

• Lots of flexibility in configurations

• Interoperability

• Support for real time control

These qualities have made VME a choice in many high end and

long term applications, including: defense, transportation, medical,

aerospace, high end industrial

VME: electrical features

Historically, the first concept of VME was very close to an

extension of the Motorola 68K CPU

It gradually became standardized and incorporated some important

features (IEEE-1014-1987):

• MASTER/SLAVE architecture.

• Asynchronous bus (no clocks are used to coordinate data transfers).

• Variable speed handshaking protocol.

• Non-multiplexed bus.

• Addressing range between 16 and 32-bits.

• Data path widths of between 8 and 32-bits.

• Bandwidths up to 40 Mbyte/second.

• Multiprocessing capability.

• Interrupt capability.

VME: mechanical features

VME is a backplane pluggable standard that has been designed

with the Eurocard form factors (IEEE 1101.1):

• 3U, 6U or 9U height – 9U not common today

• Single or double width (1 or two slots)

• Length: 160mm or 340mm

• One backplane can have up to 21 slots (19”)

6U

P1

P2 3U P1

VME: mechanical features

In VME, two types of connectors to the backplane are defined:

96 pins (VME and VME64) or 160 pins (VME64x)

P1 (3U&6U) P2 (6U only)

VME, VME64 96 pins (16D+24A) 96 pins (16D+8A ext; 64

user defined)

VME64x 160 pins (more user I/O) 160 pins (more user I/O)

Note: The 68K CPU had 32/32 internal busses, but 24/16 external busses

VME, VME64

VME64x

Note: VME64x allows also one 95 pin connector (P0) for high speed signals

VME: mechanical features

VME, VME64

VME64x

96 pins

160 pins

VME64x

VME64

VME: enhancements (VME64, 2eSST, etc)

VME has been improved and extended over time; some examples:

• VME64 (ANSI/VITA 1-1994)

– 64D/64A for 6U boards.

– 32D/ 40A for 3U boards.

– Twice the bandwidth (up to 80 Mbytes/sec).

– Automatic 'plug-and-play' features.

• VME64x (1997)

– A new 160 pin connector family.

– A 95 pin P0/J0 connector.

– Higher bandwidth bus cycles (up to 160 Mbytes/sec).

– 141 more user-defined I/O pins.

– Rear plug-in units (transition modules).

– Live insertion / hot-swap capability.

• VME320 [2eSST] (1997/98)

– 320MB/s and new backplane technology

VME64: An example - Advme8028 6U with

Intel® Atom™ CPU

Eurotech Advme8028 is a VME64 board

VME, VME64 96 pins

PMC slots

VME64x + 2eSST: An example -

Advme8027 6U with Intel® Core 2 Duo™

Eurotech Advme8027 is a VME64x board with 2eSST support

VME64x 160 pins

PMC slots XMC slots

VME: CPU architectures

VME was born to support the Motorola 68K, but it is versatile:

• PPC

– PPC based designs are very popular

– E.g. Altivec support (PPC) + VME ruggedness and easy maintenance = great

success in Defense applications

• X86

– Many designs have incorporated x86 CPUs

– Large software base and lots of tools

For examples of VME boards, please check: www.eurotech.com

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For more info:

• www.eurotech.com

• www.vita.com