Monthly Archives: October 2014

Justin Moll, Director of Marketing, VadaTech and Chair of the 40GbE over MicroTCA Committee

MicroTCA has very powerful and compelling features, especially in the realm of system management. The more advanced the features are, the most complex the process can become. This is one of the reasons why the Interoperability Workshops (IWs) are so important.

One of the key benefits of MicroTCA is that the interoperability of the ecosystem was built into the specification from the beginning, not patched-on at a later date like some other architectures. However, there are always subtleties to ensure optimum performance that need to be reviewed. Plus, there are plenty features of Hardware Platform Management, etc., to test. These include power channel notifications, power budgeting management, redundancy testing, RTM management, and more.

The results of the IWs are kept confidential, but I can say that the participant’s products worked very well together in the workshop held Oct 4-6 at the VadaTech facility in Henderson, NV. Any minor bugs/issues are discussed between the parties and quickly addressed to ensure the smoothest operation of interoperable systems. We look forward to continuing these important workshops as the MicroTCA ecosystem continues to rapidly expand with new MicroTCA.4 systems, 40G products emerge, a wealth of new digitizers and FPGA’s hit the market, and much more!