Jess Isquith

By Jessica Isquith, President, PICMG

The end of every calendar year provides an opportunity to reflect on our achievements and shortcomings. But as 2023 draws to a close, I’m nothing short of astonished with what our membership has accomplished.

Seven specifications have reached significant milestones this year alone:

1. COM-HPC 1.2. The latest and most advanced COM on the market was upgraded (to a smaller size) with the release of the COM-HPC 1.2 spec revision. Dubbed COM-HPC “Mini”, the 95 mm x 60 mm platform loses a connector compared to its fellow COM-HPC form factors, but still delivers 400 pins for carrying high-speed signals from the processor module to carrier boards.
2. COM Express 3.1. The established leader in the computer-on-module (COM) market upgraded interfaces to provide increased speed and bandwidth over the previous generation. This will keep the specification compatible with leading-edge processor technologies.
3. MicroTCA R3.0. MicroTCA continues its 15-year evolution, as Revision 3.0 of the specification add 100 GbE and PCIe Gen 5 interfaces to cement the open platform in high-energy physics and scientific research, communications, and medical applications for years to come. MicroTCA is also a favorite of Quantum Computing startups, many of whom have already adopted the standard in their R&D efforts.
4. ModBlox7. The first open standard Box PC, ModBlox7, is in its final review phase and expected to be ratified by Q1 2024. It’s modularity, flexibility, and scalability is poised to address the demands of today’s industrial and transportation use cases.
5. IoT Specs. PICMG’s IoT specification efforts continue to expand as work with Redfish APIs was formally adopted by the DMTF. With continued effort and adoption, the IoT.x family of specifications will enable sensor-to-controller-and-beyond data transparency that will drive the need for and application of compute intelligence at the edge.
6. CompactPCI Serial Extension. CompactPCI, one of the original PICMG specifications, lives on in the form of CompactPCI Serial. A specification extension adds PCI Express Gen 4, 100 GbE, and support for other modern serial signals. The upgraded performance will allow CompactPCI Serial Extensions to keep targeting industry and transportation platforms where it has been successful for decades.
7. InterEdge. InterEdge defines a set of specifications for process and automation control for the rugged far edge. This effort is a collaboration between PICMG and OPAF of the OpenGroup and backed by leaders in the energy and industrial markets. It is scheduled for release in early Q1.

All these accomplishments set PICMG up for an exciting 2024, which also happens to be the consortiums 30^th anniversary of developing open embedded computing standards. With multiple new specifications primed to enter the industry, we’re looking forward to keeping up the momentum we’ve built over the last calendar year thanks to the hard work and determination of our member companies.

In addition to thanking existing members for their consistent contributions, we invite non-member companies to become part of the specification development process by joining and participating in PICMG. Through collaboration, significant problems are being solved that are reshaping multiple industries with open, interoperable solutions that enable thousands of embedded solutions to reach the market in an efficient and timely fashion.

Welcome to the Fall 2023 PICMG Member Newsletter!

2023 has been one of the most prolific years in PICMG history. Here’s what we’ve accomplished so far:

1. Ratified COM-HPC 1.1
2. Ratified Revision 3 of the base MicroTCA specification
3. ModBlox7 (our new industrial box PC Specification) has completed the member review process (ratification expected by the end of the year)
4. COM-HPC 1.2 (Mini) has completed the member review process (ratification expected by the end of the year)

Thank you to all the working group leaders and participants who contributed to the creation of new open hardware standards. Your work will continue the accelerated adoption of technology across industries. Your efforts have also contributed to the addition of more than twenty new members companies to the PICMG community.

The tremendous efforts of the technical working groups warranted an increase in PICMG’s technical marketing capabilities. We have added a second marketing officer to our ranks, Brandon Lewis, who is working in tandem with the elected marketing officer, Valerie Andrews. We have also established a marketing council comprised of experts from each specification working group who have deep knowledge of the PICMG organization. Council members work with the officers to define strategic promotions for PICMG and its specifications.

PICMG marketing initiatives have thus far included securing a conference track at Embedded World 2024 in Nuremberg (paper submissions due 9/29), the re-launching of this newsletter, unified messaging and branding work, and the creation of a virtual PICMG Implementers’ Forum, and more.

We encourage all members to participate in PICMG technical and marketing activities and engage the officers with questions and new ideas.

With so much going on already in 2023, I can’t wait to see what we accomplish over the rest of the year.

Jess Isquith

President, PICMG

Wakefield, MA., USA / Nuremberg, Germany, June 23, 2022 – PICMG – a leading consortium for the development of open embedded computing specifications – announces two new specifications for the high-end Computer-on-Module standard COM-HPC. They target mixed-critical functional safety applications and small form factor designs requiring credit card-sized modules.

COM-HPC Client Mini

Like COM Express Mini, the COM-HPC Client Mini specification will define the use of one connector instead of the two implemented for the larger modules (Sizes A -E). But with COM-HPC, half the number of signal pins still means 400 signal lanes, which equals 90% of the capacity that COM Express Type 6 modules offer. Compared to COM-HPC Client Size A modules, the smallest available COM-HPC form factor, COM-HPC Mini, also reduces the footprint to 50%. Such extremely small modules measuring only 60 x 95 mm are required for high-end embedded computer logic in devices such as top-hat rail PCs for control cabinets in building and industrial automation, or portable test and measurement devices. In addition, the new specification will enable engineers to integrate state-of-the-art computer interface technologies such as PCIe Gen4 and Gen5 into ultra-small processing units that provide highest performance. As the new specification will come with a focused high-performance pinout and will comply with the entire COM-HPC ecosystem, it is expected to become the high-end standard extending the PICMG’s earlier COM Express Mini standard. PICMG expects the COM Express specification to continue leading the COM market for many years as it meets numerous standard application requirements now to be allocated in the mid-range performance sector.

FuSa support: COM-HPC
The new version of COM-HPC defines signal pinouts to support FuSa (Functional Safety) applications. These applications include safety critical machine control, autonomous vehicles and robotics, transportation related hardware such as train and wayside control, avionic equipment and much more.

The new extensions for functional safety (FuSa) target an even more promising market: Connected device developers want to utilize x86 processor technologies to be able to execute mixed-critical applications on multi-core processors. This requires redundancy and the possibility of implementing fail-safe processes. With the new functional safety extensions, COM-HPC is thus entering a market that is expected to accelerate the demand for embedded Computer-on-Modules significantly. Besides functional safety control applications that require an IoT and industry 4.0 gateway, it also targets collaborative robotics working closely with humans. Further markets arise from the demands of automated intralogistics with autonomous logistic vehicles and stretch from factory mobility to any new market that can be found in autonomous driving, from agricultural and construction machinery to smart city vehicles and AUVs as well as UAVs. Of course, the functional safety extensions are supported across all COM-HPC form factors, including the upcoming COM-HPC Client Mini.

„With the small size definition of the COM-HPC Client Mini and the FuSa extensions, COM-HPC covers all embedded use cases I can think of. COM-HPC is the most complete computer module definition ever. I expect an extremely fast growth for scalable and compute-power hungry embedded applications based on COM-HPC technology.“ Christian Eder, Chair of the COM-HPC technical committee and Congatec Director Product Marketing.

The FuSa specification in detail
FuSa versions of some contemporary chipsets or System-on-Chips (SoCs) incorporate a FuSa “Safety Island”. This is a specialty portion of the hardware – along with supporting firmware and software – that is separate from the main portion of the chipset or SoC. The Safety Island monitors the health and status of the main chipset or SoC and can report any findings over a dedicated FuSa GPIO and dedicated FuSa SPI Slave interface to an external carrier based FuSa System Safe State Agent and optionally a Safety Controller. The FuSa “Safety Controller” is a carrier based microcontroller that collects safety and status information from the Safety Island over a dedicated SPI bus and processes it for external use. The Safety Controller is the FuSa SPI Master.

The efforts of both new specifications are sponsored by: congatec, Kontron and ADLINK

About COM-HPC

COM-HPC, a new open Computer-on-Module form factor, targets extremely high I/O and compute performance levels from high-end clients up to the entry server class and beyond. Standard COM-HPC modules plug into a carrier board typically customized to the application. OEM benefits are fast and cost-effective layout with high design security for application-specific embedded and Edge computing boards. As a result, COM-HPC is the right choice for autonomous vehicles, base stations, medical equipment, high-end instrumentation, industrial equipment, casino gaming equipment ruggedized computers for various industrial fields, and more.

About PICMG
Founded in 1994, PICMG is a not-for-profit 501(c) consortium of companies and organizations that collaboratively develop open standards for high performance industrial, Industrial IoT, military & aerospace, telecommunications, test & measurement, medical, and general-purpose embedded computing applications. There are over 130 member companies that specialize in a wide range of technical disciplines, including mechanical and thermal design, single board computer design, high-speed signaling design and analysis, networking expertise, backplane, and packaging design, power management, high availability software and comprehensive system management.

Key standards families developed by PICMG include COM Express, COM-HPC, ModBlox7, IoT.1, CompactPCI, AdvancedTCA, MicroTCA, AdvancedMC, CompactPCI Serial, COM Express, SHB Express, MicroSAM, and HPM (Hardware Platform Management). https://www.picmg.org