Industry News

Members sought to help define requirements and expand technology platform

Wakefield, MA,– PICMG, a leading standards organization for embedded computing applications, is forming a new working group to extend CompactPCI Serial technology to space applications. CompactPCI Serial is a fairly new platform that adds fast serial interfaces and integral networking to CompactPCI, dramatically increasingly its performance and speed.

The sub-committee is currently seeking additional companies to help plan and develop the new Space CompactPCI Serial standard.  Interested parties are invited to contact PICMG (in**@ww*.org).

Manfred Schmitz, CEO of MEN Mikro Elektronik GmbH, who is organizing the subcommittee, noted, “CompactPCI itself has been a trusted platform in space for several decades.  This new sub-committee will identify the specific factors needed to ensure the simple and successful use of CompactPCI Serial in space applications today and into tomorrow.” MEN Mikro Elektronik GmbH is the parent company of MEN Micro Inc., the North American subsidiary.

The new working group, Space CompactPCI Serial will also include PICMG member companies and well-known industry leaders, such as Airbus Defense & Space, Thales Alenia Space, and STI Spacetech.

Specific application needs within the space environment will be the focus of the new group. Topics currently identified include environmental factors, fault detection and provisions for high availability as well as the need for serial interfaces such as SpaceWire and Rapid I/O for board-to-board communication.

Joe Pavlat, president of PICMG, notes, “Extending CompactPCI Serial into space applications is the next step in the development of this time-proven family of standards. The CompactPCI Serial base specification has the mechanical and conduction cooling technologies needed for space already defined and in place. Both 3U and 6U Eurocard formats are supported.”

As with the initial development of the CompactPCI Serial standard, one of the major goals is to keep the technology straightforward, understandable, and to guarantee maximum interoperability between bus slots and boards.

With Space CompactPCI Serial, designers can implement leading edge technical solutions for this highly specialized market while reusing and evolving proven technology. This will provide increased flexibility and significant cost reductions when compared to custom, single vendor solutions for space.

CompactPCI technology has a long standing history in space applications, from the famous “Curiosity” Mars Rover and satellite control to performing scientific tasks on the International Space Station.   A typical application envisioned for Space CompactPCI Serial is the implementation of the platform and the payload controller onboard satellites.

• Space CompactPCI Serial Working Group
• Committee members sought for insights, contributions and developments
• Charter for the working group includes the addition of space-related serial interconnects as well as the inclusion of high availability, fault detection, and environmental requirements unique to applications in outer space
• Latest extension of PICMG’s CompactPCI family of standards
• Will build on CompactPCI’s long standing history in space applications

For additional information on CompactPCI Serial visit CompactPCI Serial

WAKEFIELD, Mass., June, 2015 – PICMG, the leading standards organization for the communications, military and embedded computer industries, announces support for IPv6 protocols for the popular PICMG 3.X AdvancedTCA© (ATCA©) platform, originally introduced in 2003 to serve the Communication Service Provider and telecom industries.

“IPv6 is the newest version of the ubiquitous Internet Protocol (IP) on which much of modern electronic communication is based. IPv6 solves multiple long term problems with the existing IPv4, including the impending exhaustion of IPv4 addresses, which are only 32 bits in size. The burgeoning Internet of Things (IoT) is making it ever more crucial to continue and accelerate the availability of IPv6, which supports 128-bit addresses,” said Mark Overgaard, Founder and CTO of Pigeon Point Systems, who led the work.

“Though many existing AdvancedTCA (ATCA) applications will continue to use IPv4 for a considerable time, it is crucial for ATCA to allow new applications to make use of IPv6 where appropriate. The Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI, a foundation for the management layer of ATCA) was augmented with IPv6 support in 2013. These new Engineering Change Notices (ECNs) provide the option for that same support in both PICMG 3.0 (the ATCA Base Specification) and PICMG 3.7 (the ATCA Base Extensions Specification),” added Mark.

This new capability is entirely optional and existing compliant systems using the older IPv4 protocol are still compliant. “PICMG is releasing it as Engineering Change Notices (ECN) to the existing revisions of PICMG 3.0 and PICMG 3.7. An ECN is a common industry practice for upgrading capability quickly without the overhead of a major revision change.” noted PICMG President Joe Pavlat

Click below to download the ECNs.

ECN001 for PICMG 3.0 Revision 3.0

ECN001 for PICMG 3.7 Revision 1.0

Article by Ernie Bergstrom, President of Crystal Cube Consulting, and chairperson of the PICMG GEN4 Open Server Summit sessions

How will your organization be developing high-performance embedded hardware 10 years from now?  Surely you’ll want a mature open modular standard with far greater capabilities than systems have today!  And you’ll want one that has support for today’s advanced features built-in, can handle a wide variety of applications, is maintainable and upgradable, and has a large ecosystem.  If you want that standard to be widely available, we must start to define it today.

PICMG GEN4 is a proposed new specification for high-performance embedded computing.  It will provide an open modular standard for high-end applications in telecom, datacom, military/aerospace, industrial/process control, and instrumentation.  It will offer new levels of compute, storage, and networking capabilities with throughput in the terabit range and storage in the exabyte range.  It will support such key demands as software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV), cloud computing, and cybersecurity.

GEN4 will obviously provide the highest performance of any embedded specification developed so far.  Not only will it include the latest technology, but it will also have a proven backer in PICMG with 20 years experience in specification development. PICMG provides continued support and development from both vendors and customers.  And all its specifications are non-proprietary with strong disclosure policies on intellectual property.  None of PICMG’s 55 standards requires a license to implement.

PICMG is a 20-year old industry organization that has focused on developing open modular standards for embedded computing.   Its latest high-end standard, AdvancedTCA, had over 100 organizations involved in its development (completed in 2002).  It is currently supported by over 1,000 vendors and has a $5 billion dollar annual market.  PICMG has over 250 members worldwide, including AMD, Agilent, Airbus, BAE Systems, Cisco, Ericsson, General Dynamics C4S, Huawei, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mentor Graphics, Mercury Computer, National Instruments, NetApp, Northrop Grumman, Nokia Solutions and Networks, Raytheon, Sandia National Laboratories, TE Connectivity, Thales Global Services, and ZTE

Why should telecom, military, and instrumentation developers be interested in a PICMG GEN4 specification?  Our findings showed that it will provide a standard hardware base, greatly simplifying hardware development and maintenance while avoiding proprietary approaches.  It will offer the high throughput required for central office equipment, wireless basestations, military communications systems, fire control, signal processing, electronic warfare, robotics, vehicles, detection systems, and many other applications.  It will include hardware platform management for use in maintenance and upgrades.  It is the latest in a family of specifications that have enjoyed wide acceptance, large markets, and major ecosystems involving hundreds of vendors and thousands of products.  GEN4 offers an open modular hardware base for systems developed and in use through the 2020’s.

Finally, organizations can join PICMG at low cost, entitling them to participate in all existing committees and form new ones. The GEN4 specification development will start late this year and will involve weekly committee calls.  We expect the process to take between two and three years.  Members can form new committees to develop parallel or ancillary specifications to meet specific environmental or mechanical needs, handle certification requirements, and create special capabilities (such as for highly secure, highly available, or vertical applications).  PICMG is sponsoring a free kickoff meeting at the Open Server Summit at the Santa Clara Convention Center (Santa Clara, CA) on November 13, 2014.  For more information, see www.picmg.org or www.openserversummit.com.

Ernie Bergstrom is President of Crystal Cube Consulting, and chairperson of the PICMG GEN4 Open Server Summit sessions You can reach him at er***@cr*******************.com.

Click to download the full article.