With Release 3 of the CompactPCI Serial specification, PICMG doubles the bandwidth and speed of CompactPCI Serial applications. This benefits sectors such as aerospace, industry and automotive.
Wakefield, MA. PICMG – a leading consortium to develop innovative open standards in embedded computing – today announces the release of CompactPCI Serial® Revision 3 (CPCI-S.0 R3.0). With the third revision of the standard, the organization is ensuring future viability and scalability for many years to come. CompactPCI Serial® was originally developed as an extension of the open CompactPCI® standard to meet the demand for robust, modular and powerful computer systems in industrial and embedded applications. The combination of high performance, modularity and robustness has made CompactPCI Serial® a popular standard for industrial applications, automation, and much more – where robustness, interoperability and use in harsh environments with comprehensive connectivity are crucial.
CompactPCI supports serial data transfer rates via PCI Express, USB, and Ethernet, a robust design with AirMax connectors and full interchangeability with CompactPCI cards via 3U/6U slot card systems. Developers can look forward to the completely new opportunities offered by revision 3 compared to revision 2, which are among others:
- Full PCI Express (PCIe) support: While R2 supported PCI Express up to Gen3 with 8 GT/s, R3 extends support to PCI Express Gen4 with 16 GT/s, which means increasing speed by doubling the data rate.
- USB support: USB interface support has been increased from USB 3.0 (Gen1) with 5 Gb/s in R2 to USB 3.1 (Gen2) with 10 Gb/s in R3, doubling the bandwidth.
- Ethernet: R3 introduces support for 10GBASE-T and 10GBASE-KR Ethernet, enabling higher bandwidth network speeds.
- Connectors: In order to realize these higher data rates, new AirMax VSe® high-speed connectors for CPU boards are used in R3 instead of AirMax VS® in Release 2. These connectors are fully upwards and downwards compatible.
“I am very proud that with Revision 3 of the specification, we have managed to provide all embedded integrators with better CompactPCI Serial performance. Developers can look forward to better connectivity, higher performance and much better scalability,” said Jess Isquith, President of PICMG.
The CompactPCI specification defines a modular computer system, consisting of a backplane, a system slot, and up to 24 peripheral boards. The mechanical design is fully backward compatible to CompactPCI® and will interoperate with existing systems. A system slot board can be used in a peripheral slot as well to do multiprocessing. The easiest way to communicate in this case is via Ethernet. Ethernet uses cable standards ‘xxBase-T’ instead of dedicated backplane standards. This lowers the cost, guarantees better interoperability and offers currently up to 10 Gb/s data throughput. Plus, implementation of the Ethernet connection of a system board can be done with a mezzanine board (3U or 6U). Due to this concept, more flexibility will be achieved, because the usage of Ethernet does not depend on the system board itself.
CompactPCI Serial can be combined with existing CompactPCI boards by using a CompactPCI PlusIO system slot card. These hybrid systems offer an ideal migration path from parallel to serial connections. CompactPCI Serial for Space specifically addresses the extreme environment requirements for outer space. Developers who want to build applications for harsh environments in industry, aviation or more can now download the new specification from the PICMG website and start designing immediately. PICMG member companies are also already working on their first products based on the new specification. The release of revision 4 is even in preparation.
Additional material can be found here: https://www.picmg.org/
Revision 3 of CompactPCI Serial can be downloaded here:
https://www.picmg.org/product/
About PICMG
Founded in 1994, PICMG (PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group) is a nonprofit consortium of companies and organizations that collaboratively develop open standards for high performance telecommunications, military, industrial, and general purpose embedded computing applications. Its original mission was to extend the PCI standard to non-desktop applications. There are over 140 member companies that specialize in a wide range of technical disciplines, including mechanical and thermal design, single board computer design, very high speed signaling design and analysis, networking expertise, backplane and packaging design, power management, High Availability software, and comprehensive system management. Equipment built to PICMG standards is used worldwide and anyone can build or use equipment without restriction (although certain technologies used for some military applications may be subject to U.S. export restrictions governed by ITAR rules). Key standards families developed by PICMG include CompactPCI®,
PICMG is a consortium of companies who collaboratively develop open standards for high performance telecommunications and industrial computing applications.
