Continuing a long-established tradition, APW Electronic Solutions is providing early backplanes meeting the exciting new CompactPCI 2.16 Packet Switching Backplane (PSB) specification, approved as Dra
Continuing a long-established tradition, APW Electronic Solutions is providing early backplanes meeting the exciting new CompactPCI 2.16 packet switching Backplane (PSB) specification, approved as Draft Rev 1.0 at the PICMG Executive meeting held in Boston on 5th September. At present, the CompactPCI specification enables single conversations operating at 66MHz over a 64bit databus, a bandwidth of approximately 4Gbit/s transfer rate, albeit limited to only five slots on a contiguous backplane. The PICMG 2.16 draft specification allows two switching fabrics, each supporting 20 simultaneous conversations at 2Gbit/s to provide a 40Gbit/s transfer rate.

Developers can also create “virtual backplanes”, expanding to any number of CompactPCI (or non-CompactPCI) systems, by running either fibre or CAT5 Ethernet cables to external connections that extend the packet-switched bus.

CompactPCI/PSB significantly improves performance, scalability and reliability of CompactPCI while preserving its mechanical, power, hot-swap attributes and H.110 capabilities.

The CompactPCI/PSB is a star topology: in a 2.16-enabled system, boards are defined as nodes (equivalent to LAN workstations) or fabrics (equivalent to LAN hubs).

The 2.16 draft specification expands CompactPCI by over-laying up to two switched Ethernet networks embedded in the CompactPCI backplane on P3.

All node slots in the chassis are interconnected through switching fabric slots.

Node cards operate as standalone “systems in a slot”, interfacing with each other through a network stack such as TCP/IP.

APW’s initial product is a 15-slot CompactPCI/PSB backplane with H.110 support consisting of two power slots, a right-hand processor slot, 12 node board slots and two fabric board slots integrated into a 9U chassis that fits within the standard 19in rack mechanics.

An option for this backplane is the ability to bridge two CompactPCI segments with the patented StealthBridge.

Another option is the provision to allow the system slot to participate in the packet switching architecture as a node slot.

In addition to PICMG 2.16, this backplane conforms to PICMG 2.0 r3.0 CompactPCI (which incorporates basic hot swap), PICMG 2.5 r.1.0 Computer Telephony and PICMG 2.9 System Management Bus.

There are plans to extend the offering to a non-H.110 backplane as well as a full 21-slot backplane.