Kontron XMC-ETH2: Robust dual Gigabit Ethernet mezzanine board with long-term availability

Eching, Germany, October 6, 2009 – With the new dual Gigabit Ethernet mezzanine board Kontron XMC-ETH2, all VPX, VME, CompactPCI® and custom boards offering a PMC or XMC slot can be extended by two Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, which can be individually routed to the front or to the backplane. Equipped with the high-end Intel® 82571 Dual Channel Ethernet Controller, the Kontron XMC-ETH2 mezzanine board delivers best possible data throughput.

The new mezzanine board comes in two versions: air-cooled (Standard Commercial (SA)) or conduction-cooled (Rugged Conduction Cooled Version (RC)) in order to suit the individual needs of different system environments. Thanks to Kontron’s dedicated long term supply (LTS) program, customers can enjoy 10+ years of guaranteed supply, making the Kontron XMC-ETH2 the ideal Ethernet mezzanine for infrastructure programs. Typical application areas can be found in markets such as medical, transportation, military, aerospace, energy and automation.

Owing to the fact that the Kontron XMC-ETH2 mezzanine board supports both XMC and PMC extension slots, it can be used universally in different system designs. Designed as a Plug & Play solution, the Ethernet mezzanine board automatically selects the data bus according to whether the power supply is present on the P5 connector (x4 PCI Express). Otherwise, it switches to 32 bit PCI 33 MHz or 66 MHz on the PMC connectors. An integrated micro DIP switch allows for manual override of the host bus selection. Another micro DIP switch controls Ethernet channel routing to the front panel (RJ-45) or to the backplane (P4). Each channel can be routed separately.

The Kontron XMC-ETH2 dual Gigabit Ethernet mezzanine board supports Linux, VxWorks and Windows XP and is available now: the SA version for air-cooled system designs in a temperature range of 0 °C to 55 °C (VITA 47-Class AC1) and the RC version for robust conduction-cooled systems in the extended temperature range of -40 °C to 85 °C (VITA 47-Class CC4).