April 26, 2005 – Raleigh, NC and Toulon, France – Thales’ Computers activities, a global leader in providing integrated PowerPC and Pentium-based VME COTS computing systems and solutions to OEMs and system integrators, continues its dedication to providing customers with leading-edge products as it announces the release of the 400 MHz version of the VCE405 Connectivity Engine. The 400 MHz frequency upgrade draws as low as 7 watts of power. This is a 50% gain in performance with the same power dissipation as its 266 MHz predecessor.
This 6U VCE405 is a versatile off-the-shelf CPU with two PMC slots for maximum I/O flexibility. It offers a PowerPC solution where high compute power and low power consumption and dissipation are a concern. Because of the board’s low power consumption, it does not require massive heat sinks, making it ideal for applications such as flight control systems on helicopters, where a weight restriction exists for rugged electronic components.
The VCE405 board consumes so little power that it is able to be cooled by natural convection in an 85C environment. Medical equipment applications also benefit from the VCE405’s low power requirement, especially in applications where it is critical to sustain temperatures without the benefit of a cooling fan, such as x-ray systems and blood analysis machines.
In addition to aerospace and medical applications, the VCE405 VMEbus solution is a competitively priced option for industrial, automotive systems and light transportation It is already used in volume as a computing device in automatic trains and a network bridge on amphibious ships. Peripheral integration of the 405GP and dual 64-bit PCI bus (PMC) expansion slots make the device ideal for wired communications and other pervasive computing applications.
Product Specifications
Thales’ 400 MHz VCE405 Connectivity Engine is based on IBM/AMCC low power consumption PowerPC 405GPr. The PPC405GPr is powered by a PowerPC 405B3TM embedded core which tightly couples a 400 MHz CPU, MMU, Instruction and Data cache (16 KB I-cache, 16KB D-cache) and debug logic. This finely-tuned core reduces data transfer overhead and minimizes pipeline stalls to greatly improve performance. The general architecture of the 405GPr consists of a 64-bit, 133 MHz Processor Local Bus (PLB) and a 32-bit, 44.33 (133/3) MHz On-Chip Peripheral Bus (OPB).
The VME64 is managed by the ALMA2e, the latest release of the highly integrated, low power single chip designed from the collaboration with IBM.
The VCE405’s Real-Time Clock (RTC) function is provided by a Dallas Semiconductor DS1602 Elapsed Time Counter. This device can keep track of over 125 years worth of seconds in each of its two 32-bit counters.
The local memory of the card consists of 128MB of Synchronous DRAM and 8 MB of Flash EPROM.
The VCE405 provides 100BASE-TX Ethernet with auto-negotiation to 10BASE-T when connected to networks not capable of 100 Mb/s operation. The Ethernet media access controller of the PPC405GP is a generic implementation of the Ethernet Media Access Controller (MAC) protocol complying with ANSI/IEEE 802.3 and IEEE 802.3u Supplement.
The Connectivity Engine provides a total of six serial lines. Two asynchronous EIA-232 lines are supplied by the PPC405GP itself. Two Enhanced Serial Communications Controllers (ESCC) from Zilog provide four additional EIA-232/422/485 configurable serial lines – two synchronous/asynchronous serial lines and two asynchronous serial lines.
The board design provides two PMC sites; both sites can support a 64-bit PCI bus. Should additional features be required by your system, Thales Computers provides an extensive choice of COTS PMCs for commercial grade or harsh environment applications: networking (Ethernet, ATM), additional serial lines, parallel I/O, graphics, etc.
The VCE405 supports VxWorks release 5.5 for Tornado 2.2 and release 5.4 for Tornado 2.0. The LynxOS 4.0 and BlueCat Linux 4.0, already available on the 266 MHz version of the VCE405 are scheduled to be available on the 400 MHz version during 2005.
The VCE405 Connectivity Engine from Thales’ Computers activities is available starting at a list price of $2360 in single quantity. For volume pricing, please contact Thales Computers. A rugged conduction-cooled version and a rugged air-cooled version are also available.
For more information about the 400 MHz VCE405 and other SBCs, please visit our web site at www.thalescomputers.com, or contact Thales at Tel: 800-848-2330, Fax: 919-231-8001.
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About Thales: Thales is a leading international electronics and systems group, serving defence, aerospace, security and services markets worldwide. The Group employs 61,500 people throughout the world and generated revenues of 10.3 billion euros in 2004.
Thales’ Computers activities is a leading developer of commercial and ruggedized VMEbus systems solutions based on PowerPC and Pentium microprocessors. The company’s products are optimized for a wide variety of applications in the military, aerospace, transportation, communications, and industrial markets and are used by customers worldwide, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Bombardier, Toshiba, British Aerospace, Ericsson, Alcatel, Thales Group, and others.