Now that all the VPX shouting has died down (somewhat), real-live products are coming to market. My bet’s on 3U VPX for shoebox upgrades because of its handy size and prodigious I/O capabilities. One example of this new breed is GE Fanuc’s rugged SBC310, which uses a dual-core MPC 8641D PowerPC. Humming at 1.0 GHz, the SBC can be fitted with up to 1 GB of SDRAM and even has a PMC or XMC site for a mezzanine card.
I/O includes two 10/100/1000 BASE-T Ethernet ports, two USB 2.0, and a SATA disk interface. The ever-present legacy stuff includes two RS-232 and four GPIO. Backplane connections are via two 4-lane PCIe ports, with plenty of user-defined I/O pins still available; after all, that’s the appeal of VPX.