CHELMSFORD, Mass. – January 30, 2009 – Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRCY), a leading provider of high-performance, embedded computing solutions for image, sensor, and signal processing applications, announced the OpenVPX™ Industry Working Group, an independent association being formed through the alliance of more than 10 leading defense prime contractors and COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) systems developers striving to solve the interoperability issues of VPX system architectures.
Recognizing the VPX interoperability and system management challenges, Mercury initiated the OpenVPX Industry Working Group, whose charter is to publish a comprehensive System Design Guide that will improve interoperability of COTS 3U and 6U VPX-based systems achieved in part by implementation of predefined system profiles.
For the past five years, Mercury has designed and deployed high-end ATCA and MicroTCA systems. Mercury is leveraging this expertise and the proven underlying scalable architecture, including advanced system management technology, as the foundation for Mercury’s contribution to the OpenVPX Industry Working Group.
“The OpenVPX system-level approach will enable prime contractors to greatly reduce the time required to create integrated COTS solutions in 3U and 6U form factors,” said Didier Thibaud, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Advanced Computing Solutions at Mercury. “It will also lower the risk of adoption, and expand the addressable market for VPX solutions, while accelerating deployment into real-world applications.”
The VPX standard rapidly evolved into a family of specifications defining a number of board-level architecture options. While the range of available VPX-based specifications is intended to enable superior processing performance for various defense embedded computing applications, it has significantly increased the probability that VITA 46-based products developed by multiple manufacturers will not operate together in an integrated system.
“One of the great strengths of the VME community has been the ability to combine technologies from many contributors into high-performance systems,” said Ray Alderman, Executive Director of the VITA Standards Organization. “That worked in VME, because we had an open standard that was mature and unambiguous. In moving to a new generation of standards, like VPX, we’ve lost some of that interoperability. I’m very glad to see a proven systems company like Mercury take the lead in defining a practical approach to restoring that level of design maturity.”
Mercury will act as steward of the OpenVPX Industry Working Group during its formation. The key outcome of this group, a completed System Design Guide, will be contributed to the VITA Standards Organization.
For more information on the OpenVPX Industry Working Group, visit www.mc.com/OpenVPX
About VPX
VPX, known as VITA 46, is an ANSI standard (ANSI/VITA 46.0-2007) defined by the VMEbus International Trade Association (VITA) that provides VMEbus-based systems with support for switched fabrics over a new high-speed connector. The VPX standard was developed to define a new generation of computing systems that will utilize high-performance switch fabrics as well as operate in harsh environments.
