Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRCY), a leading provider of high-performance, embedded computing solutions for complex image, sensor, and signal processing applications, announced availability of the SR-110 10GE VXS Gateway, a revolutionary network-centric building block for VXS systems.
To maximize the effectiveness of new, sophisticated sensor technologies, system designers are using 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GE) for fast and flexible image/data distribution, from any sensor to any authorized user. Despite its considerable bandwidth, however, 10 Gigabit Ethernet does not deliver the low- latency, deterministic communications required by real-time processing. A different type of protocol, such as RapidIO(R), must be used for real-time signal processing. The design challenge is to create a network-based solution that can seamlessly and transparently move data between 10GE and RapidIO, so the overall sensor network solution can employ the advantages of both fabrics. To make this type of processing available on a sensor network requires a gateway.
As an example, for network-attached multiprocessing, the SR-110 10GE VXS Gateway from Mercury automatically transports the network data (via 10GE) into the VXS chassis, which in turn streams the data into the serial RapidIO fabric, making the data available to all VXS compute nodes in the chassis. After user application computations are complete, the data is transported out of the system via the Gateway to the 10GE network.
The SR-110 10GE VXS Gateway self-boots at power-up, and is user-configurable. No other programming or user intervention is required to enable high-bandwidth data streams into and out of the Gateway.
“With the SR-110 10GE VXS Gateway, we’ve taken Mercury’s proven ability to capture and process large volumes of sensor data in real time to the sensor network architecture paradigm, enabling fast, flexible and transparent data movement between the 10GE and RapidIO fabrics,” said Ian Dunn, Chief Technologist, Advanced Computing Solutions, Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. “By deploying the Gateway in VXS, developers can implement a single, platform-wide Ethernet network that streams sensor data to C4I (command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence) applications.”
Based on the Freescale MPC8548 processor, the Mercury SR-110 10GE VXS Gateway is a highly integrated platform that includes a Power Architecture(TM) core, serial RapidIO, Gigabit Ethernet controllers, and an integrated DDR2 memory interface. With MultiCore(TM) Plus software, the SR-110 10GE VXS Gateway supports both gateway and bridging modes. Support features include:
— bridging/forwarding of all Ethernet frames (Transparent Layer 2 switch in bridge mode),
— broadcast and multicast with IGMP v2 snooping in both directions, and
— redundant/failover gateway support.
For more information on the Mercury SR-110 10GE VXS Gateway, visit www.mc.com/gateway, or contact Mercury at (866) 627-6951 or at [email protected].
