ORLANDO, FL., March 25, 2004 — The VMEbus International Trade Association (VITA)completed on March 25th its first VMEbus Switched Serial (VXS) interoperability workshop for companies developing products for the pending VITA 41 specification. The event included prototype equipment, including chassis, backplanes and boards, from several companies. VITA 41 adds switch fabric capability over a new P0 connector to the traditional VMEbus environment while still maintaining critical backwards compatibility with generations of deployed VME solutions.
Participants in the workshop included Bustronic, Motorola, Positronic, SBS, Schroff, Tyco Electronics, and VMETRO – all members of VITA and participants in the VITA 41 technical subcommittee.
VITA is kicking off a series of interoperability workshops as part of the VME Renaissance that includes VXS and other performance enhancements to VMEbus. This event was the first
and was focused on testing the electromechanical aspects of the draft specification, including form factor, fit, and power distribution. VITA 41 is currently in its final draft stages
and is expected to be published before the end of 2004.
“The workshop started providing good results in understanding the specification even before the first interoperability tests were conducted,” said Bob Tufford, Motorola, chair of the VITA 41 technical committee. “Participation in the workshop demonstrated the level of commitment that was made by each of the participants to improve VMEbus to remain the industry leading choice for embedded computing platforms.”
VXS is one of many new innovations that the VME Renaissance is bringing to VMEbus. Efforts to improve the performance of the traditional parallel bus with 2eSST and fabric
support for PMCs continue to deliver innovative solutions to VMEbus all while maintaining critical backwards compatibility to generations of installed boards. Additional specifications in the VXS series include VITA 41.1 for InfiniBand®, VITA 41.2 for serial RapidIO, and VITA
41.3 for 10 Gb Ethernet and VITA 41.4 for PCI Express fabric Interconnect. The base VITA 41.0 specification is fabric independent to support any suitable switch fabric protocol defined
in each of the sub specifications.
VMEbus technologies are used in many industries, such as data communications, medical imaging, industrial automation, defense and aerospace equipment manufacturers. Recent enhancements to the VMEbus architecture continue to make it an ideal technology for the most demanding embedded computing needs.
The promise of the VME Renaissance is innovation, performance and investment protection. The work being done by the members of VITA is delivering on this promise.
About VITA
VITA, the VMEbus International Trade Association, is an incorporated, non-profit organization of vendors and users having a common market interest. Founded in 1984, VITA believes in and champions open system architectures as opposed to proprietary system
architectures. VITA’s activities are international in scope. The functions performed by VITA are technical, promotional and user related and are aimed at increasing the total market size, providing vendors additional market exposure and providing users with timely technical information.
Today, VITA’s mission includes not only promoting VMEbus, but promoting the very concept of open technology as embodied in the many standards currently under development within
the VITA Standards Organization. Virtually all players in all markets from the smallest to the largest now use the word “open” in their company and product promotions. The VITA name is now synonymous with open systems.
VITA’s continuing goal is to unite manufacturers and users through the acceptance and implementation of open technology standards.
For information about VITA membership, or to find out how to obtain VITA specifications, visit the VITA website at www.vita.com or call VITA headquarters at (480) 837-7486.
