COTS chassis manager for VPX

The popular VPX technology has long been missing a key element: a commercially available chassis manager. Pigeon Point Systems has delivered the first COTS chassis manager based on VITA 46.11, recently adopted as a Draft Standard for Trial Use. The Pigeon Point Chassis Manager is delivered on the ChMM-700R, a chassis management mezzanine that utilizes a Freescale i.MX287 ARM9-based main processor to execute Linux and the Chassis Manager application, plus a Microsemi SmartFusion A2F060 intelligent mixed signal FPGA for critical supplementary functions. The Chassis Manager complies with the VPX-specific requirements of VITA 46.11, including support for two functionality tiers for Intelligent Platform Management Controllers (IPMCs), with the simpler Tier 1 model intended to facilitate lower cost implementations. The Chassis Manager supports chassis with a mixture of Tier 1 IPMCs and more sophisticated Tier 2 IPMCs. The Chassis Manager itself is a Tier 2 Chassis Manager, with many extensions beyond Tier 2 requirements, such as support for redundant operation.