The March VITA working groups meeting was held in Las Vegas. This update is based on the results of that meeting. Contact VITA if you are interested in participating in any of these working groups. Visit the VITA website (http://www.vita.com) for details on upcoming face-to-face meetings.
ANSI accreditation
Accredited as an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) developer and a submitter of Industry Trade Agreements to the IEC, VITA provides its members with the ability to develop and promote open technology standards. The working groups meet face-to-face every two months to address embedded bus and board industry standards issues.
The following standards have recently been ANSI and VITA ratified via public ballot.
- ANSI/VITA 46.0-2019 VPX Baseline Standard
- ANSI/VITA 57.1-2019 FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC) Standard
- ANSI/VITA 86-2019 High Voltage Input Sealed Connector Power Supply Standard
These standards are available for download by VITA members and are posted at the VITA Store for purchase by non-members.
VSO study and working group activities
Standards within VITA may be initiated through the formation of a study group and developed by a working group. A study group requires the sponsorship of one VITA member, and a working group requires sponsorship of at least three VITA members.
Several working groups have current projects underway; the following roundup summarizes those projects:
VITA 40: Service and Status Indicator Standard
Objective: This standard defines the colors, behaviors, placement, and labeling of service indicator lamps for boards, field replaceable units, and enclosures.
Status: This standard was withdrawn several years ago. VITA has been requested to revive the standard. The original document has been updated to the current format for VITA standards. Minor updates have been made to correct errors in the original document. The solicitation for balloters on VITA 40 has been submitted for the ANSI balloting stage.
VITA 46.30: VPX: Higher Data Rate
Objective: The VITA 46.30 standard defines a standard for a VPX connector that supports higher data rates, to at least 25 Gbaud – for protocols such as 100GBASE-KR4 Ethernet and PCIe Gen 4. The higher data rate connectors compliant to VITA 46.30 are intermateable with legacy VITA 46.0 connectors and follow the same form factor.
Status: The working group has a draft document in the balloting stage. They are starting the VITA 46.31 standard that will define connector featuring a short solder tail intended to be soldered into a blind via.
ANSI/VITA 47: Environments, Design and Construction, Safety, and Quality for Plug-in Units
Objective: Supplying vendors’ certification of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) plug-in units to this standard will facilitate the cost-effective integration of these items into larger systems.
Status: ANSI/VITA 47-2007 has been opened for revision to improve interoperability, create less reliance on individual supplier ruggedization guidelines, and make sure environments are concurrent with recent VPX updates. The working group has placed the document in the ANSI ballot stage. The various dot standards are in final working group review.
Several dots standards have been started to support the original VITA 47.0 standard.
- VITA 47.1: Defines the requirements common across the family of standards.
- VITA 47.2: Defines the unique requirements related to products meant to align with the applications defined in IPC J-STD-001, Class 2.
- VITA 47.3: Defines the unique requirements related to products meant to align with the applications defined in IPC J-STD-001, Class 3.
VITA 51.4: Reliability Component Derating
Objective: The goal of this study group is to develop a new component derating standard.
Status: The study group has been meeting to discuss the scope and outline potential sources of data for this activity.
VITA 57.x: FMC, FPGA Mezzanine Card
Objective: This standard describes FMC I/O modules and introduces an electro-mechanical standard that creates a low overhead bridge. This is between the front panel I/O, on the mezzanine module, and an FPGA processing device on the carrier card, which accepts the mezzanine module.
Status: A new study group has been formed, VITA 57.5 Physical Tools to Aid in FMC+ Development, to define a set of development tools. Interested parties are invited to join this study group.
VITA 62.x: Modular Power Supply Standard
Objective: The VITA 62.0 standard describes requirements for building a power supply module that can be used to power a VPX chassis. The modules fit within the standard envelope defined for VPX modules in the VITA 48.0 standards.
Status: The original standard is being revised to be in line with additions made to the VPX standards. Additional working groups are on dot standards. VITA 62.1 is focused on a three-phase high voltage power supply for 3U and VITA 62.2 is developing a 270-volt connector standard. Both working groups have draft documents in review.
ANSI/VITA 65: OpenVPX Architectural Framework for VPX
Objective: The OpenVPX architectural framework standard is a living document that is regularly updated with new profile information and corrections.
Status: New profiles based on work with SOSA are being developed. The working group is nearing completion of review for additions, deletions, and changes to the next release.
VITA 66.5: VPX: Optical Interconnect, Spring-Loaded Contact on Backplane
Objective: This document describes an open standard for configuration and interconnect within the structure of VITA 66.0 enabling an interface compatible with VITA 46 containing blind mate optical connectors with fixed contacts on the Plug In Module and floating displacement on the backplane.
Status: The working group is developing the draft document.
VITA 68.2: VPX: Compliance Channel
Objective: This standard defines a VPX compliance channel including common backplane performance criteria required to support multiple fabric types across a range of defined baud rates. This allows backplane developers to design a backplane that supports required Bit Error Rates (BER) for multiple fabric types. This also allows module developers to design plug-in modules that are interoperable with other modules when used with a compliant backplane.
Status: The working group is updating the draft of this standard.
VITA 78.1: SpaceVPX Lite Systems
Objective: This document leverages the work done on ANSI/VITA 78 to create a standard with an emphasis on 3U module implementations. The most significant change from SpaceVPX is to shift the distribution of utility signals from the SpaceUM to the System Controller to allow a radial distribution of supply power to up to eight payload modules.
Status: The working group has developed a draft document of the standard that is currently under review.
Copies of all standards reaching ANSI recognition are available from the VITA online store (www.vita.com/Purchase). For a more complete list of VITA standards and their status, go to www.vita.com/Standards.