VMETRO hastens VPX system flow

A challenge of developing with VPX is there isn't a standard VPX backplane, which results in delays on many VPX programs while custom backplanes are developed. The VMETRO VPX/VXS portable tower directly addresses this challenge giving engineers and software developers a head start on their integration and application development.

The backplane's design enables full exploitation of the massive backplane bandwidth of VMETRO's FPE650 quad-FPGA and HPE640 hybrid-PowerPC/FPGA VPX boards while enabling developers to integrate VMETRO's existing VXS boards into embedded real-time DSP systems.

The backplane is designed specifically to support the high-speed and high-bandwidth I/O and backplane interconnectivity of the VMETRO FPE650 and HPE640 VPX boards. It is equipped with three VPX slots and two VXS slots (one payload and one switch). To support VPX/REDI boards, the VPX slots in are on a 1inch pitch. The single VXS payload slot enables existing VXS payload boards to be utilized; the VXS switch slot supports the VMETRO CSW1 switch, which provides up to 12-front panel fiber optic transceivers and flexible backplane connections between the VPX and VXS payload slots.

The chassis, model VPX-ENC-0102, can enclose a signal processing system controlled by a PowerPC processor running either VxWorks or Linux and up to 14 Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGAs and 6 high-speed analog input FMC (VITA 57) modules. VMETRO's FPGA development kit can be used to simplify the FPGA development and integration.

- Ismini Scouras
eeProductCenter