Kontron releases VM6250 multi-processor board

Kontron has introduced the long-term-available VM6250 6U VME multi-processor board with Freescale MPC8640/8641 single- or dual-core processors and an Altivec engine.

With its scalable processor performance, high-data throughput, low-power dissipation and easy extensibility via XMCs, PMCs and FMCs (FPGA mezzanine cards) according to the Vita 57 specification, the Kontron VM6250 offers extreme flexibility.

With these features, it upgrades VME-based air- or conduction-cooled applications with a good processing performance and new features.

With a power consumption down to only 27W (typical with Freescale MPC8640 1.00GHz), the Kontron VM6250 6U VME CPU board is claimed to attain a new performance level while staying within a tight power envelope.

With a choice of Freescale MPC8640 single- or dual-core processors with 1.00GHz or 1.25GHz and Freescale MPC8641 single- or dual-core processors with 1.33GHz, it combines high processing power and a good memory bandwidth.

With a 64-bit MPX bus running up to 667MHz, the Kontron VM6250 boosts memory bandwidth up to 4.3Gbit/s, which makes it three times faster than boards based on legacy G4 PowerPC processors.

The four-channel DMA controller and the integrated 128-bit Altivec vector unit (which processes large data quantities while ensuring minimal cache pollution) enable the turbo in the Kontron VM6250 to speed up data processing.

High data throughput is said to be guaranteed by the high-speed backplane switch for PCI Express, Gigabit Ethernet and the double-edged source-synchronous transfer VME 2eSST according to ANSI/Vita 1.5.

Kontron's 6U VME board, in the rugged conduction-cooled version (-45C to +85C), is destined for applications in harsh environments where extremely secure and reliable performance is a must.

The Kontron VM6250 features soldered DDR2 SDRAM with error correcting code (ECC) and onboard USB Flash support for software storage without rotating non-volatile memory.

Data security of a high level is additionally ensured by 128Kb NOVRAM for the back-up of critical data in case of power failure.

The Kontron VM6250 RC with rugged heat sink and conduction cooling offers features to withstand harsh environments in mission-critical applications with data-intensive input/output (I/O) and network-centric real-time requirements such as defence and aerospace, traffic and safety engineering and video and image processing in medical technology.

Furthermore, the Kontron VM6250 6U VME board offers flexible assembly.

One of the two mezzanine extension slots for XMCs and PMCs supports FMCs.

An optional dual PMC carrier allows up to four PMCs.

Customers are intended to benefit from the FMC standard, which allows the user to change the I/O configuration of an FPGA design without having to redesign the core FPGA functionality.

Therefore, a single FPGA design can be utilised in multiple applications by using a different FMC.

Thanks to this modular concept, Kontron's latest 6U VME board can be quickly and flexibly adapted to meet a variety of application requirements.

By using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components, the amount of effort required for both implementation and hardware upgrades at a later date is reduced to a minimum, according to the company.

Additionally, the Kontron VM6250 is legacy compatible and helps customers to preserve their investments by re-using established VME equipment with updated processing performance and features.

On its front panel, the Kontron VM6250 provides two Gigabit Ethernet ports, one USB 2.0 port and one serial port (EIA-232).

Via the P0 connector (Vita 31.1), Gigabit Ethernet, SATA II, USB 2.0, PCI Express 1.0, SRIO, GPIO and 32 I/Os for PMC 1 are connected to the backplane.

Aside the 64-bit VME bus (VME64x), Kontron's VM6250 provides support 2eSST, which enables data-throughput speeds of up to 320Mb/s on P1.

P2 connects 64 I/Os from the FMC and PMC 2 slot and 32 I/Os from the PMC 1 slot to the backplane.

Kontron's 6U VME CPU board comes with the open-source U-Boot firmware and supports Vxworks 6.6 and Fedora 9 Linux.

It is covered by Kontron's long-term supply program.

This guarantees customers a multi-year supply of the product beyond its active life.

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