APW Electronic Solutions first to market with CompactPCI/PSB backplane Released 6 September 2001 Continuing a long-established tradition, APW Electronic Solutions is providing early backplanes meeting the exciting new CompactPCI 2.16 Packet Switching Backplane (PSB) specification, approved as Draft Rev 1.0 at the PICMG Executive meeting held in Boston on September 5. While it is inappropriate to claim compliance to a draft specification, the rapid availability of critical hardware enables system developers and integrators to bring final product to market as quickly as possible. At present, the CompactPCI specification enables single conversations operating at 66MHz over a 64-bit data bus, a bandwidth of approximately 4Gbits/s transfer rate, albeit limited to only five slots on a contiguous backplane. The PICMG 2.16 draft specification allows two switching fabrics, each supporting 20 simultaneous conversations at 2Gbits/s to provide a 40Gbits/s transfer rate. Developers can also create "virtual backplanes," expanding to any number of CompactPCI (or non-CompactPCI) systems, by running either fibre or CAT5 Ethernet cables to external connections that extend the packet-switched bus. CompactPCI/PSB significantly improves performance, scalability and reliability of CompactPCI while preserving its mechanical, power, hot-swap attributes and H.110 capabilities. The CompactPCI/PSB is a star topology: in a 2.16-enabled system, boards are defined as nodes (equivalent to LAN workstations) or fabrics (equivalent to LAN hubs). The 2.16 draft specification expands CompactPCI by over-laying up to two switched Ethernet networks embedded in the CompactPCI backplane on P3. All node slots in the chassis are interconnected through switching fabric slots. Node cards operate as standalone "systems in a slot," interfacing with each other through a network stack such as TCP/IP. APW's initial product is a 15 slot CompactPCI/PSB backplane with H.110 support consisting of 2 power slots, a right hand processor slot, 12 node board slots and two fabric board slots integrated into a 9U chassis that fits within the standard 19" rack mechanics. An option for this backplane is the ability to bridge two CompactPCI segments with the patented StealthBridge. Another option is the provision to allow the system slot to participate in the packet switching architecture as a node slot. In addition to PICMG 2.16, this backplane conforms to PICMG 2.0 r3.0 CompactPCI (which incorporates basic hot swap), PICMG 2.5 r.1.0 Computer Telephony and PICMG 2.9 System Management Bus. There are plans to extend the offering to a non-H.110 backplane as well as a full 21 slot backplane. *** Ends: 399 words *** Notes to Editors. For further information: APW Electronic Solutions contact: Trevor Lant APW Electronic Solutions Flanders Road Hedge End Southampton Hants SO30 2LG tel: + 44 (0)1489 774500 fax:+ 44 (0)1489 780978 trevor.lant@apw.com www.apw.com Agency contact: Nigel May Parkfield Parkfield House Damerham Hants SP6 3HQ tel: + 44 (0)1725 518321 fax: + 44 (0)1725 518378 Nigel_May@parkfield.co.uk www.parkfield.co.uk APW Electronic Solutions (formerly VERO Electronics) is part of the $2bn APW Corporation. It has design and manufacturing facilities in Germany and the UK in Europe, and on the east and west coasts of the USA. It is supported by local offices in France, Italy, Denmark, Sweden and Finland and a worldwide network of agents. The company is a world market leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of high performance backplanes and integrated systems for telecom and other leading edge industry sectors where sophisticated hardware solutions are required to solve demanding technical requirements.