M6000 VXS I/O Controller with Dual PMC/XMC sites, Dual 4Gbit/s Fibre Channel, and User Programmable Virtex-4 FX60/100

The M6000 is a PowerPC™ based VXS (VITA 41)/VME I/O controller. In addition to it’s I/O controller functionality, the M6000 can also perform as an intelligent XMC/PMC carrier, a system controller, high-speed data streaming board and a recording engine. Focusing on I/O capabilities, the M6000 performance high-speed data buffering and flexible data flow between I/O ports. VMETRO achieves this through I/O connections on the front panel, dual XMC/PMC (PCI Mezzanine) sites and backplane connectors. Thus, the M6000 constitutes an important element of VMETRO’s innovative Phoenix family of products for embedded real-time Data Acquisition, Processing and Recording using high-speed serial communications.

The most demanding embedded applications require flexibility and performance only achieved through use of the M6000. The unique architecture of the M6000 is centered around an AMCC 440SP PowerPC processor and a five-port PCI Express switch, offering multiple data paths with several gigabytes per second data transfer capability. The two PMC/XMC sites are connected to high-speed data paths in the form of independent and concurrent x8 PCI Express and 133 MHz PCI-X segments for each site. For board-to-board communications, there are eight 3.125 Gbps serial ports to the P0 VXS connector that offer a total of 2.5 Gbytes/sec full duplex bandwidth. The M6000 using standard protocols such as Aurora or others by means of a Xilinx^® Virtex™-4 FX FPGA. In addition, there is an on-board dual 4Gbps Fibre Channel controller directly attached to a dedicated port on the PowerPC processor, ideal for data recording or playback applications to/from Fibre Channel storage units such as JBODs, SBODs and RAIDs. Additional I/O is available via Gigabit Ethernet, RS232, RS422 on the front panel, or optionally through rear I/O.

The M6000 is supported with a VxWorks or Linux operating environment, and can easily be configured for a given application by complementing with PMC or XMC modules from VMETRO or 3rd parties.

The M6000 provides a powerful and flexible platform for all types of applications. By utilizing the M6000, users gain I/O capabilities and are able to better focus on the development of their own core intellectual property. The result is faster time-to-market, reduced cost and a superior product.

All of these capabilities in conjunction with I/O devices allow the board to add scaleability to a wide variety of applications, far beyond what is possible with more traditional carrier boards. Some examples of applications well suited for the M6000 include:

• The number of data channels exceeds that which is available from two mezzanine sites
• Multiple, simultaneous channels of high-speed data are to be routed through the board
• Future changes in processing, I/O or scaleability requirements are expected
• Unique I/O connectivity is required (i.e. VXS)