Rugged VME64x SBCs take on mission control

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Nov 22, 2005

Aitech Defense Systems has added two new boards to its rugged, VME64x-compliant C10x single board computer family.

Aitech Defense Systems has added two new boards to its rugged, VME64x-compliant C10x single board computer (SBC) family.

The new 1.0GHz, high performance C101L employs the low power version of the MPC 7457 PowerPC processor, and the 1.0GHz C106L, which use less than 22W, features a 7447A PowerPC processor.

The new SBCs are designed to satisfy the demands for expanded I/O capabilities and powerful processing in harsh-environment applications, such as mission computers, remotely piloted vehicles, fire control processing, platform stabilisation and mission control subsystems.

The integrated 4Gbyte of onboard NAND Flash file memory, which is windowed into the processors memory map, is totally independent of user application program Flash and functions similarly to a USB memory stick without the need for a PMC site or USB interface.

The optional Flash memory manager (FMM) software automatically reads and writes the C101L and C106L's Flash memory.

To prevent any one Flash memory block from wearing out from continuous accesses, the FMM software also incorporates automatic wear-leveling to ensure that write-erase cycles are uniformly balanced and distributed across the entire device.

These boards' unique, onboard Flash file system (FFS) is ideal for storing large local maps and databases as well as capturing Sigint waveforms, radar or sonar images, mission data profiles, and capturing subsystem run-time health/BIT (built-in test) data.

The C101L and C106L feature an unprecedented array of versatile onboard I/O interfaces, including three fast Ethernet ports, two dual-redundant MIL-STD-1553B interfaces, two USB 2.0 ports, ten standard UART serial ports, and several types of single-ended and differential discrete I/O channels.

The new boards are equipped for expansion with two onboard PMC sites and 64bit, 66MHz PCI bus on P0, and offer up to 1Gbyte of onboard SDRAM operating at 133MHz.

The C106L SBC product family supports several real-time operating systems (RTOS) including WindRiver VxWorks, Green Hills Integrity and Integrity-178, and TimeSys Embedded Linux.

Other RTOS board support packages (BSPs) are available on request.

An extensive firmware package is supplied with each board that includes BIT (built-in test), startup software, diagnostic tools, and monitoring/debugging tools.

Users can specify the new low power SBCs to meet one of three levels of ruggedisation - commercial, rugged, or military.

The boards are also available in both air-cooled and conduction-cooled formats, each as a single-slot 6U module.

Pricing for the new C101L or C106L starts at $6600 with production units available from stock.