Product category:
CompactPCI Boards and Assemblies
News Release from: Aitech Defense Systems | Subject: C903
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 27 December 2006
3U CompactPCI board promises more MIPS
per watt
Aitech Defense Systems has expanded its C900 series of rugged 3U CompactPCI single board computers with the low-power high-performance C903.
Aitech Defense Systems has expanded its C900 series of rugged 3U CompactPCI (cPCI) single board computers (SBCs) with the low-power high-performance C903, available in both rugged air- or conduction-cooled versions Powered by a 750FL PowerPC operating at 600MHz, the C903 provides superior MIPS-per-watt performance in comparison to other higher power PowerPC processors
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 15 Mar 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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Ideal applications for the C903 include low power process controllers, actuator/axis control, communication bridges and protocol convertors, antenna position controllers and remotely piloted ground and airborne vehicles.
Fire control processing, platform stabilisation and mission control subsystems also benefit from the C903's functionality.
The rugged and robust design of the C903 provides exceptional performance, low power and high reliability over the industry's widest standard operating temperature ranges of from -55 to +85C.
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Generating all specialty power onboard, the thermally managed C903 accurately self-monitors its temperature and power dissipation through Integral temperature sensors that provide performance monitoring and increased MTBF (mean time before failure) reliability in the harshest of applications.
The large onboard memory arrays provide extensive volatile, nonvolatile and mass memory resources.
The C903 features up to 1Gbyte of fast DDR SDRAM (with ECC protection) in addition to 128Mbyte of stand-alone user Flash.
The board also incorporates 64Mbyte of dedicated boot Flash and up to 2Gbyte of NAND Flash file memory for mass storage, with an added 128Kbyte of NVRAM for applications needing to quickly store critical variables such as relative spatial or absolute position.
Using the highly integrated Marvell MV64460 Discovery III system controller that features two separate and independent PCI-X bus interfaces and dual Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, the board can function as either the cPCI system controller or as a peripheral board.
As the system controller, the C903 supports up to seven additional cards on the backplane, expanding the SBC's functionality to include clock, arbitration and interrupt capabilities.
The board's four 32bit timers provide high-resolution timing functionality, as well as chaining for long interval counting applications.
Its real time clock (RTC), which accurately keeps the date and time, is backed up by a large supercap capacitor rather than unreliable batteries for long-term data storage and accurate timekeeping.
Fixed, programmable and windowed avionics watchdog timers work in tandem to quickly identify time-out events, such as a hung system or the improper execution of a coding sequence, enabling efficient system monitoring.
The C903 also offers the industry's largest and widest array of I/O capabilities, including two independent Gigabit Ethernet ports, two high-speed serial communications ports, two USB 2.0 ports and up to eight general-purpose discrete I/O channels.
An industry standard PMC slot enables expanded I/O functionality through user-defined modules added to the board.
Equipped with extensive software packages, the C903 offers extreme ease of use and easy integration.
In addition to the JTAG/COP interface for debugging and development purposes, the board comes with test and diagnostic firmware that includes boot software, an AIMon monitor/debugger tool, an AIDiag diagnostic tool and BIT.
Board support packages (BSPs) with drivers for all onboard resources are readily available for WindRiver VxWorks and Green Hills Integrity.
The C903 air-cooled and conduction-cooled versions adhere to PICMG 2.0 R3.0 and ANSI/VITA 30.1-1991 specifications, respectively.
The custom metal thermal/heat management frame of the conduction-cooled board provides integral heat dissipation as well as excellent rigidity and shock resistance.
OEM quantity pricing for the C903 starts at US $3790.
Delivery is from stock.
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