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Product category: Networking Hardware
News Release from: Emerson Network Power Embedded Computing | Subject: KatanaPPB
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 18 January 2005

Telecomms blade features up to six
PowerPCs

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The KatanaPPB is billed as the industry's fastest AdvancedTCA multiprocessor telecomms blade.

The KatanaPPB is billed as the industry's fastest AdvancedTCA multiprocessor telecomms blade The KatanaPPB features up to six PowerPC processors, a versatile multiprocessor interconnect with separate control and data planes, and redundant IPMI-based system management interfaces

The KatanaPPB also features a high-speed PICMG 3.1-compliant ATCA interface with ten Gigabit Ethernet channels.

"ATCA is the consummate open architecture telecom platform, and KatanaPPB is the industry's fastest ATCA telecom blade", said Todd Wynia, Vice President of Marketing at Artesyn Communication Products.

"Katana's six PowerPC processors, versatile data flow architecture, and high-speed switched fabric make it ideal for adding control and packet processing power to a wide range of telecom systems, including WAN access, SS7/SIGTRAN signalling, media gateways, traffic processing, wireless basestation controllers and softswitches".

The KatanaPPB features six PowerPC 7447A processors, each equipped with an Altivec vector processing unit, 32Kbyte of on-die L1 instruction/data cache, 512Kbyte of on-die L2 cache, and cache coherency mechanisms for symmetric multiprocessing.

The six processors are divided into two complexes.

Complex one, mounted directly on the baseboard, provides a pair of MPC7447A processors, which can be used for either distributed or symmetric multiprocessing (SMP).

The processors share a Marvell GT64460 Discovery III system controller, which provides high-speed access to up to 2Gbyte of shared DDR SDRAM memory and 128Mbyte of Flash memory.

Complex two provides four MPC7447A processors.

Each processor, mounted on a separate PrPMC (ProcessorPMC) mezzanine card, is equipped with a dedicated Discovery III system controller, 2Gbyte of DDR SDRAM and 64Mbyte of Flash memory.

To optimise control performance and packet processing throughput, the KatanaPPB employs a versatile multiprocessor interconnect with separate control and data planes.

The control plane combines a local PCI-X bus, which links all six processors, with two Gigabit Ethernet channels, which are routed from processor complex one to the ATCA Base Fabric through a 24-port Gigabit Ethernet switch.

The data plane, also managed by the Ethernet switch, combines one Gigabit Ethernet channel from processor complex one with eight Gigabit Ethernet channels from processor complex two (two per PrPMC site).

The switch, in turn, uses eight Gigabit Ethernet ports to connect to the ATCA High Speed Fabric.

The KatanaPPB features a PICMG 3.0 Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI version 1.5 with ATCA extensions).

This interface, which incorporates dual I2C-based Intelligent Platform Management Buses (IPMB), enhances system management by making it easy for shelf management controllers to monitor, control and exchange information with the KatanaPPB.

Katana's IPMI interface is routed to both processing complexes, enabling shelf management to monitor and control all six processors.

The KatanaPPB complies with all major safety, EMC, and environmental standards, including IEC60950/EN60950, UL60950, CSA C22.2, Global IEC - CB Scheme Report (IEC60950), NEBS Telecordia GR-63, and GR1089 Level 3, FCC Part 15 (USA and Canada) and ETSI EN300386-V1.3.1.

Software support for the KatanaPPB includes carrier grade Linux with built-in support for symmetric multiprocessing (SMP).

OEM pricing for the KatanaPPB equipped with a pair of MPC7447A processors starts at $4407.

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