Product category:
Networking Hardware
News Release from: Emerson Network Power Embedded Computing | Subject: KatanaQp and PmPPC7448
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 24 June 2005
Blade and mezzanine card make the most
of PowerPC
Artesyn Communication Products has released two enhanced telecomms infrastructure products based on Freescale's advanced MPC7448 PowerPC processor.
Artesyn Communication Products has released two enhanced telecomms infrastructure products based on Freescale's advanced MPC7448 PowerPC processor The first, the KatanaQp, is an AdvancedTCA blade that combines a pair of MPC7448 processors with four PTMC expansion sites, redundant IPMI-based system management interfaces, and a high-speed PICMG 3.1-compliant ATCA interface
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 16 Jan 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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Processors combine to boost infrastructure power
A new dual-processor PowerPC PCI Mezzanine Card is aimed at telecomms infrastructure applications.
Mezzanine card lends Pentium power to telecomms
The hot-swappable KosaiPM gives telecomms OEMs an easy way to add processing power to AdvancedTCA or proprietary systems equipped with Advanced Mezzanine Card expansion bays.
The second product, the PmPPC7448, is a ProcessorPMC mezzanine card that combines a single MPC7448 processor with up to 2Gbyte of RAM, 64Mbyte of Flash and three Ethernet ports, while consuming just 18W.
"The MPC7448 PowerPC processor enables us to offer our telecomms OEM customers a substantial increase in performance while still holding the line on power consumption", said Todd Wynia, Vice President of Marketing at Artesyn.
"The MPC7448's high-speed number crunching and data movement capabilities make it ideal as a control or packet processor".
Further reading
Flexible interfacing for telecomms blade
The Katana 750v CompactPCI packet switching backplane telecomms blade is based on IBM's PowerPC 750FX processor.
Mezzanine card boosts telecomms processing power
A new PowerPC-based PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC) adds processing power to telecomms infrastructure applications.
Top performance claims for telecomms blade
The KatanaT3752 is billed as the industry's highest performance cPSB (CompactPCI Packet Switching Backplane) telecomms blade.
"Our KatanaQp ATCA blade and PmPPC7448 ProcessorPMC module take full advantage of these capabilities, providing an excellent foundation for a broad range of telecomms infrastructure applications, from soft switches and signalling control points to basestation controllers and media gateways".
"Telecommunications and networking equipment manufacturers continually look for ways to boost processing performance while keeping power dissipation in check", said Bill Dunnigan, Vice President and General Manager of Freescale's Computing Platforms Division.
"Artesyn's new ProcessorPMC mezzanine card addresses this customer requirement by incorporating Freescale's highest performance PowerPC processor, the MPC7448, which delivers gigahertz-class performance at less than 10W".
The KatanaQp features a pair of MPC7448 processors, which can be used for either distributed or symmetric multiprocessing (SMP).
Running at speeds of up to 1.7GHz, each processor is equipped with an AltiVec vector processing unit, 32Kbyte each of L1 data and instruction cache, and 1Mbyte of on-die L2 cache.
A Marvell GT64460 Discovery III system controller gives the processors high-speed access to up to 2Gbyte of DDR SDRAM memory and 64Mbyte of Flash memory.
The KatanaQp's four PTMC mezzanine expansion sites provide industry-standard 32bit PCI-X control and CTbus data interfaces to external modules.
The CTbus and PCI-X interfaces are also used on card to link the four sites, enabling them to exchange control information and TDM data directly.
This close coupling between sites makes Katana ideal for building integrated systems that combine network access (LAN or WAN) with packet, protocol, and media processing functionality (ie DSP farm) on the same blade.
The KatanaQp's high-speed PICMG 3.1-compliant AdvancedTCA fabric interface uses a 24-port Ethernet switch and 10 Gigabit Ethernet channels to provide high-speed control and data plane connections.
The KatanaQp also features a redundant PICMG 3.0 Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI), which makes it easy for shelf management controllers to monitor, control and exchange management with the KatanaQp.
The PmPPC7448 gives telecomms OEMs an easy way to add processing power to telecomms systems equipped with PMC expansion sites.
Featuring an MPC7448 processor running at speeds of up to 1.7GHz, the PmPPC748 uses a Marvell Discovery III system controller to give the processor high-speed access to up to 2Gbyte of external memory and 64Mbyte of Flash memory.
The PmPPC7448 features two Gigabit 10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet ports, which are routed to the PMC connector, and one 10/100BaseTX Ethernet port, which is routed to the module's front bezel.
The module also provides an I2C bus system management controller, two RS232 serial ports, eight GPIO lines, four 32bit counter/timers, a 32bit watchdog timer, and a four-channel DMA controller, which boosts overall performance by facilitating high-speed data movement between module resources without CPU intervention.
The KatanaQp and PmPPC7448 comply 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 KatanaQp and PmPPC7448 includes Wind River Systems' VxWorks 5.5 and Carrier Grade Linux.
The KatanaQp, equipped with a single MPC7448 processor and a four-channel Gigabit Ethernet fabric interface, sells in OEM quantities for $2400.
The PmPPC7448 costs $1200 in OEM quantities.
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