Telecomms blade gains switched fabric interface

An Emerson Network Power Embedded Computing product story

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Feb 1, 2007

High-speed switched fabric interface provides dual 10-Gigabit Ethernet channels for accessing the ATCA High-Speed Fabric.

Emerson Network Power's new Embedded Computing business, formerly Artesyn Communication Products, has announced a new high-speed switched fabric interface for its KAT4000 AdvancedTCA (ATCA) telecomms blade.

The enhanced interface provides dual 10-Gigabit Ethernet channels for accessing the ATCA High-Speed Fabric.

"The KAT4000's new 10Gbit switched fabric makes it ideal for packet-based telecom infrastructure applications requiring high data throughput", said Todd Wynia, Vice President of Product Management for Emerson's new Embedded Computing business.

"The KAT4000's high-speed ATCA interface, four AdvancedMC sites and integrated system management make it easy to configure for a broad range of telecom infrastructure applications, including radio network controllers, media gateways, traffic processing, and softswitches".

The KAT4000 is a configurable, PICMG 3.1 (Option 9) ATCA blade that can accommodate up to four AdvancedMC modules.

To maximise system throughput and flexibility, the KAT4000 provides separate control/management and data planes, each with its own independent switching capability and ATCA fabric connection.

The control/management plane, available with an optional Freescale 8548 management processor complex, uses separate gigabit Ethernet and PCI Express switches to connect each AdvancedMC site to the ATCA base fabric.

The KAT4000's data plane uses gigabit Ethernet (one channel per site) to connect each AdvancedMC site to an onboard switch, and dual 10Gbit/s Ethernet channels to link the switch with ATCA's 10Gbit/s High Speed Fabric.

The KAT4000 features a PICMG 3.0 Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI version 1.5 with ATCA extensions), which extends to each AdvancedMC site.

This interface, incorporating dual I2C-based Intelligent Platform Management Buses (IPMB), enhances system management by making it easy for shelf management controllers to monitor, control and exchange management with the KAT4000 and its AdvancedMC modules.

Software support for the KAT4000 includes Carrier Grade Linux.