PMC carrier frees cards from PCI restrictions

The StarReach PMC carrier card breaks the traditional restrictions of how PMCs are employed in systems.

The StarReach PMC carrier card extends Dy 4's StarFabric switched interconnect technology by allowing high-performance I/O modules to be easily incorporated into a network of processors, breaking the traditional restrictions of how PMCs are employed in systems.

StarReach is a StarFabric-based PMC carrier, conforming to the 6U VME form factor standard.

It provides sites for two PMC modules, each with a separate 64bit, 66MHz PCI interface.

StarReach connects with the network via four StarFabric links, which in total can sustain over 1Gbyte/s of data throughput.

StarReach has more than seven times the bandwidth of competing tightly coupled 32bit/33MHz PCI carriers - enough to support the highest throughput PMCs on the market.

Performance scales directly with each additional StarReach card, supporting systems with very large I/O bandwidth requirements, such as signal intelligence, software defined radio, radar and sonar applications.

A system can have hundreds of StarReach cards.

Unlike a PCI-based carrier where all data transfers are controlled by a single host on a single PCIbus, the StarReach carrier communicates through a StarFabric switched interconnect network.

Any node on the network can receive this data.

Being relieved of dedicating PMCs to a specific host, StarReach allows designers to treat I/O devices as "just another node" on the network, creating a more flexible, distributed system architecture.

With I/O decoupled from processing, it is easier to design systems with clean partitioning between the two.

This has advantages for future system upgrades, as common practice is to upgrade processors at a faster rate than I/O subsystems.

"StarReach opens up large systems opportunities for Dy 4," said Robert Hoyecki, Product Manager for Dy 4's DSP product team.

"We now have an I/O solution to match the compute and network performance we've attained with the Champ PowerPC products." The StarFabric interface allows StarReach cards to be placed up to 12m away from the host, compared with only a few tens of centimetres for PCI.

The product enables sensitive analogue to digital convertors to be mounted far away from noisy processors, in remote enclosures if desired.

Similarly, StarReach helps designers struggling to cool high-power PMCs that previously needed to be colocated with hot processor boards.

StarReach is available in a configuration with dual Race++ interfaces.

This enables designers to incorporate legacy I/O products based on the Race++ standard or upgrade existing Race++ systems.

StarReach is available now in commercial and rugged air-cooled and conduction-cooled versions.

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