PMC format brings InfiniBand to embedded world

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Nov 10, 2003

The IB4X-PMC-2 is the first InfiniBand host channel adapter to be provided on a PCI mezzanine card, bringing the advantages of high-speed InfiniBand technology to the world of embedded computing.

The IB4X-PMC-2 is the first InfiniBand host channel adapter to be provided on a PCI mezzanine card, bringing the advantages of high-speed InfiniBand technology to the world of embedded computing.

Each of its two 4x InfiniBand channels offers 20Gbit/s bandwidth - 10Gbit/s in each direction - and low CPU usage.

The PMC HCA is ideal for embedded applications that need a high-speed low-latency data mover.

"With the introduction of an HCA on a PMC, InfiniBand technology truly enters the realm of embedded computing", said Bill Molyneux, Vice President of SBS' General Purpose I/O Products.

"We combined the performance of Mellanox's second-generation InfiniHost chip with the features needed for embedded applications, including PMC form factor, strong management software, and support for several application protocols".

"SBS' new PMC host channel adapter is the right product for the embedded market", said Kevin Deierling, Vice President of Product Marketing for Mellanox.

"Offering a link to PMC moves InfiniBand technology into the open systems embedded market and provides a high speed interconnect technology that can be easily integrated into military, medical, avionics, broadcasting and telecommunication applications".

With dual 20Gbit/s 4x InfiniBand ports, the IB4X-PMC-2 HCA is a second-generation product designed to take advantage of the full performance of high-speed InfiniBand fabrics in embedded environments.

Based on Mellanox InfiniHost silicon, this board is capable of full wire speed transmissions over InfiniBand links.

It also fully supports RDMA transfers, which reduce CPU overhead and free host processors for application use.

In addition, this HCA includes application support for Sockets Direct Protocol (SDP), Internet Protocol over InfiniBand (IPoIB) to enable TCP/IP to run over InfiniBand links, and SCSI Remote Protocol (SRP) initiator to enable storage area networking.

The IB4X-PMC-2 HCA can handle a 32 or 64bit PCIbus with frequencies of 33 or 66MHz and PCI-X bus frequencies of 66, 100 or 133MHz.

It comes with 128Mbyte of high-speed DDR memory and features sophisticated quality of service at each port to manage performance levels.

A Linux driver for RedHat Linux 7.3 is included with the hardware.