Bridge speeds VME throughput

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Jun 18, 2003

Thales Computers has completed extensive bus-load testing and has documented 200Tbyte of data exchange for its SBC products employing the company's 2eSST implementation on a standard VME backplane.

Thales Computers has completed extensive bus-load testing and has documented 200Tbyte of data exchange for its SBC products employing the company's 2eSST implementation on a standard VME backplane.

The testing involved the Alma 2eSST PCI/VME bridge codesigned by Thales Computers and IBM on a variety of Thales Computers boards over a several week timeframe and in various configurations.

VME racks populated with Thales Computers' newest VME 2eSST boards, as well as legacy VME products, were used to successfully exchange over 200Tbyte of data on various backplane and system configurations.

Datarates up to 240Mbyte/s were measured on 2Kbyte buffer transfers.

Tom Hall, Thales Computers President said: "We are very pleased with the outcome of these tests.

Providing such a promising and powerful technology to the market so soon is a big achievement.

It is also truly in the spirit of the VME Renaissance as this leading edge feature remains totally compatible with all existing VME systems, allowing users to gradually improve their systems.

Many of our customers have already acknowledged the potent technology insertion capabilities of 2eSST for the VME world and have started to use our newest products." Two Thales Computers processor boards currently implement the company's Alma 2eSST PCI/VME bridge.

The PowerEngine7 SBC is a highly integrated COTS solution with single or dual PowerPC 750X processor at 733MHz now and 1GHz shortly as well as 1600 Dhrystones 2.1 MIPS, while draining only 14W of power across the entire board.

The VxG4c series of high-end 6U VME computing nodes also features the Alma 2eSST bridge, as well as dual or quad MPC7410 (G4) PowerPC processors with AltiVec vector processing units.

Both these Thales Computers boards can be used to build highly efficient board-to-board communication schemes.

For the small- to medium-sized systems that represent the majority of deployed VME systems, the use of the Alma 2eSST bridge provides a no-cost alternative to the expensive high-speed technologies available to VME users today.