An Intro to AdvancedTCA (PICMG 3.x)

PICMG is embarking on its largest and most aggressive effort ever, the AdvancedTCA (Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture) specification. Formerly known as PICMG 3.x, the core specification PICMG 3.0 currently contains three sub-specifications. PICMG 3.1 is the specification for Ethernet and is similar in background to the PICMG 2.16 specification. PICMG 3.2 is for Infiniband and PICMG 3.3 is for StarFabric implementation.

The specification is positioned towards the $200 billion and growing telco carrier grade market. Particularly in telecom central offices, the industry currently tends to use large, heavy layer-count, and powerful custom telecom backplanes (see a few Bustronic examples). The overall system is geared to be NEBS (Network Equipment Building Systems) compliant. A NEBS compliant product generally implies that it has been tested to GR-63 for environmental and GR-1089 for the EMI/EMC and safety. (-more-)

There is a newly proposed backplane standard to bring serial switched signals through the P0 connector of a VME64x backplane - the VXS Backplane. The idea has bounced around for a while to have optical or high-speed copper interconnects over P0. New high-speed serial connectors are being proposed for the P0 connector, such as one dubbed "Rolling Thunder" from Tyco Electronics. It's not yet clear what competing connector manufacturers will propose. (-more-)