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.

Similar to the PICMG 3.x core spec, VXS would likely have separate proposals for the different switched fabric technologies. Initially there are proposals for both Infiniband(TM) and Serial RapidIO, with 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 3GIO links reserved. Further, the technology is expected to be fully backward compatible with the VMEbus technology and Eurocard form factor, with a standard 6U height, 160mm card depth, and most likely .8" spacing. Existing VMEbus cards would be able to plug into the proposed VXS backplane.

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