Mercury Computer Systems is sampling what it claims to be the first AMC (advanced mezzanine card) based on Intel's Core Duo processor. Mercury also says its AXA-100, which is available with Linux, “doubles the compute resource available in an AMC form factor.”

(Click for larger view of AXA-100)

The AXA-100 is a single-width, full-height AMC module intended to be used in AdvancedTCA or MicroTCA systems. The company says that AMC modules are becoming “one of the main foundations upon which communications equipment providers are building their systems.”

The AXA-100 is based on the L2400 model in Intel's line of Core Duo chips. Clocked at 1.66GHz, the chip features 2MB of on-die cache, and a processor bus speed of 667MHz.

AXA-100 system diagram
(Click to enlarge)
Additional touted AXA-100 features include:

• Up to 4GB of single-channel registered DDR2-400 SDRAM with ECC
• Dual XAUI (10 attachment unit interface) interfaces implemented “using Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGAs in the FAT pipes region on the AMC.1/AMC.2-compliant fabric interface,” Mercury says
• A four-lane non-transparent PCI Express interface
• 2 x 1000Base-BX Ethernet ports
• 2 x Serial ATA interfaces provided in the “common options” region

The AXA-100's front-panel I/O
According to Lance Turner, GM of modular products at Mercury, “Coupling an Intel Core Duo processor with a Virtex-4 FPGA results in a unique AMC offering, as it provides both general-purpose and highly specialized processing capability.”

Steve Grah, strategic accounts manager at Intel, stated, “The use of the 3100 chipset allows for the coupling of processing performance with high-bandwidth fabric interface options, all in a single-wide AMC.”

Availability

The AXA-100 Intel Core Duo Advanced Mezzanine Card is sampling now, with production quantities deliverable in six to eight weeks, according to the company. Pricing was not disclosed.

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