Embedded board powerhouse Kontron is demonstrating MicroTCA (Micro Telecom Computing Architecture) technology, at the RTS Embedded Systems trade show in Paris, France this week. The company touts MicroTCA as a means of furthering open hardware standards in telecom infrastructure, as well as medical and industrial imaging,… defense communications, and other industries requiring intensive, high I/O processing in small, cost-efficient footprints.

MicroTCA is a relatively new specification within the AdvancedTCA (ATCA) standard, which is maintained by PICMG. PICMG will ratify the MicroTCA standard soon, Kontron says.

In the spirit of ATCA, MicroTCA defines how to build reliable, scalable, and interoperable systems from commodity computer parts. Whereas full ATCA systems are rather large and expensive, MicroTCA systems have a “smaller and more economical footprint,” Kontron says, with a backplane that accepts “AdvancedMC” (advanced mezzanine card) modules instead of full processor blades. Kontron already ships a number of AdvancedMC modules, it says, such as the “AM4001” models depicted above.

AdvancedTCA features that are carried through to MicroTCA include hot-swap support, autonomous system management, and switched fabric functionality, Kontron says. The company's MicroTCA demo at the RTS show supports PCI-Express, it says, and embodies its goal of leveraging its existing modular, open standards-based platforms to help drive MicroTCA adoption.

Kontron lists potential applications for MicroTCA systems that include:

• BTS (Base Transceiver Station)/Node B in the cell phone infrastructure, directly managing the control and communications tasks behind every cellular network antenna
• VoIP gateways for low-cost cell phone telecommunications over IP from the Base Transceiver Station
• IEEE 802.16-compliant WiMAX solutions, which no longer require a dedicated line of sight for wireless communications but rather offer wireless access in a range of up to 3 km (1.8 miles) in urban areas
• IP-PBX (IP-based Private Branch Exchange) enterprise systems, providing physical IP WAN dial-up connections to subscribers connected in a star configuration
• MTU NGDLCs (Multi-Tenant Unit Next-Generation Digital Loop Carriers), enabling new telecom applications to be transferred via existing copper lines
• DSLAMs (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers), which concentrate several dedicated xDSL dial-in connections to optimize the network load and lie on the interface between the access layer and the aggregation layer

Simon Stanley, principal consultant at Earlswood Marketing, stated, “MicroTCA will be used in a wide range of applications, across the telecom, military, medical and industrial markets, that require the carrier class capabilities of AdvancedTCA on a smaller platform. The first MicroTCA systems [will become] available during 2007.”

ABI, a research firm that follows the telecom infrastructure market, said last summer that MicroTCA and related standards aimed at smaller, cost-conscious vendors will greatly accelerate the adoption of ATCA, which it described as “still in its infancy.” ABI expects about a quarter of UMTS (3.5G) infrastructure to use the ATCA standard, by 2010.

A rise in AdvancedTCA and associated open hardware standards would also likely result in increased deployments of Carrier Grade Linux, considered to be an analogous open software standard. An interesting whitepaper from Intel on this subject is available here.

Kontron employs about 2,300 people, worldwide, it says.

 
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