San Diego, CA — (press release excerpt) — General Micro Systems announced a new VMEbus-to-PCI bridge chip, the OmniVME, which implements the full VME 2eSST/VME320 protocols. Fully compliant with the VITA (VMEbus Interface Trade Association) specifications, OmniVME supports VMEbus transfer rates of over 533 MB/sec.

“VMEbus has always enjoyed a substantial advantage over CompactPCI in applications like telecommunications that require a large number of slots, advanced multiprocessing capability, and sophisticated interrupt control facilities,” said Ben Sharfi, president of GMS. “But reduced throughput and high cost have been obstacles. OmniVME obliterates those obstacles and breathes new life into VMEbus, providing a ten-fold increase in VMEbus transfer rates, alleviating PCI-to-VME bottlenecks, and providing a high level of integration that makes it possible to manufacture VMEbus boards that are on a price par with CompactPCI boards.”

To simplify system integration, OmniVME comes with full driver support for Linux, Windows NT, and VxWorks. The chip is packaged in a 672 pin BGA and will be available in Q1 2001.

 
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