Embedded Planet is readying a PowerQUICC III development board that can function as a ProcessorPMC module in CompactPCI telecom equipment, or operate standalone using a supplied wall-cube adapter. The EP85xxM targets communications, mil/aero, medical, and industrial applications, and will ship in Q3 with a Linux BSP.

(Click for larger view of EP85xxM)

The EP85xxM can be configured as a standalone single board computer with the included power supply, or as a PrPMC/PT4MC (PICMG 2.15, Configuration 4) module for use in CompactPCI telecommunication applications. Embedded Planet says that the EP85xxM's standalone operation capabilities can give engineers a jumpstart and provide a smooth transition to a production environment.

The EP85xxM supports up to 256MB of Flash, 512MB of SDRAM, and 512KB of NVRAM. The board has two Gigabit Ethernet ports and a serial port, all brought to RJ-45 connectors.

EP85xxM ProcessorPMC module diagram
The EP85xxM supports Freescale PowerQUICC III processors that include the MPC8540, MPC8541E, MPC8555E, and MPC8560, clocked up to 833MHz.

PowerQUICC III processors are based on e500 PowerPC cores with 256KB of L2 cache, and scalability up to 1GHz. They have integral communications processor modules with dedicated interfaces, to offload low-level commmunication tasks from the primary processor. The MPC8555E and MPC8541E also feature dedicated on-chip security engines, to offload security processing.

Embedded Planet's VP of sales and marketing, Matt Hoover, said, “Freescale's PowerQUICC III line provides a highly scalable and performance oriented platform for advanced networking applications.”

Freescale's PowerQUICC III product marketing manager, Lakshmi Mandyam, said, “We are pleased to also offer the Embedded Planet solution as a part of our QUICCstart series of evaluation boards."

Availability

The EP85xxM will ship in Q3, 2005, with wall cube power adapter, serial and Ethernet cables, and Linux and VxWorks BSPs, source code, precompiled images, build tools, and documentation. The board can also be customized for specific requirements, such as extended temperature range, Embedded Planet says.

---

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.