Motorola Computer Group has announced a single board computer (SBC) with a VMEbus interface more than seven times faster than typical. The $3,995 (estimated) MVME6100 is expected to ship in May of 2004, with Linux and VxWorks board support packages.

Motorola says the SBC will be the first to take advantage of technology that bridges VMEbus to PCI-X, using the VMEbus two-edge source synchronous transfer (2eSST) protocol for data transfer rates above 300MB/s (typical VME64 rates are 40MB/s, Motorola says). Motorola claims the board will remain compatible with previous generations of VMEbus products, protecting investments in VMEbus technology.

Using the Tundra Tsi148 in 2eSST mode, the MVME6100 transfers data across the VMEbus at 320MB/s. The VMETRO Vanguard VMEbus 2eSST analyzer was used to measure burst transfer rates of 310MB/s and for sustained transfer rates of 300MB/s.

Motorola lists the following features for the MVME6100:

• Motorola MPC7457 1.3 GHz PowerPC(R) processor
• Tsi148 PCI-X bus to VMEbus bridge with 2eSST protocol for 320MB/s transfer rate across standard VMEbus
• 128-bit AltiVec coprocessor for vector processing
• Up to 2GB DDR ECC memory
• Two 64-bit PCI-X bus interfaces, one dedicated to 100 MHz PMC support and the other to the VMEbus bridge at 133 MHz
• Dual 64-bit, 33/66/100 MHz PMC-X expansion slot support
• Dual Gigabit Ethernet interfaces
• At release, the MVME6100 will be supported with a VxWorks board support package and a Linux support package

Dave Barker, product manager, Motorola Computer Group, said, “We've balanced the processing, memory, bus, and I/O subsystems to dramatically increase performance for VMEbus applications.”

 
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