Posted by John Keller
FREMONT, Calif., 5 March 2010. Elma Bustronic Corp. in Fremont, Calif., is introducing a two-slot test backplane for VPX board developers and integrators. The two-slot test backplane, designed to VITA 46 specifications, enables the user to power up and test J1 fabric connections as if he were interconnected in the target application.
Signals can be passed from one slot to the next via high speed interconnect cables, via signals introduced through the J1 fabric connector, or accessed on the J1 fabric connector using the test backplane's SMA and SATA cable headers.
The test backplane accepts 6U cards with the 3U card size supported by use of a shelf divider. For convenience in attaching probes, the slot pitch is 1.6 inches. The VPX test backplane solves a signal access issue with VPX systems that use rear transition module (RTM) boards. VPX cards are usually developed together with an RTM module that does not access the J1 fabric signals. In conventional designs, an engineer cannot probe these J1 fabric signals while using the device under test's (DUT) RTM module to access other IO signals.
The Bustronic solution enables the primary J1 fabric signals to be accessed and connected without interfering with the use of an existing RTM module for J2-J6 IO connector signals. Custom backplanes often must interconnect the primary fabric signals between several VPX blades for a specific application. The VPX test backplane enables the user to interconnect two or more such blades before investing the time or expense of a custom VPX backplane.
Additional two-slot test backplanes can be used in a large chassis to interconnect the J1 primary fabric in any serial topology. The A channel input using SMA cables accepts data moving as quickly as 10 gigabits per second; the B, C, and D channel inputs using the SATA II connectors accept data moving as quickly as 3.125 gigabits per second.
There are eight power studs for VS1, VS2_A, VS2_B, VS3, and 4 GND as well as fastons for 3.3 volt, +/- 12 volt, and VBAT. There are also two 5-pin IPMB headers for SMB-0 and SMB-1. For more information contact Elma Bustronic online at www.bustronic.com.
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