Creative Electronic Systems and industry deliver VPX in a small form factor

PHOENIX, 19 Jan. 2015. VNX, the new VITA 74 standard, is essentially VPX in a smaller form factor, explains Bill Ripley, who oversees business development, product management, and engineering at Creative Electronic Systems (CES) in Switzerland.

The VNX standard is electrically identical to VPX, but a significantly smaller form factor and intended to augment, rather than replace, VPX products, Ripley continues. There is a need to shrink designs down, Ripley admits, given the growth of system on chip (SoC) solutions.

VNX is delivered in two different-sized modules: 19-millimeter modules (for single-board computers, software-defined radio, graphics and video, FPGA processors, and complex input/output (I/O) cards) and 12.5-millimeter modules (traditionally used for I/O, GPS/IMU/SAASM, and storage and memory).

VNX is not a system standard, however, Ripley says. That is, cards can go in any form factor enclosure, cards can be used in conjunction with other standards, and boxes do not have to look like a “cube,” he says.

The VPX connector is proprietary and fairly expensive, whereas the VNX connector is roughly one-tenth of the cost of VPX. It is less expensive and available from multiple suppliers, Ripley says. VPX is 3U in size, whereas VNX is roughly half (50 percent) the size of a 3U module.