CompactPCI® Serial and Rear I/O

2009-03-05, Andreas Lenkisch

CompactPCI® Serial is a new standardisation project by the PCI Industrial Manufacturers Group (PICMG) that defines a successor architecture for the CompactPCI® bus.

The principal features of this project are:

• the introduction of the serial interface currently provided by chipsets, such as PCIe®, USB, SATA and Ethernet,


• the development of a low-cost architecture that will also give former IPC users access to this robust and modular world,


• the creation of a flexible architecture that provides the appropriate infrastructure for a wide range of application situations without high cost overheads, and


• the retaining of the CompactPCI® ecosystem by creating a soft migration path from CompactPCI® to CompactPCI® Serial.

CompactPCI® Serial naturally also supports rear I/O.

The peripheral CompactPCI® Serial slot now requires only a small connector with 6 rows of contacts for power and signals. The remainder of the single-height euroboard remains free for user-defined I/O and offers 128 differential contact pairs or 384 contacts in total. This is significantly more than in 32-bit CompactPCI®.

In 6U systems with double-height euroboards the entire upper section of the euroboard remains, as with CompactPCI®, available for user-defined I/O. The new solution however features some substantial advantages.

While in CompactPCI® both boards, front and rear, were linked via the backplane, in the new architecture both boards are inserted directly into one another. This does away with both a multilayered backplane in the I/O area and also the transfer connector onto it. Not only does this reduce costs; it also makes the system more flexible. There is no prescribed connector; this can be selected freely to suit economic and technical requirements.

In mechanical terms everything remains as previously; as before, the large building blocks of 19" technology can be used.


CompactPCI® Serial 3U with rear I/O


CompactPCI® Serial 6U with rear I/O


Andreas Lenkisch, Principal Engineer Backplanes, Schroff® GmbH, Straubenhardt, Germany

German version on ElektronikPraxis: CompactPCI Plus und Rear I/O

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