6U Backplanes for CompactPCI® Serial

2011-11-23, Christian Ganninger

To satisfy the different requirements of systems in the market, CompactPCI® has defined two board heights, 3U and 6U. In CompactPCI® the electrical interface is accommodated in the 3U space. The expansion to 6U was defined in order to offer the user added value. This provides, for example, more than twice the amount of space on the board for the electronics. The front panels of the 6U front boards and of the rear transition modules are also larger and thus allow a far larger number of front and rear I/O interfaces. Additionally, PICMG has defined additional buses in a number of sub-specifications in the 6U space, for example PSB or H.110, which can be used in parallel to the CompactPCI® bus.

CompactPCI® Serial has adopted this CompactPCI® concept and optimised it further. In CompactPCI® Serial the electrical interface is again accommodated in the 3U space. To improve signal integrity and reduce costs, the rear I/O signals are no longer passed through the backplane, but instead the front and rear transition boards are inserted directly into one another in the 6U space. This also means that the user is not tied to a defined connector but can choose the one that best suits the application. Low-speed, high-speed and optical connectors are possible.

The user-specific signals can also be passed between the boards in the backplane. In this case the CompactPCI® Serial connector is also used in the 6U space. It is of course possible that future CompactPCI® Serial sub-specifications will define standardised interfaces in this space.

To allow for the higher power demands of 6U boards, additional power pins have been defined for 6U backplanes; with these, 165 W capacity can be provided for each 6U CompactPCI® Serial slot. For telecommunications applications, an additional four 48V pins are defined.


Figure 1: CompactPCI® Serial 6U front and rear board

Christian Ganninger, Global Category Manager Systems EMEA, Schroff® / Pentair Technical Products

German version on ElektronikPraxis: 6HE-Backplanes für CompactPCI Serial

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