Mezzanine module boosts telecom processing power
By Warren Webb, Technical Editor -- EDN, May 17, 2006
Leveraging its expertise in dual-processor-mezzanine technology, Extreme Engineering Solutions recently announced the XPedite6240 AMC (advanced mezzanine card). Targeting high-performance-communications and networking applications, the module packs two Freescale (www.freescale.com) MPC7448 processors containing PowerPC cores with AltiVec technology onto a single-width card. With processor speeds as high as 1.7 GHz, the XPedite6240 includes a Marvell MV64460 system controller, 1 Gbyte of DDR SDRAM, 128 Mbytes of flash, dual gigabit-Ethernet ports, a serial port, and optional PCI Express or Ethernet fabric transports.
A key feature of the XPedite6240 is the possible processing density available to communications-equipment designers. For example, AdvancedTCA (Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture) blades provide as many as four AMC mezzanine slots, yielding as many as eight MPC7448 processors in one slot. For an even denser packaging option, designers can plug XPedite6240 directly into a MicroTCA backplane, using either a PCI Express or gigabit-Ethernet backplane connection. Board-support packages are available for Linux, Integrity, QNX, and VxWorks operating systems. Prices for XPedite6240 start at $3295 (one) and at less than $2000 (OEM quantities), depending on volume, memory, and processor configurations.
