OpenVPX: Architectures for High-Performance Embedded Computing

The VME form factor, as defined by a number of VITA standard specifications, has served the embedded computing industry very well over many years. It has provided a common environment in which components from different vendors could be quickly assembled into systems for a large range of benign and rugged deployed environments. However, by the early 2000s the base technologies used in VME were beginning to show their limits. VME could not support the ever-increasing >1 Gbaud signaling that the industry was moving towards. VXS (VITA 41) extended VME by adding some high-speed signaling, but there was a desire within the industry to break with backward compatibility with the VME form factor, in order to dramatically increase the number of high-speed pins in the backplane. In addition, such a break allowed the standardization of airand conduction-cooled variants, as well as the introduction of a 3U form factor, increased board pitches, and 2-level maintenance features sought after by lead system integrators. The desire, therefore, was to make a “VME infrastructure for the future,” and thus VPX (VITA 46) was born.