Elma Electronic has released a new 3U 12-slot backplane that aligns with The Open Group Sensor Open Systems Architecture™ (SOSA) Technical Standard 1.0. The backplane is an update to Elma’s original CMOSS reference backplane supporting the U.S. Army’s latest open standards requirements. The new 3U OpenVPX backplane offers a mix of plug-in card slots that enable complex, high speed signal processing and system development, supporting up to 100 Gigabit Ethernet.
The SOSA aligned backplane supports high speed signals on all the data paths as well as incorporates leading-edge VITA 67.3 connectors compatible with legacy VITA 67.1 and VITA 66.4 RF and optical I/O connectors. In addition to providing the latest optical fiber and RF connectivity, the backplane features precision network timing (PNT) plus the integration of mixed payload modules including SBCs, switches, radial clocks and system expansion.
Ken Grob, director of Embedded Computing Development, said, “Our new backplane aligned to SOSA establishes the foundation for system development of high-performance mission-critical C5ISR and EW systems based on a common, modular architecture that lowers lifecycle costs, allows rapid technology insertion and enables complex, high speed signal processing.”
The full featured CMOSS reference backplane offers a range of OpenVPX slot profiles aligned with the SOSA technical reference standard. The backplane provides a dual domain architecture, supporting MORA, ML2B and Victory Messaging. Ideal uses include MOSA aligned open standards-based military computing systems that require critical high speed data communications, necessary for sensor-based systems.
The backplane can handle the highest data rates possible with Expansion Plane links supporting PCIe Gen 4, and optionally 100GBASE-KR4, while Data & Control Planes links support 100GBASE-KR4 and 25GBASE-KR respectively. It features two switch slots, a PNT timing slot, nine payload slots and two VITA 62 PSU slots.
When the backplane is equipped with optical interfaces, the VPX architecture now supports higher overall bandwidths by augmenting the copper interconnects, allowing multiple fiber optic interfaces per slot. This greatly increases the overall connectivity providing additional data paths for system designers. The VPX optical interface ensures that this backplane will be able to meet future bandwidth requirements.
The backplane includes two I/O-intensive SBC slots, while the nine payload slots can support RF payload, GPGPU and compute intensive SBCs. Maintenance ports, AUX CLK, REF CLK and GPIO signals are routed to headers allowing for outside connection. The backplane also routes IPMB A and B interfaces to support connection to an external VITA 46.11 Chassis Manager. The backplane is included in the SOSA 1.0 reference guide for integrators as a reference 3U backplane example for larger systems.
Elma’s products aligned to the SOSA Technical Standard 1.0 strive to follow the defense industry’s hardware and software convergence initiatives per the DOD’s convergence initiative as laid out in the MOSA mandate.
Pricing and delivery are dependent upon configuration.