Mezzanine boards tailored for infrastructure programs

Kontron has introduced the XMC-ETH2 mezzanine board, which enables all VPX, VME, CompactPCI and custom boards offering a PMC or XMC slot to be extended by two Gigabit Ethernet interfaces that can be individually routed to the front or to the backplane.

Kontron XMC-ETH2 is equipped with Intel 82571 dual channel Ethernet controller to offer best possible data throughput. The mezzanine board comes in two versions: air-cooled (Standard Commercial (SA)) or conduction-cooled (Rugged Conduction Cooled Version (RC)) in order to suit the individual needs of different system environments.

With a dedicated long term supply (LTS) program, customers can enjoy over 10 years of guaranteed supply, making the Kontron XMC-ETH2 a well-suited Ethernet mezzanine for infrastructure programs. Typical application areas can be found in markets such as medical, transportation, military, aerospace, energy and automation.

Owing to the fact that the mezzanine board supports both XMC and PMC extension slots, it can be used universally in different system designs. Designed as a plug-and-play solution, the Ethernet mezzanine board automatically selects the data bus according to whether the power supply is present on the P5 connector (x4 PCIe).

Otherwise, it switches to 32 bit PCI 33MHz or 66MHz on the PMC connectors. An integrated micro DIP switch allows for manual override of the host bus selection. Another micro DIP switch controls Ethernet channel routing to the front panel (RJ-45) or to the backplane (P4). Each channel can be routed separately.

The XMC-ETH2 supports Linux, VxWorks and Windows XP and is available now. The SA version operates in a temperature range of 0°C to 55°C (VITA 47-Class AC1), the RC version operates in the extended temperature range of -40°C to +85°C (VITA 47-Class CC4).

- Julien Happich
EE Times Europe

For application notes and technical articles on mezzanine boards, visit Embedded Design India.