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General Micro Systems Announces Industry's Fastest Mil/Aero Single-Board Computer

Hyperthreaded, Dual-Processor VME64 SBC Provides High-Resolution Tri-Channel Video for Mil/Aero Command, Control, and Display

January 12, 2004
Rancho Cucamonga

General Micro Systems, a leading supplier of VMEbus and CompactPCI board-level products and systems, today announced the V269, the industry's fastest VME64 single-board computer. Featuring a pair of hyperthreaded Pentium IV Xeon processors, the V269 provides a high-resolution tri-channel video subsystem and utilizes a four-port switched fabric hub to achieve an aggregate I/O bandwidth of more than 10 Gbyte/sec. The V269 is also available with up to 16 Mbytes of DRAM, three Ethernet ports, eight USB ports, Ultra Wide SCSI 160/320, PMC expansion and two 800-Mbyte/sec FireWire 1394B ports.

"The V269 is tailor made for applications like UAVs, radar, and sonar that need to combine high-speed data processing with multiple high-resolution command and control displays," said Ben Sharfi, president of General Micro Systems. "The V269's dual Pentium Processors, triple video, dual 1394B FireWire, three Ethernet, and eight USB channels, together with its switched fabric architecture, give it unequaled processing, I/O, and video performance."

The V269's socketable Xeon-LP processors, part of Intel's Embedded Roadmap (five-year minimum life cycle), currently operate at 2.4 GHz, and can be replaced with faster parts (3.0 GHz expected in the near term) as they become available. The two processors employ hyperthreading, which boosts performance by making each processor look like two processors to the Windows XP operating system. The two processors are equipped with 512 kbytes of on-die L2 cache and a 533-MHz Front Side Bus, and consume 50% less power than their desktop counterparts.

The V269's Hub-Link memory controller uses a four-port switched fabric to eliminate traditional PCI bottlenecks, giving the CPUs high-speed access to key memory, mass storage, I/O, multimedia, and networking subsystems. The Hub-Link controller provides dedicated point-to-point connections between the CPUs and key subsystems (each operating at 2.4 Gbyte/sec), eliminating the overhead associated with shared PCI access .

The two CPUs access the controller via a common 533-MHz Front Side Bus. The hub's first port connects to a 128-bit-wide memory bus, which provides no-wait-state access to 16 Gbytes of DDR SDRAM. The second port connects directly to a dual PCI-X controller, which provides high-speed access to two Gigabit Ethernet ports, UltraWide SCSI, and the VME64 bus. The third port provides access to system I/O functions like USB, video, and IDE mass storage. The fourth port connects to a 4-Gbyte/sec SAM-III (Special Application Module) I/O expansion bus, which provides access to custom external I/O, networking, multimedia, and networking modules.

 The V269 features the industry's most versatile three-channel command and control video display subsystem. The two ATI channels, each providing a resolution of 2048 x 1536 with 2D/3D rendering capability, may be ganged (through Windows XP or Linux) to support a contiguous 4096 x 1536 display spanning side-by-side monitors. This capability is invaluable for mil-aero applications like radar, sonar and Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles, which require an ultra-high-resolution tactical display. The V269 also provides a third video channel (VGA), which is ideal for displaying lower resolution command and control data.

The V269's two high-resolution ATI video channels are implemented on an optional workstation I/O card, which mounts flush with the board. The card attaches directly to the V269's four-port memory controller (Hub-Link) via the SAM-III bus. This dedicated connection boosts video performance by enabling data transfers between the CPUs, memory, and the video subsystem to occur without having to access the PCI bus. The V269's two FireWire ports, also implemented on the workstation I/O card, enable designers to stream full-motion (30 fps), high-resolution video from cameras, recorders, and other video devices.

The V269 provides two 10/100/1000 Base-Tx Gigabit Ethernet channels. These channels can be accessed via standard RJ45 jacks for standard LAN operation. They can also be routed to the backplane for Ethernet Packet Switched Backplane (PICMG 2.16), which facilitates Ethernet backplane communications between multiple boards or chassis. The V269 also provides a third 10/100 Base-TX Ethernet interface, which is ideal for use as an external debug or control interface.

The V269 comes standard with an IDE DMA-133 port. A second IDE DMA-133 port is available on the V269's workstation module. Both ports can be used to provide a wide range of mass storage options, including an external or onboard 2.5-inch, 100-Gbyte hard drive, or an integrated 20-Mbyte flash drive. To support diskless operation, the V269 also provides 64 Mbytes of Disk-On-Chip flash memory.

The V269 comes standard with four USB ports. Four additional higher speed USB 2.0 ports are available on the workstation module. The workstation module also provides a PMC site, which can be used to mount a single PMC module, or configured with a triple-PMC expansion interface that accepts up to three PMC modules. GMS and partners will also

The V269's health monitoring system complies with the PICMG Baseboard Management standard, which defines a standard protocol for managing and reporting key system parameters such as processor temperature, on-board voltages, and fan speed. To optimize cooling performance, the V269 provides separate variable speed control circuits for each of its fans, complete with a separate tachometer

The V269 can be used with standard VME64 backplanes, implements the full VITA VMEbus extensions, supports 16-, 32-, and 64-bit VMEbus transfers, and can act as a master or slave with full Slot One system control functionality.

Software support for the V269 includes Windows XP, Solaris x86, Linux.

For more information on the V269 such as price and availability, please contact General Micro Systems, Inc. at 8358 Maple Place, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730. Phone: (909) 980-4863. Fax: (909) 987-4863. E-mail: info@gms4sbc.com. World Wide Web site: www.gms4sbc.com