Embedded Systems Design Europe - May 2008 - (Page 12)

news Small form factor boards head for SUMIT Details of an interface speciﬁcation aimed towards next generation, low power, expandable single board computers (SBCs) have been released. The SUMIT spec covers a mix of highbandwidth PCI Express lanes, USB ports, and lower speed multiplexed and serial buses which can be added to a variety of board form factors. SUMIT is an electromechanical connectorization speciﬁcation using two, 52-pin high-density (0.025-inch pitch) connectors with center ground blades for impedance, EMI, and dc ground return purposes. Each connector is optional depending on the target applications of a particular SBC. The Small Form Factor Special Interest Group (SFF-SIG) has released the details of the Express104 speciﬁcation. It deﬁnes a small stackable module form factor utilizing the SUMIT (stackable uniﬁed module interconnect technology) expansion interface. Express104 speciﬁes a 90mm x 96mm board with two 52-pin, highspeed connectors capable of supporting PCI Express and USB as well as other popular moderate speed interfaces for I/O expansion. It provides the basis for a stackable, I/O-centric, The SUMIT type A connector contains one PCI Express x1 lane, three USB ports with a global over-current signal, low pin count (LPC) bus for expansion serial ports and other legacy I/O, SPI/uWire, and a general-purpose I2C bus that is typically connected to SMBus for x86 chipsets. The lower speed buses are sen as enabling a smooth transition away from the long-standing ISA Bus for much of the embedded market that uses simple I/O for applications like switching on relays or low-rate data acquisition. The SUMIT type B connector adds another PCI Express x1 lane and a x4 lane, primarily for storage/RAID, multi-board solution that is processor architecture and chipset independent. On a single 52-pin high-speed SUMIT-A connector, the Express104 Speciﬁcation supports one x1 PCI Express lane, three high-speed USB 2.0 interfaces, low pin count bus, SPI/ uWire, SMBus/I_C Bus, and ExpressCard signals. A second identical 52-pin SUMITB connector supports one additional x1 PCI Express lane, one x4 PCI Express lane plus additional power, ground, and control signals. networking, video output or frame grabbers, high-speed acquisition, and scientiﬁc applications. There are three valid conﬁgurations known as SUMIT-A, SUMIT-B, and for both connectors, SUMIT-AB. Form factor details are distinct from the SUMIT connector and pinout details, and are therefore left to those respective speciﬁcations, for example Express104 and Pico-ITX form factors. SUMIT will work well with singlechip chipsets being released by several manufacturers for sub-10 Watt designs, and closely follows the trend of replacing parallel interfaces with high-speed serial interfaces. The total number of pins is 104 for both connectors and is referred to collectively as a SUMIT Type AB conﬁguration. Signal integrity test results demonstrate that a stack of Express104 modules will support data rates of 5 GT/s which is required for PCI Express Generation 2. Even though Express104 modules can be constructed with only SUMIT connectors, a special conﬁguration has been deﬁned to support expansion with PC/104 modules. Proﬁbus user org advances IO-link integration The Proﬁbus user organization has released the documents on the integration of IO-Link into the Proﬁbus ﬁeldbus system and the Ethernet standard Proﬁnet. The user organization claims the speciﬁcations released form the basis to further propagate IO-Link in Proﬁbus and Proﬁnet systems. Since the initial release of the IOLink PHY layer and protocol, almost all relevant sensor manufacturers as well as many manufacturers of I/O modules have rolled out IO-Link products. Now the release of the integration docu12 ments provides an open approach to integrate the interface into Proﬁbus and Proﬁnet systems, the user group says. The Physical Layer and the protocol speciﬁcation of IO-Link are completely independent of Proﬁbus and Proﬁnet. Thus, IO-Link can be subordinated to all Ethernet-based ﬁeldbus systems. Only the integration takes place under the consideration of ﬁeldbus-speciﬁc aspects. Works to integrate IO-Link into additional ﬁeldbus systems are already under way, as well as the deﬁnition of an appropriate independent de- vice description for IO-Link (IO Device Description, IODD). With a broader basis to integrate different ﬁeldbus systems, the Proﬁbus user group is optimistic to further gain acceptance. According to a recent study, currently there is an installed base of 1.14 million Proﬁnet nodes. At the opportunity of the speciﬁcations release, Proﬁnet deputy chairman Joerg Freitag said he expects the installed base to reach 3 million nodes by the end of 2010 which would be equivalent to an average annual increase of 37 percent. MAY 2008 | embedded systems design europe | www.embedded.com/europe http://www.embedded.com/europe

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Embedded Systems Design Europe - May 2008 Contents Microsoft Provides Embedded Roadmap Enea Buys Developers Irish Start-Up Raises Funds for Telecom FPGAs Kontron Promotes COM Express Nano Mentor Nucleus Platform Provides UI for Atmel Small Form Factor Boards Head for the SUMIT Proffibus Advances IO-Link Integration Embedded Developers Cautious on Multicore Auto Cooperation Improves Test Altera Launches DO-254 Partner Network Building an ‘Instant-Up’ Real-Time Operating Systems An Architecture for Reusable Embedded Systems Software Free up Bandwidth in PCI Express Evaluating Software in Medical Devices Circuit Sensitivity in Analog Circuits Choosing Flash Memory New Products Advertising Contacts

Embedded Systems Design Europe - May 2008

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