Rodger Hosking
Pentek

The VMEbus, well into the third decade of its extensive development, continues to be the dominant bus structure for high-performance embedded systems. In an industry characterized by a steady succession of new device offerings, the VMEbus has retained this leadership position, not only because it is based on sound electrical and mechanical architecture, but primarily because of a successful series of performance and feature enhancements.

In a similar venue, the PMC mezzanine card has become the dominant architecture for mezzanine I/O in VMEbus-based embedded systems. When VXS, a proposal for standardizing gigabit serial switched fabrics shook the embedded community as part of the VMEbus renaissance, the development of XMC, a natural extension of that technology to PMC modules, was inevitable.

This handbook reviews the development of gigabit switched serial fabrics designed to enhance the VMEbus and PMC mezzanines. It discusses the role of FPGAs in implementing this technology, and explains how some of the latest VXS and XMC products can be used in high-speed data acquisition, recording, and software radio systems.