Weird weather is one the things making 2020 memorable.
As I look out my home office window (WFH – yet another 2020 “thing”!), it feels like mid-summer in late September. In some places like Key West or Palm Springs, that is normal. In Pennsylvania, it is not. My kids asked if we could go swimming. Umm, no.
In any case, swimming on a hot day always accomplishes a purpose. Diving in to a pool, lake to ocean always is refreshing and relaxing. At least for me.
In business, decisions are made to accomplish a purpose. As a member of PICMG, Samtec collaborates on standards that will define the next generation of embedded computing applications. Not a bad purpose!
PICMG? What’s that?
PICMG stands for PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group. Its original charter was to extend the PCI Standard to non-desktop applications.
Since 1994, PICMG and its member companies have published more than 50 standards covering a variety of embedded applications. Going forward, PICMG is developing standards for high-performance telecommunications, military, industrial, and general-purpose embedded computing applications.
Samtec participates in a number of PICMG standards efforts. These include MicroSAM®, MicroTCA®, COM-HPC™ and others. See below for the latest on these emerging standards.
MicroSAM®
MicroSAM is a new PICMG effort to create a postage-stamp form factor that does not depend on the microcontroller for the enablement of smart sensors.
The new form factor assists sensor vendors to quickly create smart sensors without having to worry about its control domain. When combined with the PICMG sensor domain network architecture and data model, MicroSAM allows sensors to seamlessly integrate into the network with plug-and-play interoperability.
For more information, please visit Samtec’s MicroSAM landing page.
MicroTCA®
MicroTCA is a modular, open standard for building high performance switched fabric computer systems in a small form factor. Advanced Mezzanine Cards are at the core of the standard. They provide processing and I/O functions.
MicroTCA systems are both physically smaller and less expensive than AdvancedTCA systems, although their internal architectures are largely the same. MicroTCA was originally intended for smaller telecom systems at the edge of the network. However, it has moved into many non-telecom applications, with standardized, ruggedized versions becoming popular in mobile, military, telemetry, data acquisition, and avionics applications.
For more information, please visit Samtec’s MicroTCA landing page.
COM-HPC®
COM-HPC is the soon-to-be-released PICMG standard targeting high-performance Computer-on-Modules (CoMs). COM-HPC is really a natural extension of the existing COM Express standard.
COM Express has been out for a number of years. It has acted as a cornerstone form factor for embedded computing applications. COM Express solutions are still popular and timely for a number of applications.
However, embedded applications from medical imaging to edge computing demand high-speed performance. Scalability and density are a must. COM Express solutions are pushing the limits of their performance
That’s where COM-HPC comes in. COM-HPC offers a path 100 GbE and PCIe Gen 4 and Gen 5 performance. It also increase system density using two 400-pin multi-row interconnects. COM-HPC supports any number of high-speed serial interfaces.
COM-HPC is targeted for release before the end of 2020. Stay tuned to the Samtec blog for the latest information on COM-HPC and other PICMG standards.
Leave a Reply