Tracewell’s New 5-Slot Full-Mesh ATCA Shelf Combines Performance With Small, Robust Design
June 5, 2005
Tracewell Systems introduces the new Horizontal 5-slot Full Mesh for AdvancedTCA™, a low profile 5U system platform providing superior features and performance, all in a highly robust package. Designed to meet NEBS Level III and UL/EN 60950, EN55024, the system focuses on high reliability, high availability, easy maintenance, and low cost of ownership. Features include an advanced high capacity push-pull cooling scheme, high performance shelf management and a replicated mesh backplane optimized for 3.125Gb/s and beyond
Reliability— The Horizontal 5-slot Full Mesh is designed for high reliability with an emphasis on eliminating single points of failure. This goes beyond simply providing redundant fan trays or PEMs. Each shelf-level FRU also includes redundancy at the control circuit level, where an IPM Controller is located on both IPMB-A and IPMB-B buses. To ensure an even higher level of redundancy each IPM bus has a separate control processor with information sharing. These characteristics ensure that shelf reliability meets or exceeds 99.999%.
Maintainability—Vital to maintainability is the ability to identify all problems down to FRU level. All shelf FRUs provide standard failure alerts. In addition, the unit provides predictive failure non-critical alerts.
Availability—Shelf reliability meets 99.999% (5 9’s, with an availability of 99.9999 (6 9’s) targeted.
Cooling— The Horizontal 5-slot Full Mesh combines a high-pressure push-pull fan configuration with advanced software control, allowing operation at 200W per slot even in the event of a fan failure. Also included is active RTM cooling for up to 30W per slot. Under normal operating conditions, fans speeds are reduced to provide quiet operation. In the event of a fan failure, fans speeds are increased to 130% to compensate for lost airflow.
Field Replaceable Fan Trays— The unit includes two front and two rear removable fan trays provides right-to-left airflow. The Fan Tray units have been designed for fast and easy replacement. The control circuits have been optimized to cover component, supply and control failures. Fan trays also include an MTBF tracking sensor, alerting the system manager when fans approach the end of rated operating life. The MTBF value is adjusted based on fan operating RPM and temperature. This unique feature allows fans to be replaced before failure, reducing unscheduled maintenance.
Field Replaceable Power Entry—Power is provided to the shelf through the rear mounted Power Entry Module (PEM), which provides common and differential mode EMC filters. Power is distributed in a redundant arrangement so that a single power feed or a single PEM can fail without affecting system operation. Power sensors provide alerts when voltages and or currents deviate from expected values.
Shelf Management— The primary shelf management system is the Motorola M100, due in part to very low power consumption and small footprint. The M100 includes is an HPI and SNMP interface, as well as on-board RMCP server. The M100 provides redundant IPM controllers for IPMB0-A and IPMB0-B for exceptional reliability. M100 shelf management has proven interoperability with all available ATCA-compliant IPMI management schemes. Other shelf management systems can also be easily supported.
Backplane—At the heart of the design is an advanced triple-replicated Full Mesh backplane, which provides three fabric channels per slot to effectively triple data throughput. The fabric layout has been characterized and tested to provide link performance up to 6.25 Gb/s. For maximum reliability, the backplane includes bussed IPMB management connectivity. The shelf configuration board resides on the backplane and also contains an IPMC and is an active FRU. The backplane also serves as the main interconnect point for all FRU devices, nearly eliminating wiring throughout.
Price and Availability. Pricing for the complete Horizontal 5-slot Full Mesh for AdvancedTCA™ is $5,995.00 (quantity 10 with dual ShMC and PEMs) and the units are available 8 - 10 weeks ARO.
