Embedded instrumentation delivers test/validation coverage on Intel Xeon 5500 boards

By Brian Wood, CP-TA/Continuous Computing

As Network Equipment Providers (NEPs) know, thermal issues often present the greatest challenges when integrating system platforms. Matching heat generation and cooling airflow to avoid hot spots and early system failures is particularly challenging when combining components from different vendors.

One problem is that ratings, since they are self-imposed, may not have a standard meaning. For example, one vendor might say its chassis is capable of 200W cooling.  But under what conditions? True capacity could vary, depending on ambient temperature as well as limitations on fan noise level. Some blades require more thermal removal than others, and slots do not necessarily have uniform capacity.  There is a real need for a common vocabulary and measurable criteria for both slots and blades.

Here is where CP-TA comes to the rescue (imagine a short trumpet fanfare, please!). PICMG’s four performance-level-based thermal classes in CP-TA’s Interoperability Compliance Document (ICD) provide the necessary common framework. They standardize AdvancedTCA vendor ratings by specifying chassis and blade air flow criteria for various ambient temperatures and operating conditions. The situations are based on Network Equipment Building Standards (NEBS) and temperature requirements that a product must meet to achieve a NEBS rating.

AdvancedTCA chassis and blade vendors can use the test methodologies in CP-TA’s Test Procedure Manual (TPM). It standardizes the measurement of airflow to rate products according to these standards of thermal performance. Knowing that everyone is speaking the same language, a developer can then mix and match components from different vendors and have confidence in achieving interoperability.

CP-TA’s efforts to resolve such interoperability issues are helping streamline AdvancedTCA-based system development . They are giving NEP designers the tools to utilize AdvancedTCA’s off-the-shelf design approach while accelerating time-to-market.

For more information about CP-TA and its xTCA interoperability work, please visit www.cp-ta.org.

Brian Wood is Marketing Work Group chair for the Communications Platforms Trade Association (CP-TA). You may contact him via Karen Riley at kriley@nereus-worldwide.com.