GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, a unit of GE Enterprise Solutions, has recently announced the A10200 ATCA single board computer. Featuring a dual Intel Xeon 5500 series dual- or quad core processor and up to 64 Gigabytes of DDR3 SDRAM memory, it delivers a combination of unprecedented performance and low power dissipation.
The design of the A10200 ATCA single board computer is such that it can easily be upgraded to the next generation of Intel Xeon processors, making it an extremely cost-effective investment.
A compliment to GE Fanuc’s extensive and growing family of Advanced TCA products, the A10200 ATCA single board computer is designed for demanding telecommunications networks where it will enable significantly faster network performance than currently possible. Typical applications include Control Plane functions for WiMAX, LTE (Long Term Evolution) and NGN (Next Generation Networks) networks.
Advanced TCA is making rapid strides as the architecture of choice across a wide range of industries and applications because of its high compute density, interoperability, flexibility, robust reliability and cost effectiveness.
One of the virtues of the Intel Xeon processor family is its flexibility, allowing customers to implement the technology in a way that best suits their planned application.
Keys to the high performance of the A10200 ATCA single board computer - which is optionally available as a single processor platform – are the size of its memory and the implementation of an AMP (Asymmetric Multi Processing) architecture. The provision of 64 Gbytes of memory – more than any competing dual processor platform – allows storing larger routing tables in main memory, reducing the number of time-consuming routing table swaps between main memory and the database because needed routing information is missing.
The A10200’s Asymmetric Multiprocessing Architecture means that each processor has its own memory bus and access to its own (up to 32 Gigabytes) memory, reducing the processing overhead caused by contention and bus sharing in platforms using Symmetric Multiprocessing Architecture (SMP).
Also contributing to the A10200’s leading edge performance is its support for multiple Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, together with a Gigabit Ethernet maintenance port for remote management and trouble shooting. The A10200 ATCA single board computer benefits from its implementation of Intel’s new 82599 Ethernet controller, which includes a new 40 Gigabits/second PCI Express interface and the ability to deliver up to a 250% improvement in network throughput. Furthermore, the 82599 controller has sophisticated load sharing features allowing it to direct incoming Ethernet packets to a specific core within a specific processor based on hashed packet header values. This feature enables much higher data throughput due to parallel processing and is very Valuable for systems using virtualization.
Further connectivity is provided by four USB 2.0 ports, a COM port an IPMC console port. An accompanying TMS102 rear transitional module (RTM) provides rear access two 10/100/1000Base-T Ethernet interfaces, two USB 2.0 interfaces, eight general purpose I/O ports and two on-board SAS hard disk drives. The SAS controller implements RAID features, further offloading the processor cores from mundane processing.
The Software package provided with the A10200 ATCA single board computer includes standard BIOS, device driver, and the hardware initialization resources required to support Linux environments.
Key Features of the A10200 ATCA single board computer:
- Up to 64 Gigabytes of memory for reduced routing table swapping.
- Asymmetric Multi Processing avoids contention and bus sharing for better performance.
- PICMG Compliance, guarantees interoperability.
- Dual 10 Gigabyte Ethernet enhances connectivity.
GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms is represented in Australia and New Zealand by Metromatics .