Bob Downing called the meeting to order and asked attendees to introduce themselves. After introductions, Bob asked Ray Alderman to preface the patent discussion.

Ray noted that VITA had commissioned a legal opinion on specific Nortel patents. Ray stated that this opinion was covered by attorney/client privilege and that it could not be used by members to avoid possible treble damages if Nortels patents were to prevail. Ray said that members should consider their own position after consultation with legal counsel and determine how to proceed.

John Rynearson presented a technical summary of the legal opinion. See attached presentation. John stated that prior art on both the Brombal(EMI) and Kielstra(Keying) patents had been discovered. In addition John noted that ANSI/VITA 1.1-1997, VME64 Extensions standard stated in Rule 5.4 that the EMI front panel shield was not to be connected to the logic backplane ground. A key element in Brombal is that the backpanel (backplane) contains a EMI shielding ground plane.

Ray asked members if they would support a discussion between VITA legal counsel and Nortel legal counsel. The members voted to support such a discussion. Ray noted that he would present this to the VITA board for approval.

*** Break ***

The agenda was reviewed and several changes were made.

The minutes from the November 1998 VSO meeting were approved as written.

Bob asked for general announcements. John Rynearson, VITA, announced that VITA would pay to recreate the drawings for the IEEE P1386 and P1386.1 proposed standards. The drafts for these standards were created on a text/drawing system that no longer exists. Wayne Fischer, chair of the P1386 stated that a consultant had been hired and drawings were expected to be completed within the next several weeks. Once the draft standard has been revised Wayne will complete the standardization process within the IEEE.

John noted that SPAM mail was becoming a problem on VITA reflectors and that he was making every effort to curtail such activity. John also asked members to make sure the REPLY was set correctly if they used their email's vacation message feature to avoid infinite loop reflector messages.

John presented the VSO patent disclosure policy. See attached.

John presented the distinguished award of "Master of CAD-manship" to Frank Hom, AWI - Electronic Solutions for his tireless effort and for his contribution of countless hours in creating the diagrams and schematics found in key, ANSI/VITA specifications.

John gave a summary of VSO drafts in the ANSI canvass ballot process. See attached report. VITA 1.6 is currently in canvass ballot. VITA 17 and VITA 19 have completed recirculation ballots and will be submitted to ANSI for recognition once the period of public review is completed. VITA 18 and VITA 23 are currently being revised and will be undergoing a recirculation ballot.

Holly Sherfinski, Harting, noted that a change was being made in the method of manufacturing the key for VITA 1.6 that would not affect the draft standard. Holly noted that those interested in purchasing keys should contact Frank Hom, APW Electronic Solutions.

Bob Downing noted recent discussions concerning how the bus community was handling the need for multiple voltages. Bob presented a scheme using the pins on P0 to encode voltages. See Bob's overheads.

Bill Spreen, Fairchild Semiconductor, gave a short report on the V320 part now available from Fairchild. This part is an 8-bit registered transceiver specifically made to drive high capacitance loads such as the VME320 backplane. Parts are available now. See the Fairchild's web site at: http://www.fairchildsemi.com for more information. See attached overheads.

High Speed Serial Architectures, Mark Bowden, Fermi

Mark expressed his frustration with parallel bus approaches and was encouraged by the recent interest in serial bus architectures. The reduction in size of electronics has allowed more data to be fed into a board. Fermi has to find ways to deal with this. One concern is the cost of the switching network. Mark discussed switching network and data link requirements. Mark provided a summary of why he felt buses were no longer the best approach. See attached presentation.

*** LUNCH ***

Mac Rush, Motorola, 2eSST Task Group Ballot Report

Mac showed a list of issues and the ballot results. Mac addressed the various comments. See attached overheads. Istvan Vadasz, Force Computers, discussed whether or not 5 row connectors should be required to implement 2eSST. Mac will take the input, revise the draft and another task group ballot will be held shortly.

Greg Novak, Motorola, PPMC Report

Greg was not able to attend the VSO meeting, but provided the following email to the ppmc reflector outlining key issues to be resolved.

I believe the KEY issues with the proposed standard are:

1. Clocks: should they be generated on the PPMC itself or the base board.

Both approaches are feasible for PowerPC. How about other CPUs?

2. How many loads should the PPMC present as a Host? as a slave?

3. Should the PCI bus arbiter reside on the PPMC or the base card?

4. How should the reset be defined? Standard PCI or "open collector" for

the host PPMC. How about the slave PPMC?

In the typical VITA spirit, please keep comments short and constructive.

Thanks, .....Greg

VITA 1.4, Live Insertion for VME64x, Lou Francz

Lou and Mike Thompson, draft editor, will review the draft and incorporate changes for the next review which should occur within the next two weeks.

Bob Downing raised the issue of an "SM" system maintenance" bus for VME. Bob asked Lou to comment. Lou noted that Intel has specified I2C as the maintenance bus and stated that he felt this was the right way to go. He suggested we review the CompactPCI™ specification and see what parts could be used in VME. This would be one way to restart the HA VME effort. Information on IPMI can be found at: http://developer.intel.com/design/servers/ipmi - the Intel developers web site. Lou agreed to take the responsibility to get this activity restarted.

VITA 2, ETL, Wayne Fischer

Wayne reviewed the results of the task group ballot. John Rynearson asked what other standards refer to ETL logic. Several standards do. Bill Spreen, Fairchild Semiconductor, noted that the VSO should not specify a semiconductor part too tightly in case the company changes the package type, pin assignment, etc. Wayne will update the draft and re-circulate it to the task group.

High Speed Serial Architectures, John Rynearson for Bob McKee

Bob was not able to attend the VSO meeting. In his absence John Rynearson reviewed some overheads provided by Damon Layton, Lockheed Martin Federal Systems, re: the OBIS (Optical Backplane Interconnect System) project. See attached presentation. Bob plans to attend the March meeting.

*** BREAK ***

VITA 20, CCPMC Status Report, Duncan Young, DY4

Duncan Young reported that the current draft will be updated and made available within the next several weeks.

VITA 27, P2CI, Paul Linares, CETIA

Paul Linares stated that CETIA is still waiting on backplanes for P2CI testing and will report results when the backplanes arrive.

VITA 29, PC•MIP Status Report, Hermann Strass, Technology Consulting

Hermann Strass circulated sign-up list for task group ballot scheduled for the end of January. Mechanical drawings are being completed. Hermann reiterated the PC•MIP concept. See attached presentation.

VITA 30, 2mm Connector Practice, Elwood Parsons, AMP

Elwood Parsons gave an update. Revision 0.4 is being completed. Frank Hom has completed all new drawings and the text has been updated. A task group ballot will occur shortly. A task group ballot sign-up list was circulated.

VITA 5.1, Raceway Interlink Extensions

Tony Lavely, Mercury, reviewed the latest task group ballot. He noted a clarification that was required to the draft. Tony asked that the draft be moved to ANSI canvass ballot.

Hermann Strass European Update

Herman is collecting abstracts for upcoming technical conference. Bob Squirrell will be having a VITA members meeting. There will be a Bus&Board Europe magazine. Hermann solicited articles for this magazine.

Future VSO Meetings, John Rynearson

John reported on the next VSO meeting to be held in Orlando, March 24-25. John urged members to make airline and hotel reservations as soon as possible. The May meeting will be held in Scottsdale, the July meeting in Vancouver, and the two remaining September and November meetings in Scottsdale. See VITA's VSO web page for details.

John suggested that future meetings be structured with a morning presentation session, an afternoon of task group meetings, and a second day for the plenary review session. Members agreed and the agenda for the Orlando meeting will be created appropriately.

Bob Downing adjourned the meeting.

Submitted by

/s/ John Rynearson, VITA