Resorts Suites - Scottsdale, AZ
Wednesday, May 19, 1999
Introduction
Bob Downing called the meeting to order at 8:30 am and asked members to introduce themselves. The minutes for the March VSO meeting were reviewed and John Rynearson entered a change noted by Ivan Straznicky, DY4. The March VSO minutes were approved as amended.
The agenda was reviewed and several changes were made to add last minute items.
Bob asked for general announcements.
Jing Kwok announced a new activity called VITA 35, PMC mapping. DY4, Radstone, SBS, and VISTA will be sponsors. A sign-up sheet was circulated. Jing asked for interested members to meet in the back of the room prior to lunch.
Elwood Parsons announced a new activity called VITA 30.2, Power Connector Mechanical Interfaces. The purpose would be to document the mechanical form factors for two piece separable power connectors. Sponsors include AMP, Schroff, Berg, APW-ES. John Rynearson will look into continuous maintenance ANSI documents since VITA 30.2 would be updated as new connectors were added. A sign-up list was circulated.
John Rynearson reviewed the VSO early patent disclosure policy and called for patent disclosures. Drew Berding announced that an additional patent would be issued on VME320 technology and that he had applied for patents for technology he would be presenting later in the morning.
No other patent announcements were made.
Ray Alderman reviewed the current status on Nortel patents.
Ray presented awards to task group chairs for recently approved standards. Briefcases were awarded to first timers:
Jonathan Jones for ANSI/VITA 17, Front Panel Data Port
Paul Fischer for ANSI/VITA 19.1 and 19.2, Busnet
Jim Pangburn for ANSI/VITA 25, VISION
Danny Cohen for ANSI/VITA 26, Myrinet
Repeat performers were awarded a polo shirt with VITA logo:
Wayne Fischer for ANSI/VITA 1.1, VME64 Extensions
Bob Downing for ANSI/VITA 23, VME64x in Physics
Ray recommended a book titled "The Innovators Dilemma", by Clayton Christensen and related his experience in purchasing the book from Amazon.com.
John Rynearson reported on the current state of drafts in the ANSI canvass ballot process.
Drafts Approved as an American National Standard
ANSI/VITA 23-1998, VMEbus in Physics
Drafts in Canvass Ballot
VITA 5.1 Raceway Interlink
Drafts in Canvass Ballot Review
VITA 1.6, Keying for Conduction Cooled VME64x
VITA 18-1997, VME on SEME
John Rynearson reported to the membership on the VITA board's decision re: distribution of on-line standards. The board authorized VITA to distribute standards via the web and CD-ROM in pdf format. Charges for standards will be kept minimal and users will be able to post such standards for use within their companies (ie, on a companies intranet.) John plans to implement these changes by the end of the summer.
Greg Novak, Motorola, discussed the need for standardization of PMC I/O transition modules which Greg calls PIM's. Greg showed a slide with the general concept and asked for comments. A sign-up sheet was circulated and sponsors were solicited. See attached presentation.
*** BREAK ***
Drew Berding, Arizona Digital, gave a presentation on new techniques he has developed to allow for gigabit speeds on VME and 21 slot operation of the cPCI bus. See attached presentation. Contact Drew for more information at drew@arizonadigital.com.
Tad Kubic, Dawn, discussed ways to cable off of P0. See attached information. Contact Tad for more information at: tak843@aol.com.
Mike Fogg, AMP, gave a presentation on connector technology for use with NGIO. Mike discussed tests that had been run recently and showed a number of graphs of signal strength versus various configurations. See attached presentation.
efore lunch, Bob Downing asked if the members had any general issues that they wished to discuss before the main meeting adjourned for the afternoon task group sessions.
Drew Berding stated that he thought ETL should not be listed as a specific requirement in VITA 1.1. Bob Downing suggested that Drew discuss this issue at the VITA 2.1 task group meeting to be held at 2:30 pm.
*** LUNCH ***
Bob Downing adjourned the VSO meeting for individual task group meetings.
Task Group Meetings
VITA 31 - NGIO on P0
Mike Thompson, Schroff, presented his concept for developing an NGIO standard for the VME P0 connector. The P0 connector contains 19 rows of five pins each. Mike proposed that each row could be an NGIO connection and showed connectors that would plug into the back of P0. Two pins would be used for transmit, two pins for receive, and one pin for grounding. Mike proposed that a simplistic approach for providing connectivity was all that was needed to include NGIO within the VMEbus framework.
Mike noted that the same pin assignment could be used for cPCI.
Ken Privitt, Intel, stated that the NGIO Forum had a form factor subcommittee and the members discussed how best to work with this group. Ray Alderman stated that he has talked with Mitch Schultz, Intel, and that the NGIO Forum are working on a way for trade associations and consortia to be included in the forum.
The question arose re: putting NGIO interfaces on mezzanine cards. The ability to do this will depend on frequency characteristics of the connectors.
Danny Cohen, Myricom, asked if it wouldn't be better to specify only a serial data connection and not the protocol such as NGIO. The membership discussed this approach with several members stating that such an approach was possible, but that such a standard would be too broad to be useful.
Serial Study Group
Bob McKee spoke to the need of having a new embedded architecture based on serial interconnects. He noted that VME continues to be a popular backplane architecture, but that it is used mostly as a command and control bus. Applications that require high speed data rates typically employ a secondary sub bus on VME or may take a proprietary approach. He noted the popularity of cPCI because it provided a rich software model. Bob noted that lifecycle costs were very important to the military and noted a recent example where he was able to implement software in hours rather than weeks by using standard Linix software modules downloaded from the web because the hardware had been designed to be compatible.
Bob is working on a proposal that he will post to the membership before the next VSO meeting outlining the justification for a new serial architecture.
Thursday, May 20, 1999
Bob Downing called the meeting to order at 8:35 AM. There were no general announcements. Bob asked for task group reports.
VITA 1.5, 2eSST
Mac Rush reported on the status of the 2eSST effort. Several issues were discussed including driver requirements. The draft has been updated and will be released shortly. V320 drivers will be included. A task group ballot will be held before the next VSO meeting. Mac was formally elected as chair of the VITA 1.5 task group.
VITA 2.1, ETL Enhancements
Bob Downing reported for Ed Barsotti who wasn't present. A simulation requirements document will be circulated to the task group reflector. Ed Barsotti will make a formal request to Ray Alderman for use of the VME2000 LLC funds to do simulations. Ray will query LLC members to find out if they wish to fund these efforts.
VITA 20, ccPMC
Good progress was made at this meeting. Draft 1.7 will go out for task group ballot shortly.
VITA 27, P2CI
Mike Thompson reported that backplanes for P2CI have been delivered to CETIA and will be tested against simulation results. The results of these physical tests should be available at the next VSO meeting.
VITA 29, PC•MIP
Kim Rubin reported that he asked John Rynearson to extend the task group ballot to allow balloters more time to turn in their ballots. All ballots except one so far have been affirmative and Kim is working on a resolution for that ballot.
VITA 30, 2mm Equipment Practice for Euroboards
Elwood Parsons reported that the draft has been revised and will be available on the VITA web site shortly. A task group ballot is scheduled before the next VSO meeting.
VITA 30.1 - 2mm Equipment Practice for Conduction Cooled Euroboards
Dick Somes will chair this effort and Doug Patterson will be the document editor. This document will be based on the mechanical form factor and technology used for conduction cooled VMEbus modules.
VITA 30.2 - Power Connector Equipment Reference
Elwood Parsons announce that this effort has four sponsors and that they will be putting together a draft document shortly.
VITA 31, NGIO on P0
Mike Thompson will work on putting together a draft document for circulation amongst the task group.
VITA 32 PPMC
Greg Novak announced that draft 0.2 will be available next week and that a task group ballot will be held after the July meeting. See attached overhead.
VITA 35, PMC Mapping
Jing Kwok, DY4, reported that the task group had 7 participants, 4 sponsors, and 5 observers. A task group ballot is scheduled for June.
VITA 36, PIM
Greg Novak announced that this effort has 3 sponsors and that a draft of the initial document will be ready for posting next week.
Serial Study Group
Bob McKee will circulate a position paper stating the need for a new architecture within the next several weeks.
The group reviewed upcoming meetings. All dates are confirmed through February 2000.
Tentative dates and locations for the March and May meetings in 2000 were set.
Date - Location
March 29,30 - Orlando
May 17,18 - Scottsdale
Dick Somes suggested that Thursday morning be used for task group meetings also.
There being no more business Bob Downing adjourned the meeting at 9:45 AM.
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ John Rynearson, VITA