VSO Minutes

July 1998

Santa Fe

Wednesday, July 15, 1998

Bob Downing called the meeting to order at 8:35 AM and asked the members to introduce themselves. After the introductions Bob asked if their were any additions or corrections to the May minutes. There were no additions or corrections to the minutes and they were approved as written. Bob asked for changes to the agenda. Several changes were made to accommodate members schedules and to account for members who were not present.

John Rynearson, VITA, reviewed the ANSI patent policy and VSO patent policy. See attachments. John noted that Nortel had been given time to present their position on certain patents of interest to the membership and discussed the ground rules for the presentation. John stated that Nortel was offered this opportunity as a service to the membership and that none of the officers of VITA nor the VSO took any position on the applicability of the Nortel patents or any licensing terms for such patents. John also noted that the specific patents in question related to IEEE 1101.10 which is an IEEE standard and is not under the control of the VSO. The membership was briefed that while discussion of the patent technology was allowed, no discussions re: the terms and conditions would be permitted.

John introduced Greg Hood, Nortel. Greg explained Nortels patent position regarding two specific patents: 4,631,641 (Brombal), and 5,402,320 (Kielstra). Brombal deals with EMI front panel shielding and was issued December 23, 1986 while Kielstra deals with front panel keying and was issued March 28, 1995. Nortel feels that compliance with IEEE 1101.10 requires technology covered by these patents. Greg discussed the terms and conditions under which Nortel was willing to license these patents and invited those who wished to produce this technology to contact him.

John gave the canvass ballot report. ANSI/VITA 1.3-1997, VME64x 9U x 400 mm Format was approved by ANSI on June 9, 1998. VITA 1.1-1997, VME64x has completed recirculation ballot. All negatives have been turned positive. VITA 1.1 will be submitted to ANSI for approval. VITA 17, FPDP, and VITA 18, VME on SEME, are in ballot. Ballots are due Sep 14, 1998. VITA 19.1, 19.2 - BusNet are in ballot with ballots due Aug 3, 1998. VITA 23, VME64x in Physics, is in ballot with the ballot due Sep 14, 1998. VITA 25, VISION, ballot is due Aug 10, 1998 and VITA 26, Myrinet is due July 27, 1998. John urged all those participating in these ballots to review the proposed standards and return their ballots as soon as possible.

Ray Alderman, VITA, reported on current VITA activities. VITA is providing members with the opportunity to place banner ads on its web site. A number of members have already taken advantage of this opportunity. Ray invited other members to contact him for all the details.

Eike Waltz asked Ray what position VITA could play regarding patent issues. Ray explained that he had investigated the roles of adversary, administrator, and facilitator with VITA legal counsel and the VITA board. The various roles were still under investigation and discussion.

*** BREAK ***

Eike Waltz, Rittal, gave a report on IEEE 1101 standards. Eike explained the rules for IEEE standards regarding patents and that all applicable rules had been followed in the development of IEEE 1101.10. He noted that 1101.1-1987 which was reaffirmed in 1992 was undergoing its second reaffirmation. IEEE 1101.10 had been published and that he had received letters re: patents from Nortel and DEC.

Wayne Fischer, Force, gave a report on VITA 1.1. The recirculation ballot has been completed and all negative ballots have been turned positive. One positive ballot was turned negative. Wayne will talk to the balloter and see what his concern is. John Rynearson will submit VITA 1.1 to ANSI within 4 works for their approval.

Mike Thompson, Schroff, gave the VITA 1.4 report on VME64x Live Insertion for Lou Francz, Dialogic, who was unable to attend the meeting. Mike expressed his appreciation for all those who have participated in the VITA 1.4 task group ballot. Comments will be reviewed and used to revise the current draft.

Tad Kubic, Dawn, passed around a mechanical front panel sample with an EMI gasket that he offered as an alternative to the current standard which may require patented technology. Tad asked if anyone was interested in forming a study group or task group. A signup list was circulated.

Harry Andreas, Raytheon, expressed his interest in surface mounted connectors and ask if any of the connector manufacturers had plans to offer this kind of technology.

Holly Sherfinski, Harting, noted that an IEC number had not yet been assigned to the 160 pin connector.

Mac Rush, Motorola, gave a report on VITA 1.5, 2eSST. The task group ballot has been completed and Mac has been addressing various issues. Some of the issues discussed include 3U support, throttling, transmit options, transmit rates, and compatibly with 2eVME. The task group discussed various solutions and decided to continue discussions on the 2eSST reflector. Mac plans to incorporate changes into the draft and have a new revision within several weeks. Mac asked task group members to meet after the VSO meeting.

Holly Sherfinski, Harting, reviewed the status of VITA 1.6, Keying for Conduction Cooled VME. The recirculated task group ballot is complete and Holly has provided a response to all comments. Holly will update the draft and submit it to VITA where it will move to ANSI canvass ballot.

Bob McKee, MITRE, gave a presentation on his concept for an embedded dataflow architecture called EDMIN. See attachment. Joe Bedard said that he liked the concept, but he questioned the use of some of the terms such as dataflow and deterministic transfer/response. Bob noted that in the future, communications would become the domain of either the fibresphere or the atmosphere. He discussed what the requirements were for module formats and intermodule communications. Bob asked members to send him information so that he could update his presentation.

*** BREAK ***

Kim Rubin, SBS Technology, gave a report on VITA 29, PC*MIP. Draft 0.5 is available on VITA's web site.

Elwood Parsons, AMP, announced that AMP is producing the backplane half of the 160 pin connector. Bob Patterson gave a presentation and passed out samples of the connector which are available now.

The VSO meeting was adjourned for the day.

Thursday, July 16, 1998

Bob Downing called the meeting to order at 8:34 AM and reminded members to sign the attendance list if they had not already done so. Bob called for announcements. John Rynearson asked members to contact him if they were interested in participating in a 2eSST verification workshop. The workshop would be held to allow members the opportunity to test the interoperability of 2eSST products. The workshop would be held sometime within the next six months.

Ray Alderman gave an update on discussions that he had with Greg Hood, legal counsel for Nortel. Ray noted that he explained the structure of the industry to Mr. Hood and offered to provide him with other contacts. Ray stated that he explained to Mr. Hood that markets always take the path of least resistance and that the industry could be driven to find alternatives to technologies that required expensive patent licenses.

Ray noted that there are alternatives to shielded front panels such as shielded boxes.

Drew Berding, Arizona Digital, gave a presentation on VME320 technology. See attached presentation. Drew discussed some optimization techniques that he was working out to allow transmission rates of 640 Mbytes/second on the VME320 backplane.

Andreas Lenkisch, Trenew, described a recent effort to produce a split backplane using a Z shaped topology and he gave an updated report on his efforts to speed up transfers across the VMEbus backplane.

Bob Downing asked both Drew and Andreas to provide information regarding the bandwidths of their simulations and any real measurements that they made.

Elwood Parsons, AMP, discussed VITA 30, 2mm Equipment Practice for the Eurocard. Draft 0.2 is available on VITA's web site. Elwood asked interested members to review the document, especially for content and organization and to provide feedback to himself and Mike Thompson. Elwood asked the VITA office to help start a task group ballot within the next two weeks.

*** BREAK ***

Jim Botte, Nortel, gave a presentation on TAP - Telco Advantage Packaging. Jim hopes to have a list of companies that will be producing TAP by the next VSO meeting. Jim noted that his is interested in supporting vPCI and that anyone else interested in vPCI should contact him.

John Rynearson discussed future meeting dates and promised members a tentative schedule out through May 1999 at the September VSO meeting.

There being no further business Bob Downing adjourned the meeting at 11:35 AM.

/S/

Submitted by John Rynearson, VITA