VSO Minutes

27 September 2001

Scottsdale, AZ

Elwood Parsons, Tyco and VSO Chair, called the VSO meeting to order. After yielding the floor to Brian Stephenson, FCI, to discuss VITA 34 business, Elwood asked members to introduce themselves. After introductions the minutes from the July 2001 VSO meeting were approved as written. The agenda was reviewed and approved. Elwood called for patent disclosures. Mike Munroe stated that ERNI was willing to license patents required for HM Zd connectors used in any applicable VITA standard.

Ray Alderman, VITA Executive Director, discussed the agenda for the upcoming Bus&Board Conference to be held in Long Beach, California at the Hyatt Regency on January 21-22, 2001. Ray also discussed certain IBM patents that were being claimed against embedded systems. The patents are from the mid to late 1980’s and deal with various aspects of general personal computer architecture.

John Rynearson, VITA Technical Director, gave the standards report. See presentation.

ANSI/VITA 30, 2mm Connector Practice for Eurocard Systems. This standard is being revised to include 2mm HM Zd connectors. Elwood Parsons reported that their has been much email exchanged regarding connector placement. A new draft has been prepared. The group discussed whether or not 4U and 8U should be included. For now these will be left as part of VITA 34.

VITA 32, Processor PMC. Greg Novak, Motorola, reported on the status of this effort. The draft has been revised. Comments were provided by Dick Somes and Steve Krueger. Greg plans to have a conference call to discuss remaining issues. He will change all of the “musts” to “shalls”. The conference call has been set for Wednesday, October 10, 8 AM Pacific Time.

VITA 2.1, Extended TTL. Report by John Rynearson. TI is working on test board for new transceiver chip. The first sample chip measured 11 pf capacitance rather than 8 pf which was specified. TI will determine if they can reduce the capacitance.

VITA 39, PCI-X on PMC. Steve Krueger has accepted a position with a non VMEbus company and is leaving Artesyn. Michael Franco, Artesyn, has been appointed to replace Steve at the VSO and will attend the November meeting.

VITA 17.1, Serial FPDP. Ron Taulton, Systran, is continuing to work on the draft based on customer input. He hopes to have a new draft by the next meeting.

VITA 31.1, Gigabit Ethernet on P0. This standard will coordinate with work done on PICMG 2.16. Mike is still examining whether or not a DIN connector based switching board is feasible.

Future Meeting Planning

John Rynearson discussed future meetings. Locations for 2002 were chosen.

January 23-24 – Long Beach, CA

March – Orlando, Florida

May – Scottsdale, AZ

July – Vancouver, BC

September – Scottsdale, AZ

November – Scottsdale, AZ

Dates for other meetings are to be determined.

There being no other business, Elwood Parsons adjourned the VSO meeting.

Submitted by /s/ John Rynearson, VITA