Bob Downing, VSO Chair, called the meeting to order and asked members to introduce themselves. The minutes for the May meeting were approved as written and the agenda for the meeting was reviewed. Several changes were made to accommodate the late arrival of one speaker.
Bob asked for general announcements. Current activities in VITA 2.1, Enhanced TTL were discussed. Ed Barsotti, chair of the VITA 2.1 task group, was not present, but asked Bob to report that TI had moved up the schedule of the VME interface chip. However, TI needed to know whether or not the chip needed to be +5 Volt tolerant. After discussion, it was decided that this was a required characteristic and that Bob would indicate this to TI.
John Rynearson, Technical Director of VITA, presented ANSI's patent policy and discussed the VSO's requirement for early patent disclosure. Patents can be included in a draft standard, but all developers should be made aware of the licensing terms and conditions as soon as possible so that alternative solutions can be investigated if necessary. John asked for patent disclosures. None were presented. John also reminded task group chairs of their responsibility to solicit patent disclosures during task group meetings.
Ray Alderman, Executive Director of VITA, reported that several member companies had received letters from Nortel regarding the Brombal and Kiestra patents. A new lawyer at Nortel has been assigned to follow up on these patents. Ray noted that VITA still felt confident in the prior art that had been discovered during the initial investigate two years ago. A general discussion re: the frequency of frivolous patents followed including cat training using a laser pen and tattooed bar codes used for electronic commerce.
Ray announced that VITA had been approved as a IEC ITA submitter. ITA stands for Industry Technical Agreement and provides a method for a group of companies or a trade organization to submit a document to the IEC for recognition. The document is recognized as an ITA and not a standard. IEC standards must undergo a laborious process which may take years to complete. An ITA on the other hand can be completed and recognized in a matter of months. A discussion followed re: the different and value of ITA's versus standards and it was noted that the general awareness of the IEC is not as great in the US as it is in Europe.
Ray reported that Sun Microsystems has joined VITA as a sponsor member and he reviewed the recent changes VITA has made to reduce facility costs. In addition he noted that ESOFTA was providing software distribution through its web site for IBM's Visual Age Micro Edition which is a Java™ based development environment. See http://www.esofta.com/ for more details.
John Rynearson reported on current canvass ballot activities. See attached presentation. VITA 29, PC•MIP, is in negative ballot review. The task group is working on resolution of an issue with the mechanical front panel gasket. Tests indicate that it does not provide EMC shielding as required and a new design is being proposed. As soon as the negative balloters are assured that this design meets EMC shielding criteria, they will turn their negative ballots to affirmative.
The public review period for the VITA 30, 2mm Eurocard has been completed and no comments were received. All negative ballots received during the initial ballot were changed to affirmative during the recirculation ballot. Therefore, VITA 30 will be submitted for ANSI recognition within the next two weeks.
John also discussed the guide rail issue that arose at the last meeting. VME boards must observe a 2.5 mm component keep out region. The question arose as to whether or not this region extended into the 3rd dimension. A review of IEEE 1101.1 indicated that it was the intent of this standard that this keep out area form a 3 dimensional envelope that must remain free of any component assemblies.
Ray announced that during the 3rd quarter of this year, VITA would offer downloadable electronic copies of its standard on its web site for free. Elwood Parsons, Tyco Electronics, noted that the IEEE 802 group had made a similar decision to provide electronic copies available for free of its standards.
*** BREAK ***
Bob Downing introduced Tim Miller, VP Marketing, Stargen and Todd Comins, CTO of Stargen, who gave a presentation on their bridging technology. See attached presentation. Tim indicated that it is their intent to create an open communications platform.
*** LUNCH ***
The meeting resumed after lunch with a presentation by Stephane Renaud and Markus Witte from Harting titled "HM Connector Test Results using TI TLK2500 Transceiver at 2.5 Mbits". See attached presentation.
The group reviewed the current status of VITA 31 and VITA 34 and discussed how several Infiniband™ issues would impact these projects.
*** BREAK ***
After the break a presentation was made by Chad Morgan, Tyco Electronics, titled "Practical Guidelines for Implementing 5 Gbps in Copper Today, and the Roadmap to 10 Gbps". See attached presentation (2MB, PDF).
VITA 30.1 Task Group Meeting
Dick Somes, Force Computers, called the VITA 30.1 task group meeting to order and presented the results of the latest task group ballot. The results of the ballot met the VSO 75/75 rule. One negative ballot was received and its comments were accepted turning it to affirmative. The draft will be revised and submitted to the ANSI canvass process.
The meeting was adjourned for the day.
Thursday, July 20, 2000
Bob Downing called the meeting to order at 8:30 AM and asked for general announcements. No announcements were made.
VITA 20, CCPMC Task Group Meeting
Mike Macpherson called the VITA 20 task group meeting to order and discussed the 2.2 mm versus 2.7 mm hole issue. After more discussion and some wording changes the group decided to accept a compromise offered by Jing Kwok. The draft will be revised and submitted for a recirculation ballot. Mike noted that an issue with 1386 had been discovered which impacted VITA 20. Mike contacted Wayne Fischer and Wayne assured Mike that he would try to resolve it during the current 1386 ballot.
VITA 30.2 Task Group Meeting
Elwood Parsons called the VITA 30.2 task group meeting to order and reviewed the results of the latest task group ballot. The ballot fell one vote short of the required return rate and hence did not meeting the 75/75 VSO rule. The draft will be revised and submitted for a 14 day recirculation ballot. It will then be submitted to the IEC for approval as an ITA document.
The membership then discussed the ITA process and it was decided to have additional information presented at the September VSO meeting. Ray referred members to the following URL for additional information: http://www.iec.ch/ita-e.htm
Bob Downing asked members to reread the VITA 34 white paper http://www.vita.com/vso/draftstd/v34mar00.pdf posted on VITA's web site and to come to the September meeting ready to discuss it in more detail. Mike Macpherson will contact Jim Botte, Nortel, regarding the current status of VITA 37, PIRMA.
Tentative dates and locations were selected for 2001 VSO meetings in March, May, and July. These dates and locations will be published on the VSO page of the VITA web site and marked as tentative until confirmed.
There being no further business the meeting was adjourned at 10:25 AM.
Respectively submitted,
/s/ John Rynearson, VITA