VSO Minutes – Salt Lake City

Thursday, July 26, 2001

(Attachments and Presentations will be posted as soon as they are received from the author. If a “see attachment” is not linked it is because the attachment has not yet been received. –jr)

Elwood Parsons, Tyco and VSO chair, called the VSO meeting to order at 8:10 AM and asked members to introduce themselves. After introductions the agenda was reviewed and accepted as presented. Elwood asked for general announcements.

Elwood noted that Holly Sherfinski, a former VSO member, was getting married and passed around a card for all to sign.

John Rynearson reviewed the VSO patent policy and asked for patent disclosures. John noted that at the VITA 34 Working Group meeting Elwood Parsons, Tyco, indicated that Tyco and ERNI would be willing to license on reasonable and non discriminatory terms patents required for the use of the ZD connector in the VITA 34 proposed standard. John also noted that Jim Koser indicated that FCI and ITT Cannon would be willing to license on reasonable and non discriminatory terms patents required for the use of the Metral family of connectors in the VITA 34 proposed standard.

Ray Alderman gave the VITA report. He noted that nothing had changed re: the Nortel patent issue since the last meeting. No further activity on this issue is expected. Ray discussed an interesting issue related to the interference between the Mobil Speedpass and the ignition on a Mitsubishi SUV. The Speedpass when in close proximity to the key would not let the Mitsubishi start. Ray cautioned everyone to be aware of this problem less it happen in other areas where electronic keyed access is used.

Ray presented his fabrics list (see http://www.vita.com/vso/fabrics.html) and discussed which fabrics might make it. See attached slides. Ray noted that Sun and other companies were interested in larger form factor boards besides the 4U and 8U by 220 mm boards specified in VITA 34 and suggested the group might consider larger form factor boards.

Ray is continuing to work on a location for the January 2002 Bus&Board conference. Prices have risen in California because of the energy crunch. Las Vegas appears to be a better alternative. Ray said he hopes to have a venue selected within several weeks. To date 34 companies have expressed interest in sponsoring. The program for 2002 will be structured around local chip interconnects and market research reports.

John Rynearson gave the canvass ballot and ANSI audit report. See attachments.

Mike Macpherson, MITRE, introduced David Emery who gave a presentation on what the Open Group is trying to do re: QoS (Quality of Service). See presentation. VITA will follow this effort to determine how it might contribute.

*** BREAK ***

VITA 30, 2mm Connector on Eurocard, Working Group Meeting

Lou Francz, Intel and VITA 30 chair, reviewed the scope of the work and its justification. The group wants to add the ZD connector as an option on the VITA 30 2mm Eurocard form factor standard. Mike Thompson, Pentair, is the draft editor. A revised draft of VITA 30 has been posted on the VSO web site. The document is split into 2mm and 2mm differential requirements. Jim Koser, FCI, protested that patent issues with the 2mm ZD connector had not yet been resolved and that it was improper to proceed with this effort until resolution was reached. Elwood Parsons, Tyco, stated that the lawyers were working to resolve the issues and Lou Francz, VITA 30 chair, assured members that all IP issues would be resolved before the draft was put up for ballot. With that assurance the discussion continued. Mike Thompson reviewed the layout on the 3U, 6U, and 9U implementations. Just the mechanics will be in VITA 30. Dick Somes, Force Computers, expressed concern that no space was left for keying. He noted that keying was an issue and felt that backpanel as opposed to front panel keying was preferred.

Mike Macpherson, MITRE, asked how changes in VITA 30 would affect VITA 30.1, the conduction cooled specification for 2mm on Euroboard. The VITA 30 and VITA 30.1 groups will need to coordinate their efforts. Dick Somes will review the VITA 30.1 document and determine changes needed before it goes for recirculation ballot based on VITA 30 revisions. The group discussed keying and legacy backplane issues. Can keying be used to prevent harm when a ZD module is plugged into a 2mm HM backplane? Lou indicated that he would look into the keying issues. The group discussed whether or not a wided pitch should be specified. Dick Somes noted that there is no precedent for a wider pitch in the 2 mm form factor. The consensus was to stay with 4 HP pitch. The group discussed whether or not to have a separate document for the ZD connector such as VITA 30.3. After more discussion the group decided to keep the ZD connector in the VITA 30 document, but to include it in a separate chapter.

VITA 31, Serial I/O on 2mm Connectors, Working Group Meeting

Mike Thompson, Pentair, reported on the status of VITA 31. This document will provide pin assignments for differential signals on a ZD connector. Specific pin assignments were discussed. Danny Cohen questioned why a mesh of only 9 boards was being considered. Lou Francz indicated that the silicon becomes very complicated for meshes larger than 9 boards and that these standards were aimed at content processing systems, not switching systems. Henry Wong asked if their were a way to set up pin assignments as subsets. Dick Somes suggested that a more generic term than LVDS be used since this designates a specific National interface and that interconnects such as Infiniband do not use LVDS specifically.

VITA 32, Processor PMC, Report

Greg Novak, Motorola, announced that draft 0.5a has been completed and that a working group ballot would be held in about 2 weeks.

VITA 2.1, Enhanced TTL, Report

John Rynearson, VITA, reported on the current status of VITA 2.1. TI will have chips available soon for testing. A conference call was made last week to discuss the requirements for the test board. The schematic will be reviewed by the working group when completed.

*** LUNCH ***

VITA 1.4, System Level Live Insertion

Mike Thompson, Pentair, reported that he hoped to complete the edits to VITA 1.4 before the next VSO meeting.

VITA 17, Serial FPDP

Elwood Parsons reported for Ron Taulson, Systran. Draft 0.6 will be available in several weeks.

VITA 31.1, Ethernet on P0

Mike Macpherson, MITRE, reported on the status of VITA 31.1. See attachment. The basic idea of VITA 31.1 is to bring the concepts defined in PICMG 2.16 into the VME framework. The group discussed whether or not it was a good idea to use a mixed backplane so that cPCI switched cards could be used. Mike said his user community did not like the 2mm connector. A pin assignment for P2 was shown. Members expressed concerns re: the data rates that could be supported on P2. Mike said that he would examine these issues.

VITA 38, System Management Bus

Mike Thompson noted that VITA 38 was ready for a working group ballot and asked John Rynearson to conduct one.

Future VSO meeting dates were reviewed.

The VSO meeting was adjourned at 1:32 PM.