VSO Minutes - Thursday, January 24, 2002

Long Beach, CA

Elwood Parsons, VSO Chair, called the meeting to order and asked members to introduce themselves. The agenda was reviewed and accepted as published. The minutes from the previous VSO meeting were approved as written. Elwood asked for announcements. John Rynearson read a note from previous VSO member, Holly Sherfinsk, now Holly Jones. Holly thanked members for the kind wedding card and reminisced about her times with the VSO. Holly can be reached at hsherf@aol.com.

John noted that he had purchased a wireless access point 802.11b compliant router that would be used to provide access to VSO presentation files. Members need an 802.11b wireless PCMCIA card for their laptops to be able to access the files at the meetings.

The March elections for VSO Chair and Vice Chair are coming up and John ask Jim Koser and Mike Macpherson to serve with him on the nominations committee.

John stated the VSO patent policy and Elwood asked for patent disclosures. Frank Hom, APW, stated that his company had applied for a patent on a latching mechanism proposed for use on VITA 34. Mike Thompson, Pentair, stated that he would be showing an injector/ejector that was covered by a patent.

Ray Alderman gave the VITA report. He reviewed this yearπs Bus&Board conference and noted that more connectors and fabrics were going to be announced.

John Rynearson gave a status report on VSO standards. See attachment (PDF - 176KB).

Randy Banton, Mercury Computer, gave a presentation on putting RapidIO on a mezzanine module. See presentation (PDF - 1MB). The goal, Randy stated, is to make such an effort compatible with the current IEEE 1386.1 PMC module.

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Working Group Reports

VITA 2.1, Enhanced TTL - John Rynearson announced that tests on sample chips look good and provide preliminary evidence that results are somewhat better than the simulations.

VITA 17.1, Serial FPDP - Ron Tauton, Systran, will release a new draft within a week. Danny Cohen, Sun Microsystems, expressed his reservations with the name of VITA 17.1 as Serial FPDP. He indicated that he felt that ≥serial≤ was not an appropriate term. Ron expressed concerns with changing the name since it now has some identity. After some discussion, it was suggested that Ron poll the VITA 17.1 membership to determine their feeling on this issue.

VITA 30, 2mm Connectors on Euroboard - This working group is considering additions to ANSI/VITA 30, 2mm Connector on Euroboard. After some discussion, Elwood Parsons, Mike Munroe, and Mike Thompson volunteered to work together to put appropriate layouts in VITA 30 for the 2mm ZD connector.

VITA 30.1, 2mm Connectors on Conduction Cooled Euroboard - Dick Somes is the chair of this effort. Several negative ballots resulted at the end of the initial canvass ballot. These issues have been resolved and several drawings will need to be updated. Dick plans to have the drawings revised so that a recirculation ballot can start before March.

VITA 31.1, Gigabit Ethernet on P0 - Mike Macpherson, MITRE, noted Motorolaπs interest in using P0 for integrating fabrics into the VMEbus architecture and stated that a new connector for P0 may be recommended.

VITA 32, Processor PMC - Greg Novak announced that draft 0.5b (pdf-172KB) is now available and will go out to working group ballot shortly.

VITA 34, New Modular Architecture - Bob Downing summarized the working group meeting held on Wednesday. See VITA 34 web page for VITA 34 working group minutes.

VITA 36, PIM - Greg Novak stated that he wanted to finish VITA 32 and he would then proceed with work on VITA 36.

VITA 37, PIRMA - Given that their has been no work on VITA 37 in several meetings, this project will be put on the inactive list.

VITA 38, System Management - All issues with the last working group ballot have been resolved. VITA 38 will be moved to sponsor ballot.

VITA 39, PCI-X on PMC - Mike Franco, Artesyn, announced that Pin 39 will be used for the PCICAP signal. See draft standard (PDF - 64KB). After some discussion regarding how the standard should be done, John Rynearson volunteered to review the matter and make recommendation as to how standards effort should proceed.

John Hill, Sun Microsystems, introduced Craig Hartley, Sun Microsystems, who gave a presentation on status indicator standards work that they had done at Sun. See presentation (PDF - 48KB). A sign-up list (PDF - 148KB) was circulated and a working group will be formed to standardize this effort.

John Rynearson reviewed the meeting schedule for 2002.

There being no other business, Elwood adjourned the meeting at 11:26 AM.

Submitted by

/s/ John Rynearson, VITA