VSO Minutes
March 19/20, 2003
Orlando
Call to Order
Elwood Parsons, VSO Chair,
called the meeting to order at 8:31 AM and asked the members to introduce
themselves. After introductions,
Elwood reviewed the agenda. It was
approved as presented. Elwood
called for announcements. John
Rynearson, VITA, noted the need for someone to do technical VMEbus training and
asked the membership to contact him if they knew of someone who might be
interested. John also announced
the Advanced Cooling Workshop to be held on Tuesday, May 13, the day before the
VSO meeting. Registration is
$75.00 through March 31st and $150.00 after. Companies interested in presenting
papers or exhibiting equipment at the workshop should contact Diana Carter at
<carter_diana@crane.navy.mil>.
See the VITA website for registration
details.
Danny Cohen, Sun, showed
the membership a small optical connector with 400 Gbit capacity. See presentation.
VSO Elections
John Rynearson stated that
the nominations committee had nominated Elwood Parsons and Mike Thompson for
the positions of chair and vice-chair respectively. Email ballots were sent out in early February and 10 ballots
were received all in favor of Elwood and Mike. John asked the voting membership to make the decision
unanimous and the membership voted all-in-favor to elect Elwood and Mike to the
positions of chair and vice-chair of the VSO.
Call for Patent
Disclosures
John
Rynearson explained the VSO patent
policy and asked for patent disclosures. Elwood Parsons, representing Tyco, reviewed an email from
Tyco to the VSO stating their willingness to provide RAND licensing on the
connector chosen for VITA 41. The
email stated:
"Tyco Electronics and FCI agree to license any intellectual
property that
they own which is necessary to manufacture the MultiGig RT /
AGILEX
connector in accordance with VITA Standards Organization
policy. The
licenses will be granted in a non-discriminatory manner for
reasonable
consideration for applications in accordance with the VITA 41
standard
only."
VITA Standards Report
John Rynearson gave the
VITA standards report. See presentation.
Intellectual Rights Policy
John discussed the issue
of crafting a new intellectual rights policy in light of the recent ruling in
the Rambus case. See presentation.
VITA 41, VXS
Bob Tufford reported on
the status of the VITA 41. See presentation.
Andreas Lenkish, Schroff,
presented the results of their routing study. See results.
Henry Wong, Motorola,
discussed the proposal to change the power connector to allow insertion into a
conduction cooled chassis. A
series 41 connector from Positronics appears to have the correct depth to be
usuable. See presentation.
Bob reviewed the schedule
for modifications. The group plans
to ballot before the next VSO meeting.
New Form Factor Proposal
Stewart Dewar, DY4, gave a
presentation and led a discussion on
the need for additional features for VME boards used in military and aerospace
markets. Specifically as board functionality has increased the need for more
user I/O pins per board has likewise increased. Stewart indicated that current efforts such as VITA 41 and
VITA 34 did not address these specific needs. A signup sheet was circulated. This activity qualifies for working group status and will be
designated as VITA 46.
Teradyne Update
John Rynearson provided
the group with an update on the Teradyne patent issues. After the January VSO meeting as
directed by the VSO membership, Ray Alderman sent a letter to Teradyne indicating that
the VITA 34 working group had removed the Zd connector from the VITA 34 draft
and asked Teradyne to reconsider its decision not to provide licensing for the
patent it claims contains technology relevant to the Zd connector. John presented the reply from Eric
Nickerson. Teradyne indicated that
it would not provide RAND licensing for its intellectual property and presented
two alternatives to the VSO. One
alternative involves specifying hole patterns rather than actual connectors and
the other is forming consortia to develop connectors. The VSO membership discussed both alternatives. Members felt that specifying hole
patterns did not provide the level of interoperability that is required for
module standards and connector manufacturers indicated that they thought it
would be difficult to develop IP free connectors in a consortia environment.
*** LUNCH ***
VITA 42, XMC
Greg Novak, Motorola,
reviewed the status of VITA 42.
See presentation. The name XMC has been selected to refer
to VITA 42 and the initial draft has
been started. Greg passed around a
mockup of an XMC board. Greg
discussed some of the issues that were being addressed in the draft standard
development. One issue discussed
was the idea of providing for a shorter XMC module for high speed use
only. This module would fit behind
P0 on a VITA 41 payload card or anywhere on a VITA 41 switch card.
VITA 34, New Framework
John Rynearson gave a presentation from Frank Hom on the status of
VITA 34. Issues being address
include quick disconnect placement and new connector selection.
Bill Northey, FCI, gave a
short presentation on the Metral
connector and indicated that they would like to put it back into the running for
the VITA 34 connector.
VITA 34 Cooling
Ivan
Straznicky, Dy4, presented a conceptual design for liquid flow through cooling
of 6U x 160mm cards. See the
following tiff and jpeg graphics: PMC(3.8
Mbyte), heat exchanger
body(3.8 Mbyte), heat exchange
body (1.7 Mbyte - color view).
VITA 46 Discussion
John Rynearson presented
an overview of the VMEbus ecosystem and noted that whatever the group decided
to do, it need to be aware of the effects on the ecosystem. Issues discussed included whether or
not a VME on a new connector would fragment the market and what are the
synergies between the current commercial and military markets.
As a result of Stewart Dewar's presentation and subsequent discussion, the VITA-41 group, and
specifically Tyco, committed to review their Multigig RT connector to determine
the feasibility of making modifications, so that PMC modules could be normally
mounted on a VITA-41 fabric card.
After additional
discussion the meeting was adjourned at 5:00 PM.
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Elwood Parsons called the
meeting to order at 8:34 AM. There
were no announcements.
VITA 43S, Hot Swap NexGen
Mezzanine
Mike Franco, Artesys, gave
the group an update on the status of the VITA 43S study group. Mike has been working with the hot swap
group in PICMG. He discussed a paper
he wrote and some of the issues that the group is wrestling with. See presentation.
VITA 32 Ballot Review
Greg Novak covered the
VITA 32 ballot review. Istvan V
provided 16 comments in his negative ballot. Some of the comments have been accepted and some were rejected. The review will be circulated to the
ballot group for comments and a determination will be made as to whether or not
a recirculation ballot is required.
Working Group Reports
VITA
30, 2mm Euroboard
Elwood
Parsons indicated that no progress has been made since the last report.
VITA
34, New Framework
The
group is reviewing how to proceed with connector selection and is looking at
how to specify quick disconnect modules.
VITA
36, PMC I/O Modules
The
basic draft has been completed and a number of companies are using it. Greg Novak will clean it up and a a
working group ballot will be conducted.
VITA
41, VXS
A
working group ballot of recent changes is scheduled to be completed before the
next VSO meeting.
VITA
42, High Speed Proc PMC
The
draft has been started and teleconferences will continue to further refine it.
VITA
43S, Hot Swap NexGen Mezz
Michael
Franco, Artesys, is working with the PICMG hot swap group to refine the issues
required for implementation.
VITA
44S, Pn4 Differential Routing
Dick
DeBock was not able to attend the meeting. John Rynearson will contact Dick and determine how he wants
to proceed.
VITA
45S, Serial VME
John
gave a report for Hermann Strass who
proposed this idea at the January VSO meeting. Members discussed the practicality of serial VME and
questioned why one would implement serial VME instead of some other serial
protocol like serial Rapid IO.
VITA
46, New Form Factor VME
This
is a new effort and details are still be worked out. A reflector will be set up for the working group.
Other
Business
The
membership expressed their interest in having internet access at all future
meetings and discussed their willingness to pay an increased fee if necessary
to insure such a service. John
Rynearson noted that meetings at the Resort Suites would have internet access
and that he would find out about other hotels.
There
being no more business the meeting was adjourned at 10:30 am.
Submitted
by:
/s/
John Rynearson, VITA Secretariat
