VSO Meeting

Scottsdale, AZ

May 14/15, 2003

Elwood Parsons called the meeting to order at 8:32 AM and asked members to introduce themselves. The minutes from the March VSO meeting were approved.

Ray Alderman gave the VITA report and discussed the success of CoolCON™. He also talked about having a similar conference focused on blades which would be known as BladeCON™. (Both CoolCON and BladeCON are trademarks of VITA.)

John Rynearson gave the standards report. See attachment.

John Rynearson presented the patent policy and asked for patent disclosures. None were disclosed. See patent policy slides.

John Rynearson gave a presentation on recent ANSI changes and how these changes will impact the VSO. See slides. The VSO must develop its own procedures to meet ANSI’s Essential Requirements by May 15, 2004. Until then, the VSO will continue to use ANSI’s canvass ballot process.

John discussed the ANSI requirement for an appeals process for using the “Draft Standard for Trial Use” designation and presented a proposal. See slides. After discussion the draft was amended as shown and will be forwarded to ANSI.

*** BREAK ***

VITA 42, XMC

Greg Novak, Motorola, reviewed current issues and the latest draft. See slides. Greg discussed using glyphs to indicate base module and XMC module compatibility. Greg’s freehand sketch drew rave reviews from attendees.

John Rynearson discussed alternatives to RAND licensing in relation to VITA 34 and the Teradyne patent issue. See slides.

*** LUNCH ***

VITA 34, New Framework

Bob Downing reviewed the status of VITA 34. See slides. The connector decision made at the March 2002 meeting was rescinded at the January 2003 VSO meeting and the group is faced with selecting another connector. The group discussed various alternatives and decided to set up a requirements list and review connector candidates at the July VSO meeting.

VITA 41, VXS

Bob Tufford, Motorola, reported on the status of VITA 41. See slides.

Henry Wong, Motorola, presented information on the proposed new power connector and displayed several pictures that show how the PMC card fits on the VME base module. See pictures.

Bob Tufford discussed the next generation card and Jim Fedder, TYCO, presented the tier 2 truncated module. See slides and overheads.

Bulk purchase for the alignment key was discussed. John Rynearson, VITA, will help coordinate this effort.

*** BREAK ***

VITA 46, VME with More I/O Pins

Stewart Dewar, DY4, presented the status of VITA 46. See slides.

Dick DeBock, Thales, presented his ideas for adding more pins to the 160 pin DIN connector while maintaining interoperability with legacy products. See slides.

The meeting was adjourned for Wednesday at 5:00 PM.

Thursday, May 15, 2003

Elwood Parsons, VSO Chair, called the meeting to order at 8:32 am.

John Rynearson made two announcements. Attendees for the July VSO meeting were made aware of the June 7, 2003 cutoff for room reservations. John also noted that a full lunar eclipse would occur Thursday evening starting at 7:14 PM in the Phoenix area.

Michael Franco, Artesyn, was not present so no report was given on VITA 43S.

VITA 1.7, Enhanced DIN

Bob Patterson conducted a negative ballot review for VITA 1.7. The draft will be revised and a recirculation ballot will be scheduled.

Study and Working Group Reports

VITA 30, 2mm Connector Practice on Euroboard

Elwood Parsons recommended that this activity be tabled. The goal of this project was to update the ANSI/VITA 30 standard with form factors from new activities. However, these activities have not yet been completed.

VITA 36, PIM

Greg Novak and Dick DeBock will review the current draft and a working group ballot will be held.

VITA 44S, Pn4 Differential Routing

After discussion, the group decided to table this activity. Sufficient interest in this topic did not exist to continue it.

VITA 45S, Serial VME

Hermann Strass continues to try to develop interest in this topic. Those interested in developing a serial protocol for VME should contact Hermann.

VME Observations

John Rynearson made some observations re: branding and the evolutionary path from buses to fabrics. The VME community has done an excellent job through it technical work in creating a “VME” brand. As the community carries VME into the 21^st century, the community needs to make sure it remains true to the brand that it has created.

John also noted that the picture of a smooth evolutionary path from busses to fabrics was not necessarily correct. Some applications might never make the jump to fabrics while other applications might continue to use VME as the control plane and a fabric as the data plane never making the jump to a fabric only model. And the fabric only model for embedded applications will require a new real-time software paradigm before it sees widespread use.

Danny Cohen suggested that the VSO schedule a session at the September 2003 meeting dedicated to optical backplanes, and to consider parallel optics. Tyco/Xanoptix, Teraconnect, and JAE will be invited to present.

*** BREAK ***

VITA 34, New Framework

Bob Downing continued the discussion begun yesterday on VITA 34. See notes from Wednesday. Bob will rewrite the draft allowing multiple sizes in increments of 1U.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:24 AM.

Submitted by John Rynearson, VITA