FMC Technology Overview

The FMC standard defines:

• IO mezzanine modules, which connect to carrier cards
• • Low profile design allows use on popular industry standard slot card, blade and motherboard form factors, including VME, VPX, CompactPCI, AdvancedTCA, MicroTCA, PCI, PXI, and many other low profile motherboards. The compact size is highly adaptable to many configuration needs and compliments existing common low profile mezzanine technology such as PMC, XMC, and AMC.
• A high-speed connector family of connectors for IO mezzanine modules
• • Supporting up to 10 Gb/s transmission with adaptive equalized I/O
  • Supporting single ended and differential signaling up to 2 Gb/s
  • Numerous I/O available
• The electrical connectivity of the IO mezzanine module high-speed connector
• • Supporting a wide range of signaling standards
  • System configurable I/O functionality
  • FPGA intimacy
• The mechanical properties of the IO mezzanine module
• • Minimal size
  • Scalable from low end to high performance applications
  • Conduction and ruggedized support

The FMC standard has two defined sizes that are referred to as a single width, and a double width module. The single width module has a width of 69mm and the double width module has a width of 139mm. The depth of both is 76.5mm.

The FMC mezzanine module uses a high-pin count 400 pin high-speed array connector, HPC. A mechanically compatible low-pin count, LPC, connector with 160 pins can also be used with any of the form factors detailed in this standard.

FMCs are being used in a wide range of markets, environments, and carrier card form factors supporting a wide range of I/O interfaces. The standard describes options to create modules for operating in a range of environments from passively cooled to fully ruggedized conduction cooled.