| Front Panel Hardware Considerations For ATCA, AMC, and MicroTCA Telecom Equipment |
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| Sep 01 2008 | |
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advertisement: Acceptance of telecom industry standards for rack-mounted server equipment — in the form of the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturer’s Group (PICMG) standards — is gaining momentum throughout global market channels. The objectives of those standards are certainly attractive in terms of streamlining economy and efficiency for both carriers and telecom equipment manufacturers across a number of areas. Their aim is to reduce development time and costs, as well as to help reduce the total cost of ownership. They are also intended to offer high levels of modularity and configurability while delivering high levels of service availability (99.999% and greater) and supporting appropriate scalability of system performance and capacity.  Figure A. Modular rack-mount systems covered by the PICMG standards can include any combination of circuit boards, mezzanine card modules and carrier boards, each with their own mounting hardware standards requirements. Click to enlarge Within the overall PICMG standards for modular telecom applications, there are three levels of specifications: •AdvancedTCA® (also known as Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture or ATCA) is the common name for the PICMG 3.0 core standard that dictates board, backplane and shelf mechanical assembly, power distribution, and connectivity required for system management. This application is devoted to larger rackmounted installations at central offices forming the core of a system.•AdvancedMC™ (also known as Advanced Mezzanine Card) addresses the AMC.0 stand ard for a series of individual-function mezzanine card modules assembled onto a single carrier board that then mounts into an AdvancedTCA rack system. With multiple modules per carrier and multiple module height options, this application provides greater flexibility for adding discrete functions at the periphery of the system. •MicroTCA™ (also known as Micro Telecom Computing Architecture or μTCA) is complementary to the AdvancedTCA standard and defines the use of AMC.0 mezzanine cards plugged directly into a backplane. This permits the configuration of multi-function applications with a lower entry cost or smaller physical size. In addition to providing specifications for connector and signal interfaces, each level also has its own specifications for front-panel fastener and access hardware. These specifications provide for the convenience of safe hot-swappable component replacement, flexible configuration options, common phys ical dimensions, and multi-vendor compatibility. |
