CHELMSFORD, Mass., 26 Jan. 2009 Mercury Computer Systems announced availability of its EnsembleMCH2020 MicroTCA Carrier Hub and a 12-slot MicroTCA chassis - system components that can be combined with a range of current AdvancedMC mezzanine cards (AMCs) to create small form factor solutions.

"We are excited to be expanding our range of solutions in the fast-growing ATCA/MicroTCA market," says Mark Aslett, president and chief executive officer of Mercury Computer Systems. "Customers need to support very high data rates with consistent, low-latency processing power. Our Ensemble ATCA systems do that by combining the RapidIO switch fabric with a broad choice of processing elements. Now customers can use the same system architecture in a MicroTCA solution and achieve impressive levels of performance in a smaller, very cost-effective form factor."

The announcement was made in Tokyo, where Mercury has had success with its family of ATCA/MicroTCA products. "Mercury and our business partners are working together to help a number of Japanese customers address significant real-time computing challenges," says Ken Kimura, representative director of Nihon Mercury Computer Systems K. K. "These new MicroTCA platforms expand the range of technology options available to our combined solutions team."

The new Ensemble MCH2020 MicroTCA Carrier Hub provides the control and switching infrastructure for MicroTCA system configurations, with single-module support for three system fabrics: a Gigabit Ethernet base interface, a RapidIO switch fabric, and an intelligent platform management interface (IPMI). The MCH2020 is the third-generation RapidIO switching module within the Ensemble product family, and it can be readily configured with any combination of Ensemble processing AMCs to create a high-performance, real-time system, Mercury officials say.

Robust system configurations can be built on the Ensemble MicroTCA Application Platform, a 4U, 19-inch rack-mountable MicroTCA chassis with 12 AMC slots and two switch/hub slots. This chassis supports high-bandwidth backplane communications with a dual-star RapidIO topology. Application developers can use this platform to combine extreme processing density with low-latency, deterministic communications.