By John Keller

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.–VITA, the open-systems embedded computing trade association in Scottsdale, Ariz., is launching the VXS Marketing Alliance to promote the adoption and development of ANSI/VITA 41 VME switched serial fabric products and applications. More than 80 VXS products are available and deployed throughout the world, VITA officials say.

VXS is used in traditional open-standards embedded computing applications in the military, industrial, and medical industries. Industry analysts say VXS sales should triple from 2009 to 2012. VXS is an ANSI/VITA standard that combines parallel VMEbus with enhancements to support switched serial fabrics, including PCI Express, RapidIO, StarFabric, and InfiniBand over a high-speed P-zero connector. This technology maintains backward compatibility with existing backplanes that do not have a conflicting P-
zero scheme.

"VXS has become the primary system architecture for upgrades that seek to maintain their tried-and-true investments in VME hardware and software while adding high-speed serial connections for sensors and multiprocessing," says Ray Alderman, executive director of VITA.

The VXS Marketing Alliance focuses on advancing VXS technology, market intelligence, and educational material, and promotes use of the specification to develop a strong installed base in military, industrial, medical, and other mission- and life-critical embedded applications.

"Our goal is to spread awareness of the value VXS brings embedded systems applications and to promote the related product and service offerings of our member companies" says Justin Moll of Elma Bustronic, chairman of the VXS Marketing Alliance.

The current VXS Marketing Alliance roster has 12 company members: Concurrent Technologies Plc; CSP Inc.; Curtiss-Wright Controls Inc.; Elma Electronic Inc.; EVOC Intelligent Technology; Hartmann Electronic; Mercury Computer Systems Inc.; Meritec/Joy Signal Technology; Pentek Inc.; SIE Computing Solutions; TEK Microsystems Inc.; and W-IE-NE-R, Plein & Baus GmbH.

The VXS Marketing Alliance joins the VPX and FMC marketing alliances backed by VITA. These marketing alliances seek to promote and grow the adoption of standards-based products.

For more information, visit the VXS Marketing Alliance online at www.vita.com/vxs, or VITA at www.vita.com.

More Military & Aerospace Electronics Current Issue Articles
More Military & Aerospace Electronics Archives Issue Articles