Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing in San Diego is offering a quad PowerPC-based 6U VME64x board that delivers high-performance digital signal processing (DSP) and eases the deployment of high-performance switched-fabric networks with on-board support for StarFabric, a highly flexible, point-to-point, switched backplane and chassis-to-chassis interconnect fabric. The Manta QX3 features quad 1-GHz PowerPC 7457 processors coupled in a shared memory architecture that when used with symmetric multiprocessing operating systems like Linux enables software-transparent performance scaling while the operating system distributes tasks across several processors, company officials say. The Manta QX3 also provides a StarFabric interface to deliver sustained data rates exceeding 400 megabytes per second. Memory options include 512 megabytes, and 1 or 2 gigabytes of DDR SDRAM with ECC protection. The air-cooled VME64x board comes in a range of ruggedization levels, spanning from commercial to extended-temperature versions qualified for elevated shock and vibration environments. For more information, visit www.cwcontrols.com.