Defense and aerospace systems designers show growing interest in MicroTCA

Investment in MicroTCA evaluation is growing in the defense and aerospace computing market, and closely resembles MicroTCA interest in the data and telecommunications markets, say analysts at market researcher Venture Development Corp. (VDC) in Natick, Mass.

MicroTCA, developed originally for data and telecommunications applications, is a small-form-factor version of the Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture, otherwise known as Advanced TCA or ATCA.

VDC analysts ranked four markets—telecom/datacom, military/aerospace, industrial, and medical—for their interest in MicroTCA, and military/aerospace ranked second behind telecom/datacom.

These ratings show there is a large appetite for MicroTCA in the defense and aerospace market, driven largely by the increase in network-centric applications for which the network-centric MicroTCA architecture is well suited, VDC analysts say.

“If MicroTCA can prove to defense contractors that the architecture is rugged enough, there will be scalable, profitable demand for MicroTCA in defense and aerospace applications,” says Eric Heikkila, director of VDC’s embedded hardware and systems practice.

MicroTCA fits the military mandate for commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)-based systems. Time-to-market increases were the second most highly rated value proposition by the mil/aero respondents following closely behind reliability.

For more information on the report, visit VDC online at www.vdc-corp.com.