BILLERICA, Mass., 1 June 2006. Radstone Embedded Computing has announced a family of rugged VPX boards based on the 3U form factor. The new product line includes an Intel Pentium-based single board computer, a graphics accelerator platform, and a Gigabit Ethernet switch. The company anticipates making further VPX announcements in the coming months, as well as releasing a line of rugged VPX boards based on the 6U form factor.
The 3U VPX is compelling to military and aerospace companies for a few reasons. Small size and low weight are important considerations in the platforms of the future, such as unmanned vehicles, with growth expected to be driven by programs such as FCS (Future Combat Systems); higher integration levels mean that performance is not compromised by the smaller form factor; and heat/power dissipation remains within today's thermal performance envelope.
Radstone's initial VPX product offering includes various platforms. The SBC340 is based on the 65nm 2.0GHz Core Duo T2500 processor, the successor to the Pentium M processor from Intel designed for minimal power consumption.
It features the 945GM Northbridge chip set, and takes advantage of PCI Express's 16x throughput. The GRA110 graphics board also features x16 PCIe, and supports dual-channel video output. The GBX410 Gigabit Ethernet Switch is based on Radstone's CPX24, and features 12 Gigabit Ethernet channels and one 10 Gigabit Ethernet channel to the backplane. All three boards are expected to ship in the third quarter.
