U.S. Army Selects Annapolis Micro Systems 100GbE Switch as a Top-5 Winner in CMOSS Plugfest Competition

Dec. 22, 2021

Annapolis Micro Systems’ WILDSTAR 100GbE 3E10 3U OpenVPX Switch was named a “Top-5” winner at U.S. Army’s xTech CMOSS Plugfest competition held November 8-19 at the Open Innovation Laboratory (OIL), Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland.

In its final report, a seven-judge panel declared itself “very impressed” with the switch and awarded it the maximum possible incentive prize. They scored it 'Superior' or 'Satisfactory' on 17 of 19 evaluation criteria, including Design Process, Production, Physical & Electrical Profile, Switch Management Interface, Security Domains, and Backplane Data Rates and Performance.

From an initial field of 15 companies, the competition was winnowed to seven participants, and then concluded on December 7 at the OIL’s Open House and Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Modernization Update. Annapolis was one of only three switch manufacturers recognized at the event. Other hardware recognized included Chassis and PNT Cards.

The competition was hosted by PEO IEW&S, PM PNT, and DEVCOM C5ISR in partnership with Assistant Secretary of the Army to “uncover PNT and CMOSS Solutions that address the overburdened vehicle platform size, weight, power and cooling (SWaP-C) shortcomings while enabling Multi-Domain Operations (MDO).”

“It is an honor to be recognized as one of the very best rugged embedded switch manufacturers,” said Noah Donaldson, Annapolis Micro Systems Chief Technology Officer. “It’s more validation of the success of our strategy to combine the highest-performing capability with a modular open systems approach that aligns with SOSA 1.0 and CMOSS.”

Annapolis also manufactures a 6U VPX (WP6E10) version of the WILDSTAR Switch.

Based on Mellanox Spectrum silicon, each switch delivers industry-leading, true cut-through latency, with up to 6.4 Tb/s of switching between backplane slots of multiple channels of 100Gb Ethernet. They also have dense front panel I/O to connect to external data sources. WP6E10 has optional VITA 66.5 optical backplane connectivity.

The 1/10/25/40/100Gb Ethernet control plane switch is based on Marvell Prestera DX silicon. Two Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+™ MPSoC Motherboard Controllers (XCZU5EG) provide multiple levels of hardware and software security.

Both rugged high-performance switches are readily integrated into any SOSA-aligned VPX system, or deployed within Annapolis' proven WILD100™ EcoSystem.

The WILD100 EcoSystem includes these 3U VPX products:

  • 3U Baseboard: Five WILDSTAR Baseboards
  • 3U Storage: WILDSTAR 3SN0 Storage
  • 3U Switch: WILDSTAR 3E10 Switch
  • 3U Chassis: Two WILD100 Chassis & Backplanes
  • 3U Kit: WILD100 SOSA Development Kit

The WILD100 EcoSystem also includes these 6U VPX products:

  • 6U Baseboard: WILDSTAR 6XB2 Baseboard
  • 6U Storage: WILDSTAR 6SN0 Storage
  • 6U Switch: WILDSTAR 6E10 Switch
  • 6U Chassis: WILD100 16-Slot Chassis & Backplane

Suitable for either a 3U or 6U VPX system are Annapolis’ WILD Chassis Managers. They are secure VITA 46.11/SOSA-aligned chassis managers that implement a Xilinx UltraScale+ Zynq and latest Microsemi PolarFire FPGA. Support for MIL-STD-1553 is included.

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Annapolis’ powerful BSP options include 40/100GbE IP and both VxWorks 7 and Linux support.

Annapolis high-performance products are designed for advanced HPC, ISR, and multi-function EW applications, including phased array radar, cybersecurity network processing, DRFM, beamforming, sensor processing, wireless communication, and radar signal processing.

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