PowerPC-Based VME Board Serves Critical Industrial Needs

With the VMP1, a 3U VME processor board, system designers can bring the processing power of the MPC8240 PowerPC CPU to a wide range of critical industrial applications. The MPC8240 IC is a highly integrated microprocessor built around a PowerPC 603e core with an on-chip floating point unit and PCI interface. These attributes, along with the device's low power dissipation, are said to make it well-suited for 3U VME use.The board offers 200- or 250-MHz processors, up to 128 Mbytes of SDRAM with optional ECC, up to 8 Mbytes of direct-soldered flash memory, and an option for either 512 kbytes of non-volatile RAM or 144 Mbytes of Disk-On-Chip flash. Computing performance is 6.6 SPECint95, 5.5 SPECfp95 and 375 Dhrystone MIPS. In addition, there's on-board serial I/O, Fast Ethernet, and a PCI expansion connector. An Intel 82559 Fast Ethernet controller with an integrated 10/100-Mbps PHY, provides a compact and low-power LAN controller. Also included are two RS-232 serial ports provided by a 16C2550 UART with baud rates up to 1.5 Mbps. The MPC8240 PowerPC architecture is supported by numerous third-party software suppliers.