RapidIO adoption got a leg up with the release of new RapidIO mechanical standards through the VMEbus International Trade Association (www.vita.com) and the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (www.picmg.org). This means serial and parallel RapidIO will be showing up in CompactPCI designs.
The RapidIO Mezzanine Card (RMC) standard will bring RapidIO to the CMC (IEEE 1386) and PMC (IEEE 1386.1) form factors for I/O mezzanine cards. RapidIO was also submitted to the European Computer Manufacturer's Association as the ECMA-342 Standard. Fast-track approval is expected this year.
The RapidIO Trade Association (www.rapidio.org) believes serial RapidIO will help embedded developers requiring a single chip-to-chip and board-to-board interconnect. An impressive RapidIO demo at the show funneled streaming video from a DVD drive through a RapidIO link to a display card with no loss of data. Expect significant RapidIO hardware shipments this year.