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XMC/PMC Overview

PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC)

Standardized by the IEEE association, PMC is the de facto standard for mezzanine cards used in the VME, CompactPCI and VPX ecosystems. PMC offers system designers a reliable form factor with the high-performance of the PCI bus.

Switch Mezzanine Card (XMC)

XMC is a PMC with high-speed serial fabric interconnect defined by the VITA 42 standard. XMC specifies an additional connector (P5) that support PCI Express(VITA 42.3) or other high speed serial formats such as Serial RapidIO (VITA 42.2) and Parallel RapidIO (VITA 42.1)

FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC)

FPGA Mezzanine Card, or FMC, as defined in VITA 57 provides a specification describing a new I/O mezzanine module that will connect to, but not be limited to, 3U and 6U form factor cards. FMC modules use a smaller form factor compared with PMC or XMC modules, and assume connection to an FPGA or other device with reconfigurable I/O capability. It is expected that the FMC will be used in a wide range of markets, environments, and carrier card form factors supporting a wide range of I/O interfaces. The standard describes options to create modules for operating in a range of environments from passively cooled to fully ruggedized conduction cooled.

XMC/PMC/FMC
Graphics
I/O
Ethernet
Fieldbus
FMC

XMC/PMC Tech Highlights

PMC

The PMC (PCI Mezzanine Card) form factor is based on the CMC (Common Mezzanine Card) standard IEEE 1386-2001 (the Core CMC standard). The PMC standard IEEE 1386.1-2001 (standard Physical and Environmental Layers for PCI mezzanine Cards) defines the physical and environmental layers of a PCI mezzanine card (PMC) family to be usable on (but not limited to) single slot VME, VME64 and VME64x boards, CompactPCI boards, Multibus I and Multibus II boards, desktop computers, portable computers, servers, and similar types of applications. The electrical and logical layers are based on the PCI specification from the PCI special interest group. The PCI mezzanine cards allow for a variety of optional function expansions for the host system. I/O functionality from the PMC may be either through the mezzanine front panel or via the backplane by routing the I/O signals through the mezzanine connector to the host

XMC

XMC (VITA 42) defines an open standard for supporting high-speed, switched interconnect protocols on the popular PMC form factor. It adds connectors for the high-speed interconnects while retaining the main features of the PMC specification, staying within the height. It provides better definition for carrier cards, and allows for optional configuration without PMC connectors using only the high-speed connectors.

VITA 42 specifications include:

• VITA 42.0 XMC
• VITA 42.1 XMC Parallel RapidIO 8/16 LP-LVDS Protocol Layer Standard
• VITA 42.2 XMC Serial RapidIO Protocol Layer Standard
• VITA 42.3 XMC PCI Express Protocol Layer Standard
• VITA 42.4 XMC HyperTransport Protocol Layer Standard
• VITA 42.5 XMC Aurora Pin Assignments
• VITA 42.10 XMC General Purpose I/O Standard

FMC

FMC modules use a smaller form factor compared with XMC or PMC modules, and assume connection to an FPGA or other device with reconfigurable I/O capability. FMC (VITA 57) describes IO Mezzanine Modules for VMEbus Systems. This standard introduces a methodology that shall allow the front panel IO of IEEE 1101 form factor cards to be configured, via mezzanine boards.