Platform chassis for telecoms equipment

Emerson Network Power's new Embedded Computing business, formerly Artesyn Communication Products, has announced its first production MicroTCA system, the EMC6000 series. Available in 12- and 24-slot versions, the EMC6000 Series has a high-speed switched fabric, an innovative air-flow design that enhances cooling and reliability, and platform-management software that greatly simplifies and speeds initial system bring up and configuration. 'The EMC6000 Series is the first family of full-featured production MicroTCA systems that includes the chassis, power supply, control plane, data plane switch, application/protocol processing, and platform management', said Todd Wynia, vice president of product management for Emerson's Embedded Computing business.

'With our new systems, telecom OEMs will be able to quickly develop and deploy a variety of wireless and IMS applications leveraging compact, low-cost, high-availability MicroTCA platforms'.

The EMC6000 is a 12-slot, double MicroTCA system, which can accept any mix of single and double AMC cards.

The EMC6200 is a 24-slot, two-tiered MicroTCA system that combines two stacked single-wide chassis in the same enclosure.

Both systems contain independent control and data plane operation, and are equipped with a MicroTCA Carrier Hub (MCH), power supply module, and Pentium-based application/protocol processing.

Both systems also feature Emerson's new SpiderWareM3 platform management software, which makes it easy to monitor key physical system health characteristics such as voltages, fan speeds, temperatures, and power supply status.

Using this information, which each AdvancedMC blade conveys via its Intelligent Peripheral Management Interface (IPMI), the platform management software and/or network operators can monitor system operation, take corrective action, optimise cooling and system power allocation, perform remote shutdown/restart, and log events.

SpiderWareM3 is fully compliant with the Service Availability Forum's Hardware Platform Interface (HPI) specification.

Emerson's KosaiPM module provides control, protocol and application processing for the system.

The KosaiPM has a Pentium M processor (up to 1.8GHz), 1Mbyte of Level 2 cache, 2Gbyte of SDRAM, up to 1Gbyte of NAND flash, and two gigabit Ethernet channels, which facilitate communications with the MicroTCA backplane.

The KosaiPM also has a USB interface, an IPMI system-management interface, and a storage interface, which provides access to hard drives residing in other MicroTCA slots.