MTCA / AMC

NAT-MCH - Mezzanine Modules

The NAT-MCH can be equipped with different Fat Pipe Fabric modules for PCIe, SRIO and 10GbE fullfilling the demand for high performance data paths within a micro TCA (MTCA) system. Different clocking options provide all clock signals for telecom and non-telcom applications. These flexible configuration options make the NAT-MCH the ideal choice for any kind of application.

The following Mezzanine options are available:

• Clock Mezzanine - Telecom and Fabric Clocks
• Clock Mezzanine with additional SATA switch
• PCIe Hub Mezzanine (AMC.1)
• SRIO Hub Mezzanine (AMC.4)
• 10GbE Hub (XAUI) Mezzanine (AMC.2) (Q2 2008)

Clock Mezzanine

The Clock Mezzanine Module allows a flexible selection of the telecom and non-telecom clocking structures as defined in MicroTCA.0 R1.0. The on-board Stratum 3 type PLL sources its clock reference configurably from either any of the 12 AMCs or from an external clock via the front panel BNC type connector.

In conjunction with the PCIe Hub module it provides a PCIe compliant fabric clock (FCLKA) to all AMC slots. This can be either a 100MHz fixed or 100MHz Spread Spectrum clock (SSC).

Key Features:

• Support of AMC clocks CLK1, CLK2 and CLK3 for up to 12 AMCs
• Update clock for a second NAT-MCH in a redundant systems
• Reference clock In/Output on face plate
• Stratum 3 type PLL clock source for telecom applications
• Variable switching and distribution of clocks by onboard FPGA
• Reference for the Stratum 3 PLL can be either CLK1 or CLK2 from any AMC or sourced from the front panel
• PCI Express compliant clock signal can be distributed via CLK3 to all 12 AMCs
  (only supported with an installed PCI Express Hub-Module)

PCIe Hub Mezzanine

The PCIe Hub module supports full non-transparent bridging functionality to allow implementation of multi-host systems and intelligent I/O modules in applications such as communications, storage and blade servers.

Key Features:

• support for 6 (option -X24) or 12 (option- X48) AMC modules, Fabrics D-G
• non-blocking switch fabric
• built of two PLX PEX 8532 chips (-X48)
• high density x8 interconnect between chips to prevent performance bottleneck
• upstream port configurable to any of the 12 AMC slots
• PCIe hot plug support for each AMC slot
• secondary (failover) host possible
• clustering support, two clusters of 6 AMC modules each can be operated individually, each having its own root complex
• supports x1 and x4 width ports to any AMC
• configuration option for Spread Spectrum Clock (SSC) or 100MHz fixed PCIe clock
• PCIe clock can be provided as Fabric Clock (FCLKA) to the AMC slots

SRIO Hub Mezzanine

The SRIO Mezzanine module provides a non-blocking high performance data switching functionality for up to 12 AMCs.
The non-hierarchical structure of SRIO allows for superior bandwidth data communication between each end point. Additonally, with SRIO data integrity and health checks are performed by hardware.

Key Features:

• flexible port width: X1 and X4
• 12.5 GBit/sec Bandwith per port (X4)
• 80 Gbit/s aggregate bandwidth
• operating baud rate per data lane 1.25 GBit/s, 2.5 GBit/s or 3.125 GBit/s
• transport layer error management
• low latency packet transport
• power down modes and routing capabilities per port
• decentralised communication model: per-to-per

10GbE (XAUI) Hub Mezzanine

The NAT-MCH 10 GbE Hub Mezzanines provides high performance, low latency and robust Ethernet packet switching service for MTCA systems.

Key Features:

• 10 Gbe Ethernet port for 12 AMC slots
• 2 Uplink ports on faceplate
• per Port selction of:
  • XAUI - 10GBase-CX4
  • 2.5 GbE
  • 1 Gb
• Link Aggregation (802.3ad)
• 240 Gbps bandwidth

Security:

• MAC address security
• Port access control (802.1x)

Layer 2 Bridging Features:

• Spanning Tree (802.1D,s,w)
• VLAN priority (802.1Q,P)
• Link Aggregation (802.3ad)
• Duplex Flow Control (802.3x)
• user defined monitoring and filter rules

Fabric Comparison