Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions division today introduced two new small form factor commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) single board computers (SBCs), based on Intel’s latest generation Mobile Xeon processor E3 v5 (formerly known as ‘Skylake-H’).
The new rugged modules, the 3U OpenVPX™ VPX3-1220 and XMC-121 XMC processor mezzanine card feature a low-power version of the Xeon processor to provide high-performance quad-core x86 processing with integrated graphics at typically 50% the power levels of previous solutions.
These SBCs are ideal for use in size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) constrained aerospace and defence systems. What’s more, the VPX3-1220 is the first Xeon processor SBC designed to meet DO-254 Design Assurance Level (DAL) C. Available with certifiable DO-254 design artifacts from Curtiss-Wright, this powerful VPX module can effectively speed the deployment and certification of critical manned and unmanned airborne Safety Certifiable applications.
Both of these new SBCs are ideal for use in general purpose mission computing applications that require the highest possible processing performance while consuming low power. These fully rugged modules speed and simplify the integration of Intel Xeon-class processing into demanding defence and aerospace deployed applications such as mission computing, image and display processing, virtualisation and small multi-SBC ISR systems.
"With the introduction of our two new ‘Skylake’ Xeon-based single board computers, Curtiss-Wright has once again extended the performance of small form factor embedded processing, enabling our customers to deploy more computing power at less cost in ever smaller size and power envelopes," said Lynn Bamford, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Defence Solutions division.
"Going further, we designed our VPX3-1220 SBC for safety certifiable applications. Its COTS DO-254 artifact kit makes this SBC the industry’s highest performance multi-core solution to meet the rapidly increasing demands of system designers seeking safety certifiable COTS products."
The VPX3-1220 is the industry’s first multi-core Intel Xeon-based SBC designed to meet DO-254 Design Assurance Level (DAL) C for use on safety critical military and civil aerospace platforms. This high-performance, safety certifiable COTS module is supported by a wide range of popular operating environments, including real-time operating systems certifiable to DO-178C. Because the VPX3-1220 is offered with off-the-shelf certifiable design artifacts available from Curtiss-Wright it speeds the system safety certification process.
The new XMC-121 XMC processor mezzanine module features the same Intel Mobile Xeon processor as the VPX3-1220, but delivers its high performance on an even smaller form factor. The XMC-121 enables system designers to add Xeon-class processing to extremely space constrained systems.
An ideal means of reducing system slot count, this XMC processor mezzanine can be mounted on a graphics or FPGA module, or on the power supply of Curtiss-Wright MPMC series system chassis for a truly zero-slot solution.