What is VME
Overview
VME started development in the early 1980s and was standardized in 1987 as a computer bus standard for use in embedded applications. It was widely deployed in a range of industrial, research, semiconductor process control, transport, medical and defence applications worldwide. Many of these applications have migrated to more modern and higher bandwidth architectures. VME continues to be a widely installed architecture, particularly in the defence market.
VME Standards
The VME specification, owned by the VITA standards body, was designed to specify the electrical and mechanical system characteristics required to design boards that reliably and unambiguously communicate with other VME boards. This allowed the system architect to optimise cost and performance without affecting compatibility. The specification established a framework for parallel bus computer architectures used to implement single and multiprocessor systems.
Comparison
Our VME processor boards support the popular VME64 topology with MBLT transfers for up to 40Mbyte per second transfer rates. While significantly slower than the Gbyte per second transfer rates that are common with modern standards like VPX, VME systems typically use the VMEbus interface for basic setup and control augmented with Gigabit Ethernet connections on the front panel for higher bandwidth communications between other system elements. It’s extremely easy to set up multiprocessing systems based on our VME processor boards, as they can be configured to act as the System Controller for bus arbitration, a VME master supporting off board accessible memory or a VME secondary board.
VME Benefits
To support typical defence applications, our designed and tested to operate in and withstand harsh environmental factors including vibration, shock and extended temperature ranges. It’s generally easy for a user to swap an obsolete VME board out for a newer one, often with minimal application and configuration changes. Technology transitions are a low-risk solution for a mid-life upgrade or life cycle extension much simpler than replacing the whole system with a new architecture. Also, VME can be cost effective for I/O based systems that don’t need high throughput transfers.
Our VME Solutions
VME continues to be a well-supported and widely installed bus architecture, particularly in the defence market. We provide a choice of Intel® processor-based VME boards designed for long life-cycle applications. These high-performance processor boards are complemented by a choice of switch fabric boards, XMC and PMC carriers, and mass storage modules.