CompactPCI is a
computer bus interconnect for industrial computers, combining a
Eurocard-type connector and
PCI signaling and protocols.
Boards
Board or Boards may refer to:
Flat surface
* Lumber, or other rigid material, milled or sawn flat
** Plank (wood)
** Cutting board
** Sounding board, of a musical instrument
* Cardboard (paper product)
* Paperboard
* Fiberboard
** Hardboard, a t ...
are standardized to 3
U or 6U sizes, and are typically interconnected via a passive
backplane
A backplane (or "backplane system") is a group of electrical connectors in parallel with each other, so that each pin of each connector is linked to the same relative pin of all the other connectors, forming a computer bus. It is used as a back ...
. The connector pin assignments are standardized by the
PICMG
PICMG, or PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group, is a consortium of over 140 companies. Founded in 1994, the group was originally formed to adapt Conventional PCI, PCI technology for use in high-performance telecommunications, military, an ...
US and PICMG Europe organizations. The connectors and the electrical rules allow for eight boards in a PCI segment. Multiple bus segments are allowed with
bridges
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually someth ...
.
[
]
Unlike the original Eurocard solutions such as
VME, which use connectors with a 0.1 inch (2.54 mm) pin spacing, CompactPCI cards use metric connectors with a 2-millimeter pin spacing, designed to the
IEC 1076 standard. 3U boards have a 110-pin connector (J1), which carries the 32-bit PCI bus signals, and an optional 110-pin connector (J2), which carries either user-defined I/O or the upper 32 bits of an optional 64-bit PCI bus. 6U cards have an identical J1, a J2 that is always used for 64-bit PCI, as well as J3, J4, and J5 connectors for a variety of uses either as user-defined I/O or specified signaling such as Telephony and/or
Ethernet
Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...
signaling. Hot-plugging is a supported feature of CompactPCI. Some of the pins are slightly longer to provide proper grounding when devices are inserted and removed.
The backplanes can be designed for 3.3 V VIO or 5 V VIO operation. These are differentiated by having 'Cadmium Yellow' coloured key for 3.3V or 'Brilliant Blue' colour for 5V operation. If the CompactPCI card operates on a particular VIO voltage the card shall have the respective coloured coding key. If the card is compatible with both voltages then it may not have any coding key. The image above illustrates a 5 V VIO 8-slot backplane.
CompactPCI was initially ratified as PICMG 2.0 in late 1995 as a passive backplane for PCI signaling. The 2.x series of specifications from PICMG provide support for a variety of technologies including Hot Swap (PICMG 2.1), Telephony signaling (PICMG 2.5) and most notably the expansion of the architecture to include switched Ethernet (PICMG 2.16).
Originally designed to support the PCI signaling protocol (and hence the name "CompactPCI"), CompactPCI has grown to include a variety of technologies centered on the application of the 2mm HM connector on the 3U and 6U form factor. In fact many systems are implemented with no PCI bus on the backplane, such as those implemented with switched Ethernet board interconnection (PICMG 2.16).
A drawback of the design is that the signal pins can become bent when a new device is inserted.
Related standards include CompactPCI Express and CompactPXI, which follow a similar concept, but substitute the protocols and signaling of
PCI Express and
PXI respectively.
The abbreviations cPCI, CPCI, cPCIe, and CPCIe are colloquial terms and are not officially used by PICMG.
See also
*
CompactPCI Serial CompactPCI Serial is an industrial standard for modular computer systems. It is based on the established PICMG 2.0 CompactPCI standard, which uses the parallel PCI bus for communication among a system's card components. In contrast to this, Compact ...
*
CompactPCI PlusIO
CompactPCI PlusIO is an extension to the PICMG 2.0 CompactPCI industrial standard for modular computer systems.
CompactPCI PlusIO was officially adopted by the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group PICMG as PICMG 2.30 CompactPCI PlusIO in No ...
*
PXI
*
MicroTCA or Advanced Mezzanine Card
*
Mini PCI
*
VMEbus
VMEbus (Versa Module Europa or Versa Module Eurocard bus) is a computer bus standard, originally developed for the Motorola 68000 line of CPUs, but later widely used for many applications and standardized by the IEC as ANSI/IEEE 1014-1987. ...
*
VPX
VPX (Virtual Path Cross-Connect), also known as VITA 46, refers to a set of standards for connecting components of a computer (known as a computer bus), commonly used by defense contractors.
Some are ANSI standards such as ANSI/VITA 46.0–2019.
...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Compactpci
Peripheral Component Interconnect
Computer standards
Open standards
PICMG standards