Force Introduces Peripheral Slot Pentium II CompactPCI Board

Force Computers, a Solectron Companypany%> announced a new CPCI-731, a Pentium II processor-based CompactPCI single board computer designed specifically for use as a peripheral slot CPU. The CPCI-731 is a follow-on product to Force's successful CPCI-730 single board computer, which is designed for use in system CPU slots.

The CPCI-731 is aimed at such advanced, processor-dependent embedded applications as Voice over IP, network switching and routing, imaging, and wireless base station controllers. The new single board computer will enable OEMs to cost-effectively extend the throughput, capacity and overall availability of these and other applications by adding multiple high-performance CPUs to an industry-standard CompactPCI system. Traditionally, OEMs looking to achieve this kind of embedded processing power have had to turn to more expensive and less flexible proprietary systems.

The CPCI-731 takes up just a single CompactPCI peripheral slot in a CompactPCI bus-based system, enabling OEMs to configure powerful multi-processor solutions within a minimal amount of system space. The board's two PMC slots to accommodate mezzanine cards allow for highly flexible I/O configurations and make the CPCI-731 easy to integrate into existing applications without necessitating a custom board design.

An Intel Low Power Pentium II Processor Module, running at either 266MHz or 333MHz provides high-performance processing power for the CompactPCI-731. To further scale performance, the CPCI-731 is designed to support the Intel Mobile Module Pentium III technology when it becomes available. Up to 256 MBytes of DRAM can be accommodated onboard (or up to 768 Mbytes using an optional 512 Mbytes memory module). The CPCI-731 also provides Real Time Operating System (RTOS)-essential features such as an extended watchdog timer and a 4 MByte flash memory.

The CPCI-731 also fully supports the CompactPCI Full Hot Swap (PICMG 2.1) specification for enhanced availability. For mission critical applications, CPCI-731 boards will support highly available (i.e.: redundant) systems configurations as well, with fail-over capabilities between CPUs.