Kontron AM4101 AdvancedMC processor module delivers 1.5 GHz dual core PowerPC performance combined with unsurpassed communication capabilities

Kontron announces its new Kontron AM4101 Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC/AdvancedMC) representing Kontron’s strength in developing leading-edge processor boards for use in multiple markets that require multi-core performance and versatile communication capabilities. Based on the 1.5 GHz dual core Freescale PowerPC MPC8641D, the Kontron AM4101 delivers up to 2.3 MIPS/MHz computing performance and the highest Ethernet bandwidth without breaking the power budgets of modular AdvancedTCA carriers or highly-integrated, redundant MicroTCA multi-processing systems.

With the integrated Altivec 128-Bit Vector Processing Unit the Kontron AM4101 AdvancedMC is expanding the system design capability in telecom applications and non-telecom markets such as medical, industrial imaging and military/aerospace. The Kontron AM4101 AdvancedMC supports four Gigabit Ethernet interfaces - two GbE ports are routed to the front panel and two are available at the AdvancedMC connector (AMC.2). Processing intense applications such as encryption, multimedia encoding and decoding, image and video processing as well in DSLAM (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer), speech recognition and base station will benefit from the vector processing unit which works to minimize cache pollution while processing massive amounts of data.

The Kontron AM4101 AdvancedMC port mapping is aligned with the telecom specific SCOPE Alliance AMC Gap analysis and has dedicated ports for PCI Express at AMC ports 4 - 7 and serialRapidIO at AMC ports 8 – 11. This implementation allows the use and re-use of the AdvancedMC module in AdvancedTCA and MicroTCA platforms for telecom-specific applications.

The Kontron AM4101 AdvancedMC includes up to 2GB of soldered DDR2-SDRAM, up to 2GB of soldered NAND Flash and EEPROM for user and configuration data. The Kontron AM4101 is fully hot-swappable, which makes it possible to replace the module without shutting down the AdvancedTCA carrier board or the MicroTCA system. A dedicated Module Management Controller (MMC) is used to manage the board and support Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) commands and PICMG (AdvancedTCA/AdvancedMC) command extensions, which enable operators to monitor the state of the AdvancedMC module in the system.

The Kontron AM4101 AdvancedMC processor module will be available in Mid-Size and Full-Size variants. Samples are available on request and full production will start in December 2008. Board Support Packages (BSPs) are available for Linux and VxWorks.

More information about the Kontron AM4101 AdvancedMC