April 2015
12
M
ICRO
TCA
Figure 2. Rugged conduction-cooled MTCA.3
systems are not just used in Mil/Aero applica-
tions they are also a good t in pole-mount out-
door network edge, energy, and other industries.
MicroTCA solves key needs
in wide range of applications
By Justin Moll,
VadaTech
The MicroTCA architecture is highly
versatile, making it an exceptional fit
for many applications. This includes
solutions with mid-range performance
criteria in many industrial, broadcast,
and other markets, up to the most
demanding signal processing,
networking, and storage requirements
in mil/aero, physics, and
communications systems.
e MicroTCA architecture was formed in
2006 and originally geared for Telecom systems.
e TCA in the name stands for Telecom Com-
puting Architecture. Ironically, telecom is only
a niche today for the open standard embedded
computing architecture. MicroTCA serves the
key needs of design engineers in applications
from industrial control, broadcast, energy,
medical, test and measurement, and transpor-
tation markets. Its largest success has been in
mil/aero, high-energy physics, and commu-
nications. With perhaps the best performance
density in the market, there are several design
innovations in MicroTCA that are solving the
most critical design challenges across a broad
spectrum of industries.
MicroTCA ts the design needs of many
applications because of its versatility. ere is
a broad swath of modules from several ven-
dors from I/O, graphics, storage, network
interface, switches, FPGAs, digitizers, etc.
Some of the core features of the technology
are that has provisions for up to 99.99999%
uptime reliability, a highly scalable, compact,
vast and proven ecosystem, and low cost. Its
inherent system/health management and
interoperability are the envy of other open
architectures. As a truly COTS platform, there
are economies of scale in serving multiple
markets. As the architecture is very compact,
it is attractive for many applications where
SWaP-C (size, weight, power, and cost) is a
consideration. Although the performance is
potentially extremely high, the ecosystem also
supports the lower to medium requirements
for network communication, graphics, stor-
age, etc. One of the key drivers for MicroTCA
innovation is the communications/test mar-
ket. Requiring bleeding edge performance,
MicroTCA has introduced the industry rst
100G line cards (out the front panel, 40GbE
across the backplane) including a 100G Cav-
ium 6880 processor and a 100G Stratix-V
FPGA. e mil/aero and physics markets have
introduced AMCs that are also at the bleeding
edge in ADC and DAC.
But the architecture is perhaps surprisingly
tting for applications that don’t require the
most cutting-edge performance. One exam-
ple is for industrial applications - a system
that uses an EtherCAT card in the AMC
form factor, dual GbE networking modules,
a dual-channel ATI graphics accelerator card
for video processing, and a single-core Ivy-
Bridge processor packaged in a lightweight 1U
chassis. e PCIe signaling, video processing
and networking connection for high-speed
sorting/scanning can be achieved in a small,
low-cost 1U chassis. Similar industrial appli-
cations with mid-range performance require-
ments are motion control, lithography, power
distribution systems, and more. With the ver-
satile performance density of MicroTCA, a
wide range of applications are discovering the
advantages of a truly COTS architecture.
For transportation and energy applications,
the voice, data, and video communications
requirements make MicroTCA the ideal t.
ese types of industries need a robust archi-
tecture in as small a form factor as possible.
For railway communications/monitoring and
energy power distribution systems, having
high system reliability is additionally critical.
Figure 1. MicroTCA.4 with
rear I/O, as shown in these 8U
and 2U versions, was originally
designed with high-energy
physics applications in mind.
But, they have also been
adopted in railway, broadcast,
and Mil/Aero applications.
