April 2015
36
E
MBEDDED
C
OMPUTING
84HP and a huge range of possible con gura-
tions. e modular design of this family guar-
antees a scalability which allows individual
settings without complexity. e system can
be adapted to suit the needs of its user. e
con guration most likely starts with the de -
nition of the backplane. Pentair o ers nearly
all imaginable types of CPCI Serial back-
planes with one to nine slots, di erent Ether-
net topologies (full mesh or single star), the
system slot le or right, and nally with or
without rear I/O.
As previously described, Schro also o er
the two di erent pinouts for the P6 con-
nector. is connector can either be used to
route the Ethernet signals on the backplane
or without any backplane connection, for
direct routing to the rear I/O connector. e
Schro backplane family o ers enormous
number of di erent combinations. e con-
nector for the pluggable power supply can be
either integrated on the backplane, or linked
with a power adapter board which connects
the 12V and GND between Schro Com-
pactPCI Serial power backplanes and back-
planes. With the available space of the 19”
chassis the user could add additional power
supplies for power redundancy or even real-
ize several independent CPCI Serial systems
in one chassis.
Another very important part of the infrastruc-
ture is a proper power supply. Each applica-
tion has certain power requirements. e
Pentair pluggable power supplies are exible
for many operational conditions and suit-
able for extended temperature conditions
from -40°C to +70°C at full rating. Active
current share supports N+1 redundancy and
enables power consumption sharing between
up to four power supplies, which allow a hot-
swap replacement during operation. e AC
PSU has a wide input range of 90-264 VAC,
and provide 12V output and 5V standby as
de ned for CompactPCI Serial speci cation.
Instead of a pluggable unit the user may prefer
an open frame PSU which usually provides a
higher output power. With the various con-
gurations Pentair is able to cover 98% of all
requirements for CPCI Serial applications.
e power input is as for CompactPCI at the
backside of the unit. is supports a power
entry at the rear side of the system which
avoids any disruptive cabling at the front.
e replaceable fan tray in the bottom of the
chassis guarantees a su cient cooling of the
application. Depending of the number of used
slots the fan tray can be extended on demand.
So, the user can chose between two or three
powerful fans to ensure proper heat dissipation.
e optional fan control module monitors and
regulates the temperature by controlling the fan
speed. In case of a malfunction or an over tem-
perature event an alarm by LEDs in the front
panel warns the user. ese LEDs also indicate
the power status and give the user an overview
about the status of the complete system infra-
structure. To increase the serviceability the
chassis can be equipped with telescopic slides.
is would be quite interesting for replacing
any rear I/O board. With the telescopic slides
the system doesn’t need to be reinstalled out
of the rack. Nothing needs to be disassembled
and any maintenance at the application can be
done without interrupting the operation of the
system.
With this new generation Pentair is able to
cover all requirements an application based
on CompactPCI Serial could have. All devices
like power supply, cooling or backplane are
designed according the IEEE and PICMG stan-
dard and optimally matched to one another.
Supported by the scalable platform the system
can be con gured to meet exactly the cus-
tomer requirements. In addition to reduced
development costs, the user also pro ts
from short development and manufacturing
times.
Beyond the mentioned modi cations, the
CompactPCI Serial speci cation is continu-
ously being developed further. Currently the
PICMG working group is de ning a standard
for a shelf management light for CPCI Serial.
is shelf management will monitor features
including power management and cool-
ing control, event sensor logging, electronic
keying, and hot-swap monitoring. ese
functions will be described in a subsidiary
speci cation of CPCI.S-0.
Figure 2. Backplane, 5 slot with power entry and rear I/O
Figure 3. AC power supply unit, 300W
