VITA brings together industry experts to further VXS and PMC standards
OCTOBER 4--VITA, the VMEbus International Trade Association (Scottsdale, AZ; www.vita.com), at its September standards meeting voted to move two working group draft standards into the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) process. The first draft standard, VITA 41.0, VXS, is the base-level draft standard for the latest enhancement to the VMEbus. VXS specifies a high-performance, differential P0 connector that allows the integration of high-speed serial fabrics combined with the real-time/hard-deadline performance of the VMEbus. For the first time, this allows a standardized methodology of integrating high-speed serial data pipes to high-performance VMEbus-based systems. Bob Tufford of Motorola, chair of the VITA 41 working group, commended the group for its effort and voiced his pleasure with the final result. Bob stated, "Moving VXS into ANSI ballot is the final phase to achieving what will become a recognized world-class standard."
The second draft to be forwarded to ANSI is a revision to an existing standard, ANSI/VITA 20, Conduction Cooling for PMC. Ivan Straznicky of Curtiss Wright Controls, Embedded Computing, and chair of the working group, started the effort to provide a method for dealing with possible connector fretting. The working group began in January of this year and was able to move the revisions into the ANSI process in only 7 months. "The recommended changes were straightforward, and after discussion and one ballot the working group was able to reach consensus. This change will improve what was already a valuable standard for conduction cooled PMC," stated Ivan.
VITA, the VMEbus International Trade Association, is an incorporated, nonprofit organization of vendors and users having a common market interest. Founded in 1984, VITA believes in and champions open system architectures as opposed to proprietary system architectures. VITA's activities are international in scope. The functions performed by VITA are technical, promotional, and user related and are aimed at increasing the total market size, providing vendors additional market exposure and providing users with timely technical information. Today, VITA's mission includes not only promoting VMEbus, but promoting the very concept of open technology as embodied in the many standards currently under development within the VITA Standards Organization. Virtually all players in all markets from the smallest to the largest now use the word "open" in their company and product promotions. The VITA name is now synonymous with open systems.