RapidIO Connections Newsletter - Spring 2005

Executive Director’s Perspective Serial RapidIO® Springs Ahead With Product Launches
Design It RapidIO® Interconnect Technology in Storage
Insights Most important attributes for a backplane technology
Insights from Eric Mantion, Senior Analyst, In-Stat, and Lee Goldberg, Senior Technical Editor, Networking and Connectivity of AnalogZONE
Member Connection The Need for Optimized Bridging Between PCI™ and Serial RapidIO
by Mike Jadon of Micro Memory™
RTA at Work The Customer Programs Subcommittee Bringing RapidIO Events to Developers Around the World – Next Stop Munich, May 31, 2005
In the Spotlight The RapidIO Trade Association and standard as well as member company news continue to be hot industry topics
Where to Network See RTA at Supercomm 2005, Booth 87021 and at the Freescale Technology Forum
RapidIO Reflections What’s Your Perspective?

Insights:

Eric Mantion, Senior Analyst, In-Stat, and Lee Goldberg, Senior Technical Editor, Networking and Connectivity of AnalogZONE share their perspectives

Question: What are the most important attributes for a backplane technology?

Answer: The most important attributes for a backplane technology is that it be able to successfully transmit its rated speed over a very standard and manufacturable backplane with a very low Bit Error Rate. Other important issues are the ability to ensure successful transmissions of packets (with receipt acknowledgment), low latencies from one node to another, and the ability to support Quality of Service provisions.

by Eric Mantion, Senior Analyst, In-Stat

Answer: A good backplane technology represents a series of wise trade-offs between ultimate performance, flexibility, and implementation cost. It should have enough signal integrity to support high data rates over commonly available backplane materials and connectors with a minimum of specialized design and manufacturing practices. It should also be "agenda free" and not be structured to favor a particular manufacturer's processor, bus, or I/O architecture. Finally, the technology should have a clear growth path to enable it to expand its capacity and capabilities as increasingly-sophisticated applications demand more bandwidth and intelligence from their backplane connections.

by Lee Goldberg, Senior Technical Editor, Networking and Connectivity AnalogZONE