Industry Insights
Under the Radar, RapidIO is Doing Fine
By Rick Merritt, Editor-at-Large, EE Times
Rick Merritt writes a blog on interconnects at http://interconnects.blogspot.com/
When graciously asked to write a short article for this month's
newsletter, I had to admit I wasn't sure what to say about the RapidIO interconnect
and had to do a little research. Truth be told, RapidIO technology and the whole
embedded sector where it lives tends to fly under the radar for many trade
journalists and Wall Streeters who cover technology—even supposedly expert EE
Times editors and bloggers like myself! We tend to give most of our attention to
mainstream computing with its big volumes and interesting Intel vs. AMD and
Microsoft vs. Linux brawls.
Forgive us our myopia as we follow the big money. In-Stat said PCI Express shipped
last year in a whopping 224 million systems, mainly PCs, compared to less than
500,000 systems that used RapidIO products. Similarly, numbers for the Ethernet
juggernaut are off the top end of the scale. Nevertheless, if you scratch the
surface, RapidIO technology has had a good year.
The same In-Stat report I wrote about back in March said the RapidIO standard has a
strong base in several embedded sectors. The market watcher actually predicts it
will dominate in areas such as wireless base stations and medical and defense
systems.
In a March report on the outlook for backplane-based systems, top engineers from
Alcatel-Lucent told me there are high performance niches where they will use
RapidIO technology because Express just doesn't fly. A February report from my
colleague Loring Wirbel discussed the flow control and quality of service
mechanisms coming in RapidIO Specification 2.0 which will support 6.125 Gbit/second
data rates, surpassing Express 2.0 with its 5 Gbit/second ceiling. Altera gave a
nod to the RapidIO standard as an established interface when they agreed to support
it in their new line of Arria low-cost FPGAs in May.
Indeed, in the embedded space, RapidIO technology has become something of an
incumbent, originally designed by embedded systems engineers primarily as a
chip-to-chip interface for their PowerPC processors and DSPs. It didn't hurt that
last year Advanced Switching, Intel's push to retool Express for embedded, went
belly up. Of course, many engineers, including the crew at StarGen, are realizing
Express has long legs in computing that will carry it into use in many embedded
systems. But the RapidIO standard has clearly established its roots, set its road
map and will grow for years to come.
RapidIO technology may fly under the radar sometimes, but insiders know it is also
being used inside the radar, and the base station, and that high-end telco switch
and...
Selected URLs for more information:
Article on InStat's interconnect report:
www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=197700188
EE Times report on RapidIO Specification 2.0:
www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=197006130
No winner yet in backplane brawl:
www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=198001315
Altera's Arria support RIO, Express and Ethernet:
www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=199203338
Advanced Switching goes belly up:
www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=190400383
