Telecom fabrics go fine-grain
Matilde Franco · Communications Engineer · 2004
ATCA (advanced telecom computing architecture) baseboards equipped with advanced mezzanine cards (AMCs) are poised to become the dominant platform. for high-availability telecom applications. ATCA's high throughput, multi-protocol support, high power capability, hot 'swapability' and integrated system management provide an ideal baseline telecom fabric. AMC enhances the flexibility of that fabric by enabling designers to customise, scale, upgrade, and service their ATCA-based telecom systems with a finer degree of granularity. The resulting fabric structure offers an unprecedented level of flexibility, helping to reduce not only the cost of product development, but also the time to market, cost of repairs, upgrades, spare maintenance and the impact of individual component failures. By combining general-purpose ATCA carrier cards with application-specific AMC modules, designers can create versatile telecom systems that can be readily upgraded, scaled and serviced in the field. It is expected that blades combining an ATCA carrier with AMC modules will be the best fit (vis-à-vis fixed-function ATCA cards) for up to 80% of telecom applications.