SBS Greenspring Modular I/O Announces First PC-MIP Mezzanine Products.

MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 3, 1998--

Smallest (47 x 90 mm) PCI-Based High Performance Mezzanine I/O

Module

Six Modules Fit On a Single-slot 6U Carrier Board to Deliver Six

Functions and 300 I/O Lines

Ideal for Use in High Performance Industrial, COTS And Telephony

Applications

SBS GreenSpring Modular I/O announces the availability of the first PC-MIP mezzanine products.

The first PC-MIP products to ship will include one carrier board and four modules designed for industrial computing environments requiring high-performance I/O capabilities. The MC-606 is a front panel I/O mezzanine carrier board for CompactPCI that offers six PC-MIP sites.

The four modules offer a variety of I/O functions enabling designers to mix-and-match modules to system requirements: P-100BT features Fast Ethernet in a front panel I/O configuration; P-IO32 module offers 32 digital input/output dynamically designated channels; P-D64 provides 64MB DRAM and the P-F64 provides 64MB of Flash memory on a single-sized PC-MIP module.

About PC-MIP

PC-MIP is a high performance, high density mezzanine that utilizes the PCI bus as the logical interface. PC-MIP is the smallest open architecture mezzanine (47 x 90 mm) available. Six modules fit on 6U VME carrier boards, 6U CompactPCI carrier boards and full-size desktop PCI slot boards; three modules on 3U carriers and half-size desktop PCI slot boards.

The modules are classified into two categories: Type I (flexible I/O) and Type II (front panel I/O) and include features unique to PC-MIP, such as: large number of perimeter ground pins for high frequency performance; and captive injector/ejector hardware for easy installation and removal.

"PC-MIP is a logical extension of our IndustryPack module and carrier board product line," said Chris Thompson, general manager of SBS GreenSpring Modular I/O. "PC-MIP retains the high modularity of IndustryPack and adds the bandwidth of PCI. It is ideal for bandwidth-intensive applications requiring performance, flexibility and faster time to market. In order to accomplish our goal of providing products that offer 'true modularity', we plan to offer PC-MIP modules for a wide variety of applications. Future product plans include MIL-STD 1553B, High Speed Serial, Octal Serial, SVGA video, SCSI II/Ultra SCSI, Analog I/O, USB, FireWire, ATM, and T1/E1 modules."

Price and Availability

The MC-606 carrier board and the P-100BT, P-D64, P-IO32 and P-F64 modules will be available for shipment in Q4, 1998. The MC-606 carrier board is priced at $595 (list). The PC-MIP mezzanine modules range in price from $350 for the P-100BT to $1,750 for the P-F64. Contact SBS GreenSpring for additional pricing information.

Product Features

The MC-606 is a front panel I/O mezzanine carrier board for CompactPCI with six PC-MIP sites. Four of the sites support front panel I/O. Two sites in back support rear panel I/O modules. The MC-606 conforms to both PICMG CompactPCI Specifications and PC-MIP draft specification (ANSI/VITA Task Group VITA-29).

The P-100BT Fast Ethernet module provides a 100BaseTx Ethernet interface and complies with the IEEE 802.3 and ANSI 8802-3 Ethernet Standards. It supports auto detection between 10BaseT and 100BaseTx. The P-D64 provides 64 MB of DRAM and the P-F64 provides 64 MB of non-volatile Flash memory on single-sized PC-MIP modules. The P-IO32 module features 32 digital input/output channels. Each channel can be dynamically and individually configured as either an input or output.

All PC-MIP products conform to the PC-MIP draft specification (ANSI/VITA Task Group VITA-29). Each PC-MIP module includes a Windows NT driver for plug-and-play operation.

About the PC-MIP Specification

The PC-MIP standardization effort is backed by industry leaders SBS GreenSpring Modular I/O; MEN Mikro Elektronik of Nuremberg, Germany; and Motorola Computer Group.

The PC-MIP draft specification is available directly from VITA (Ph: 602/951-8866) or from the Task Group Chair, Kim Rubin of the SBS Technologies Computer Group ([e-mail]).

About SBS GreenSpring Modular I/O

SBS GreenSpring Modular I/O designs, manufactures and markets IP mezzanine I/O modules (under the IndustryPack(R) name) and IP carrier boards for PCI, CompactPCI, VME, ISA, STD32, PC/104 and stand-alone platforms. More than 125 IP modules are available for digital I/O, analog I/O, data communications, motion control, field bus, temperature measurement and graphics controller applications.

SBS GreenSpring also designs and manufactures PC-MIP modules and carrier boards for applications requiring higher bandwidth, higher density I/O solutions.

SBS Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: SBSE), the parent company, is a leading manufacturer of standard bus embedded computer components for VME, CompactPCI, embedded PC and custom stand-alone applications. SBS product lines include CPU (Pentium and PowerPC) boards, input/output (I/O) modules, avionics modules and analyzers, bus interconnection products, expansion units, real-time networks, telemetry boards, data acquisition software, and industrial-grade computers.

SBS embedded computer components are used in a variety of applications, such as communications, medical imaging, industrial control and flight instrumentation, in the commercial and aerospace markets.

For further information on SBS GreenSpring Modular I/O, contact 181 Constitution Drive, Menlo Park, Calif., 94025; Ph: 650/327-1200; Fax: [phone]; email: [e-mail]; Web site: www.sbs-greenspring.com.