With Kontron’s new XMC-ETH2 dual Gigabit Ethernet mezzanine board, all VPX, VME, CompactPCI and custom boards offering a PMC or XMC slot can be extended by two Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, which can be individually routed to the front or to the backplane. Equipped with the high-end Intel 82571 dual channel Ethernet controller, the mezzanine board delivers fast data throughput.

The new board comes in air-cooled or conduction-cooled versions in order to suit the needs of different system environments. Thanks to Kontron’s long term supply programme, customers can enjoy 10+ years of guaranteed supply, making the XMC-ETH2 suitable for infrastructure programs. Typical application areas can be found in markets such as medical, transportation, military, aerospace, energy and automation.

Owing to the fact that the board supports both XMC and PMC extension slots, it can be used universally in different system designs. Designed as a plug and play solution, it automatically selects the data bus according to whether the power supply is present on the P5 connector (x4 PCI Express). Otherwise, it switches to 32-bit PCI 33 MHz or 66 MHz on the PMC connectors. An integrated micro DIP switch allows for manual override of the host bus selection. Another micro DIP switch controls Ethernet channel routing to the front panel (RJ-45) or to the backplane (P4). Each channel can be routed separately.

The XMC-ETH2 supports Linux, VxWorks and Windows XP and is available now; the air-cooled version for system designs in a temperature range of 0°C to 55°C (VITA 47-Class AC1) and the conduction-cooled version for systems in the extended temperature range of -40°C to 85°C (VITA 47-Class CC4).