AMC Solutions Speed up Telecom Development
The availability of ATCA (Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture) and MicroTCA (Micro Telecom Computing Architecture) platforms, and with them, AMC (Advanced Mezzanine Card) solutions, represents a new era in which developers of telecom, military, medical and other processing-intensive applications are able to reduce internal R&D efforts, as well as manufacturing and operational expenses, by using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) building blocks from 3rd party suppliers. This trend is driving a wave of new systems and architectures for a wide variety of applications: audio and video gateways for 3G, IMS and other networks, media servers, packet-to-packet applications, session border controllers, cryptography, lawful interception, and medical image processing, to name a few. Many equipment manufacturers are entering the prototype stages today in order to define the systems of tomorrow.
The Design Conflict
The prototype stage is typically characterized by an internal design conflict: how to deal with high-level system issues without neglecting the detail-level issues necessary to ensure that the system will meet marketing requirements. This is the stage where a flexible solution can come in handy.
DSP Based AMC Board
The good news for those seeking such a solution is that it already exists, in the form of a DSP-based AMC board for ATCA, µTCA or proprietary systems. This modular AMC form factor DSP resource board has advanced triple play (voip, video, modem, fax) processing; a modular plug-in that carries up to four pairs of same/mixed types of DSPs; is RoHS-compliant; and supports a variety of configurations. This paradigm allows varying types of DSPs to be assembled simultaneously on a single AMC carrier.
The Luxury and Benefits of Deferred Decision-Making
The great advantage of selecting such a flexible AMC-based solution is that the same resource board can be used for all stages in the development cycle, from prototype through final production, since you can start designing your system without committing to:
* the specific serial interfaces (such as AMC.1,2,3,4) to be used in the final AMC solution
* the specific type of DSPs to be used in the final system
* the number of DSPs per board needed to achieve the required channel density
* the types of DSPs to be integrated on the same board simultaneously
The Result: Shortened Time-to-Market
This flexibility enables equipment manufacturers, during the critical initial phase of product design, to focus on the system level issues, such as chassis specifications, blade types, throughputs and other required capabilities. This type of approach saves valuable research and development resources, since the detailed design decisions relating to the AMC board can be modified at any time during the development cycle. As a result, the first prototype can be achieved quickly, and overall time-to-market will be shortened considerably.
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Danny Frydman is VP Research & Development. He is responsible for Surf’s development activities, including hardware and software R&D, production-readiness, and support for field deployment. A longer version of this article on VoIP Gateways with illustrations as well additional resources is available at www.surf-com.com
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