PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe (or PCI-E, as it is commonly called), is a computer expansion card standard designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP standards. Introduced by Intel in 2004, PCIe is the latest standard for expansion cards that is available on mainstream personal computers
Featured Article
COTS Products
3U VPX SBC Sports Freescale MPC 8640D Processor There have been only a handful of SBC vendors so far that have rolled out VPX products. The ones that jumped on board haveRead More...
All Articles
PCI/104-Express, PC/104 and EPIC SBCs Roundup
SBC Provides Right-Sized PC/104 Solution PC/104 has always shined in defense applications that need a modest amount of computer power. Adlink Technology has released the AmproRead More...
The Inside Track
Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Demo SEWIP Electronic Attack Capability Navy Lockheed Martin and Raytheon demonstrated a potential electronic attack solution for the U.S. Navy’s SurfaceRead More...
Ethernet Gains Momentum as Fabric for VME, VXS and VPX Systems
Ethernet is everywhere. That’s no surprise. In many ways, it’s as close to perfect as a technology can be in terms of its scalability, its flexibility, its simplicity and its low cost.Read More...
Bandwidth and Legacy Needs Drive VPX/VXS/VME Choice
Just past its 25-year mark, VME has been the embedded computing mainstay for military and aerospace applications. And while its capabilities are still solid as a rock, new computingRead More...
Multicore Solutions Target a Variety of Emerging Military Needs
Embedded developers in many arenas are constantly facing competitive pressure to provide more application features and improve performance capabilities. As a result, it’s becomeRead More...
The Customer Shall Judge
As a member of the trade press I can’t hide a little bit of glee when controversies erupt in the standards-based embedded computer industry. That stuff never fails to provide juicyRead More...
Multicore Boards Roundup
6U CompactPCI Boards Sport Quad Core Xeons The multicore trend has hit all levels of processor families, and the Xeon is no exception. Concurrent Technologies has released theRead More...
FPGA Boards Deliver DSP Muscle and I/O Flexibility
As FPGAs evolve to ever greater sophistication, complete systems can now be integrated into one or more FPGAs. Board-level product developers continue to ride that wave in two ways. OnRead More...
PCI Express Breathes New Life into the PC/104 Realm
Many military system designers select PC/104 because its ultra-small, 3.55-in. x 3.775-in. form factor enables an off-the-shelf solution for applications that may previously have beenRead More...
USB and the PC Usurp Military Test Platforms
Advances in serial fabric interconnects and embedded computing technologies have had a profound effect on the test and instrumentation market. Not too long ago complex militaryRead More...
COTS Products
3U cPCI Board and Rack Family Satisfies Extreme Thermal Needs CompactPCI, particularly in its 3U flavor, is no longer the new kid on the block in the military market. It’s paidRead More...
Cots Products
20-Inch 2U Chassis for Trenton 32 Gbyte Boards The days when military system developers did everything themselves are long gone. They’d much rather find building blocks to pieceRead More...
XMC and PrXMC Roundup
Rugged 10 Gbit Ethernet XMC Sports Dual Front-Panel Interfaces The military has completely embraced Ethernet both as a network technology and as a fabric interconnect scheme. WithRead More...
Type II Compact COM Express Has Dual Core CPU
A new (95 mm x 95 mm) Type II Compact COM Express is based on Intel Atom processor N450 (single core), D410 (single core) and D510 (dual core). Called the PCOM-B215VG from AmericanRead More...
PCI-Express Digitizer Capable of Sustained Recordings Over 1.2 GByte/s
PCI Express Digitizer Capable of Sustained Recordings over 1.2 Gbytes/s A new high-speed digitizer in the form of an advanced wideband and high dynamic range A/D board, capturesRead More...
PCI Express Modules Target Beamforming Apps
PCI Express Modules Target Beamforming Apps High-performance data acquisition was once limited to general-purpose solutions. But as embedded board solutions have evolved,Read More...
Cluster Computing Suits Up for Aircraft Duty
Surveillance aircraft may represents just a small slice of the overall military defense market, but they exemplify many of the challenges facing the rackmount system designer.Read More...
PCI Express Digitizer Duo Comes in Four- and Two-Channel Flavors
PCI Express Digitizer Duo Comes in Four- and Two-Channel Flavors Thanks to fabric interconnect technologies like PCI Express, military test systems can be integrated into compactRead More...
48-Channel Digital I/O PCIe Card Has Change of State Detection
48-Channel Digital I/O PCIe Card Has Change of State Detection No matter how much processing a military embedded system uses, ultimately it needs to connect to the real world—andRead More...
DSP-Based Motion Controllers Offer Full Closed-Loop Control
DSP-Based Motion Controllers Offer Full Closed-Loop Control Two DSP-based servo motion controllers handle three or six axes of control. The PCI-8253 (three axes) and PCI-8256Read More...
USB and PCI Express Revolutionize Military Test
Fading fast are the days when complex military electronics systems required large racks of boards to implement test platforms for them. Advances in serial fabric interconnects andRead More...
Conduction-Cooled cPCI Lands a Secure Place in Military Systems
Now with over eighteen years of experience under its belt, CompactPCI can claim to offer all the factors that attract military decision makers. An expanding set of conduction-cooledRead More...
Conduction-Cooled cPCI Board Roundup
6U cPCI Blade Does Extended Temps and Conduction Cooling The Core2 Duo processor quickly became the most widely used multicore processor, and the military embedded space was quickRead More...
1U Rackmount Appliance Serve Core2 Quad Processor
1U Rackmount Appliance Serve Core2 Quad Processor The 1U server form factor has secured a key niche among military system designers. It provides a compact computing solutionRead More...
Small Boards Serve Up Overlapping Innovations
Long gone are the days when small form factor boards were limited to a few types of standard form factors like PC/104. Today, while strategies vary among the various small embeddedRead More...
COTS Journal’s OpenVPX Solutions Center
Rugged 6U VPX SBC Has Integrated Onboard I/O Resources Aitech Defense Systems has introduced a rugged 6U VPX SBC that offers the selection between PCI Express and Serial RapidIO.Read More...
Mission-Critical Apps Blend Benefits of ATCA and Service Availability
The increasing use of computer systems in the military and aerospace world and the escalating complexity of applications are placing new demands for continuous operation onRead More...
FPGA Processing Boards Roundup
Virtex-5 FPGA PMC Aims at I/O Processing At one time FPGAs served merely as glue logic interfaces. Now they function as complete processing engines. Acromag’s PMC-VFX modulesRead More...
Secure Network Communications Pushes Compute Limits
New and evolving technology initiatives such as Brigade Combat Team Modernization, JTRS (Joint Tactical Radio System) and WIN-T (Warfighter Information Network-Tactical) rely heavilyRead More...
Bridging 1553 to Ethernet Networks Paves Future of Avionics
Modern avionics systems find switched Ethernet the dominant network architecture with MIL-STD-1553 (1553) and ARINC implemented for high reliability and legacy communications.Read More...
Multi-Display Graphics Card Targets Embedded Apps
VIA Technologies offers a graphics card designed specifically for the embedded market with the VIA eH1, a DX10.1-compliant, multi-display card that thrusts any system with a PCIRead More...
XMCs and Processor XMCs Roundup
XMC Marries Virtex-5 FPGA, PCIe and Deep Memory A set of mezzanine modules from Acromag features a configurable Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA enhanced with multiple high-speed memory buffersRead More...
OpenVPX: Cards Dealt, Ready to Play
Hailed as the next-generation fabric-based slot card standard, VPX has had a few rocky years getting started. But over the last year and a half, the goal of bringing together advancedRead More...
PCIe-over-Cable Products Offer Cost-Effective Solutions
PCI Express is the only bus that can effectively extend over cable without requiring software conversion and thus incurring increased overhead and latency. That means what happensRead More...
MicroTCA Evolves to Serve Rugged Military Designs
Developed to handle the extreme environmental demands of the telecommunications arena, MicroTCA provides military designers with a flexible embedded building block, offering scalableRead More...
COM Express vs. PC/104 for Small UAV Systems
With the growing scope of today’s military, UAVs are performing a wider range of functions. Whether designed for reconnaissance, research, armed attacks or search and rescue, theseRead More...
Conduction Cooling Arms Stackable SBCs for Small UAV Duty
A significant challenge facing Ultra-Small UAV and Light Vehicle military system designers is the removal of heat from embedded computers. Fanless, sealed enclosures are usuallyRead More...
XMCs and PrXMCs Fuel High-Speed Throughput and Processing
The long-popular PCI-based PMC and Processor PMC (PrPMC) each have their respective successors in the form of XMC and PrXMC. XMCs enable system developers to mix and match theRead More...
Deep Packet Inspection FPGA Net Accelerator Rides PCI Express
The PCIe-180 FPGA network accelerator card from Nallatech is capable of real-time deep packet inspection and processing of 10 Gbit Ethernet traffic. The card can dynamically switchRead More...
ATX Motherboard Sports Core i5/i7 Processors, Low Power
Aimed at customers who seek significant computing performance and lower power consumption improvements, an industrial ATX form factor motherboard is based on Intel’s Mobile QM57Read More...
PCIe-based A/D Board Sports Two 1.5 GHz Analog Channels
A PCIe-based wideband A/D board captures two synchronized analog channels at sampling rates up to 1.5 GHz, or one channel up to 3 GHz when interleaving the ADC data. 1 Gbyte of onboardRead More...
Test and Instrumentation Boards Roundup
PXIe/PXI Family of Boards Provides Fast Throughput ADLINK Technology provides a family of high-performance PXI and PXI Express (PXIe) products for applications requiring fast dataRead More...
COM Express Boards Roundup
COM Express Sports 2 GHz i7 Processor Gone are the days of a long gap between when a mainstream processor emerged and when it made its way into the military embedded board realm.Read More...
OpenVPX Strengthens Its Hand for Military Embedded Designs
Military system developers have long faced a conflicting desire to harness the latest and greatest computing technologies versus the need to mitigate the risks inherent in banking onRead More...
Hurdles Fall for Doing Intel x86 DSP on OpenVPX
With Intel’s introduction this month of its new Intel Core i7-2715QE next-generation quad-core processor, the design of x86-based embedded military digital signal processing (DSP)Read More...
COM Express Brings Its Multimedia Muscle to Defense
The Computer-on-Module (COM) concept has found a solid and growing foothold in military embedded systems. COM Express adds high-speed fabric interconnects to the mix. COM boardsRead More...
Ethernet Emerges as Mature Choice among High Speed Interconnects
Ethernet could arguably be called the military’s favorite interconnect fabric in compute-intensive applications like sonar, radar or any application that networks sensor arraysRead More...
PXI and PXI Express Dominate Test and Instrumentation Trends
No longer the new kid on the block, the PXI bus form factor has become entrenched as the mainstay architecture for military test and instrumentation. Its older cousin VXI and theRead More...
Rugged Platform Aids FACE Application Development
GE Intelligent Platforms has announced the FACEREF1 Software Reference Platform designed to allow organizations developing FACE-compliant applications to take advantage of a COTSRead More...
