2028: It's all about VME

Ray Alderman, Executive Director, VITA

November 7, 2008

Ray Alderman, Executive Director, VITA

Critical telecom systems still use VME
Just after VASN Telecom (Verizon-ATT-Sprint-Nextel) disconnected the last remaining landline in the U.S. in early 2015, consumers staged a protest over dropped calls and poor service from their cell phone service providers. Commodity PC-based telecom gear and poorly written software have caused even further declines in quality of service for all cellular users, who now have no other service options. However, the SS7 (Signal System 7) and the telecom billing systems operate flawlessly because they're still built with VME-based technologies and are the only two critical applications in the entire telecom system throughout the world. The largest user and maker of VME-based products today is still a telecom equipment company, just as it was back in 2008. The Labor Department says that if all telecom systems used VME-based technologies, with its 10-15 year MTBF, that would result in the layoff of 250,000 telecom technicians in the U.S., possibly more. The Telecom Workers Union has lobbied for a bill in the U.S. Congress, requesting that they outlaw the use of any VME technologies in telecom systems in the future: they're just too reliable.

Pilotless freight and passenger planes deemed safe
Most UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) electronics have been built with the VITA VPX specifications and architectures since 2008. With the development of HAS (High Altitude and Space) environmental standards (REDI), and the high shock and vibration board mechanicals begun in 2008, aircraft manufacturers have been working with the major airfreight carriers and the two last passenger airlines in the U.S. to implement pilotless airfreight and passenger services. These pilotless aircraft will fly above 40,000 feet (high altitude) and be guided by GPS. There will be two live beings in the cockpit, however: a flight engineer and a large dog. The flight engineer is there to observe the operations of the electronics. The large dog will be in the cockpit to bite the flight engineer if he touches any of the controls

Semi industry collapses, VME industry unaffected
Predictions of mass consolidation in the semiconductor industry, reported in mid 2008, have wreaked havoc on the electronics manufacturers for decades, with the singular exception of the VME-based segments. Since 2006, more than 50% of all semiconductors shipped worldwide went into consumer products. That total has now reached 95%. VITA initiated the IOTSO program (Innovate Outside Traditional Semiconductor Offerings) for its members in 2008. Companies making I/O cards with VME-based specifications like VITA57 FMC (FPGA Mezzanine Card) shifted to FPGAs and I/O cores in 2010, eliminating many of the now-defunct semiconductor suppliers from their supply chains before the massive consolidation and end-of-live announcements began. Other companies shifted to FPCA (field programmable computing arrays) with the FMC specification and began using FPGAs and processor cores for their microprocessor needs.

VME liquid cooling conquers today's 300-W processors
As processor heat dissipation has risen to 300 watts (about 75 watts per square inch) with the latest 64-core processors, the computing industry is now adopting the "Best Practices for Electronic Module Cooling" from VITA 50 and the VITA 57.3 REDI standard for "Advanced Liquid Cooling Techniques" en masse. VITA and its members began work on advanced cooling techniques back in 2004 and demonstrated capabilities of cooling up to 100 watts per square inch with liquid flow-through, spray cooling, cold plates, and cold walls. Many VME/VPX systems have used these advanced cooling techniques for decades and have shown MTBF rates greater than 15 years. Additionally, power supplies for critical embedded systems now exceed 3KW of power availability and heat dissipation. The VITA "insertable liquid-cooled power supply" specification, started in 2008, will keep those devices cool and dramatically increases their MTBF similarly per the Arrhenius equation that roughly equates for every 10 degrees (C) you drop your temperature on your electronics, your MTBF will double.