Trenton Systems has released the first backplane that takes advantage of the superior performance inherent in PCI Express 3.0 technology. The BPX8093 backplane supports the increased PCI Express 3.0 link speed and bandwidth capability with a robust product design that enhances overall system throughput as well as data communication reliability.

BPX8093 PCI Express Backplane

The unique design of this backplane maximizes data packet reliability while minimizing latency. Secure SBC-to-I/O card communication at true PCIe 3.0 transmission speed is possible when combining a BPX8093 PCIe backplane with one of Trenton’s BXT7059 single board computers.

The PCIe 3.0 links available from the BXT7059 communicate at the Gen3 data rate to any of the PCI Express 3.0 I/O cards plugged into a BPX8093 backplane slot.

A PEX10/BXT7059 hardware combination used in conjunction with the BPX8093 provides more direct PCIe 3.0 interfaces from the processors on the single board computer than any other PICMG 1.3 hardware combination available in the market today.

All I/O option card slots on the backplane use x16 PCI Express mechanical connectors in order to take full advantage of the PCI Express link training capabilities built into each Trenton Systems PICMG 1.3 single board computer.  This level of capability makes the BPX8093 ideal for many high-performance applications such as video process and GPU computing.

PCI Express electrical interfaces available on the BPX8093:

• Six – x8 PCIe 3.0 interfaces (slots PCIe1, PCIe3, PCIe7, PCIe8, PCIe9, and PCIe10)
• Three – x4 PCIe 3.0 interfaces (slots PCIe4, PCIe5, and PCIe6)
• One – x4 PCIe 2.0 interface (slot PCIe2)

As with all board-level products designed and manufactured by Trenton Systems, the BPX8093 comes with a 5-year factory warranty.  Give us a call at 770.287.3100 or toll-free in the U.S. at 800.875.6031 to discuss how our system engineers can design a system configuration for your unique application.

Trenton Systems was proud to help Women in Electronics, Atlanta Chapter raise more than $21,500 during their 20th Annual Golf Tournament supporting the chapter’s scholarship and charitable giving program. In addition to the charitable donations benefiting GeorgiaFIRST, Gwinnett Tech Foundation, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and The United Way Women’s Leadership Council, WIE will offer academic scholarships to seven female students studying in the field of Electronics/Technology.

The WIE Atlanta Chapter, established in 1985, is a leading, regional non-profit organization dedicated to networking with other local organizations and individuals in order to identify and support programs and opportunities which positively impact the local community and the future education, success, and presence of women in the electronics/technology industry.

Exceeding the vision of raising over $20k during this year’s 20th annual tournament will allow WIE to increase its lifetime total of charitable donations and scholarships to $239,000!  Such efforts not only help those in need within the local community, but also support the desire for more women to pursue STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) related careers.

Statistics clearly demonstrate the financial benefits that women receive by pursuing STEM careers, but there’s another benefit to be gained on a national basis, as reinvigorating America’s ability to innovate is critical to our staying at the leading edge of the technology curve in the decades to come.  Trenton’s mechanical and electrical design engineering teams are located in the United States, which is why this effort is one we will continue to support.

As much as we liked the previous Trenton Systems website, it was long overdue for a refresh in both graphics, content and navigation.  After many months of design & programming, the new website is available for review!  You’ll find the usual selection of world-class Trenton products such as a full line of rackmount computers, single board computers and PCI Express backplanes as well as configured video wall controllers, PCI Express expansion chassis and rackmount LCD monitors.

In addition, you’ll find a list of Trenton Advantages that set us apart from the competition, along with a review of our Capabilities, important Technology Partners, and details on the many Industries that our wide range of products address.

What hasn’t changed, however, is a commitment to designing, manufacturing and integrating a range of high-performance, customer-driven computing solutions that operate continuously in mission critical applications, in addition to a systems engineering approach that ensures compatibility and reliability.

We invite you to check out the new Trenton Systems website and let us know what you think!

After nearly nine years of service, and over three billion CPU hours of processing, NASA’s venerable Columbia supercomputer was retired in March of this year as the Endeavour shared-memory system came online to take its place.  This new system utilizes Intel Xeon E5-4650L 2.6GHz ”Sandy Bridge” processors that can access 6 TB of total node memory on a SUSE Linux operating system.

The stunning composite image above demonstrates the change in processing footprint, as Endeavour takes up just 1% of the floor space at NASA’s Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division that Columbia consumed, yet provides a bit more processing power – 32 teraflops vs. 30 teraflops.

The Endeavour supercomputer is comprised of two distinct nodes – Endeavour1 and Endeavour2 – which include 512 cores (11 teraflops) and 1,024 cores (21 teraflops) respectively.  Each Endeavour blade contains a pair of 8-core processors that access to four 8GB memory DIMMs, or 4GB per core.

System-Wide Cache-Coherent Interconnect

A unique feature of Endeavour’s architecture is the system-wide cache-coherent interconnect, shown in the diagram above.  At the blade level, each socket is connected via a cache-coherent QPI link to a UV hub inside an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC).

At the IRU level, the ASICs of the eight blades within each IRU are connected through the NUMAlink channels to form a 3D enhanced hypercube–with a maximum of two hops between any two blades–providing cache-coherency within the IRU (Individual Rack Unit).  The latency for a process to access data in memory varies depending on the distance between the socket/blade where the process is running, and the socket/blade that contains the data.

The primary purpose of Endeavour is to support NASA’s earth & space science, aeronautics research, and human & robotic space exploration through the utilization of advanced computational modeling, simulation, and analysis.

Trenton’s TRC5006 5U rackmount computer is a UL Recognized industrial computing solution which features the BPG8032 PCI Express backplane and supports the BXT7059 single board computer, as well as the JXT6966 dual-processor SBC or TSB7053 single processor SBC.

Trenton Systems UL Recognized TRC5006 5U Rackmount Computer

Designed and manufactured in the United States, the TRC5006 incorporates a lightweight & rugged aluminum enclosure that should satisfy SWaP concerns. For storage hungry applications this system supports up to eight front access / hot-swap 2.5″ drive carriers or four fixed 3.5″ HDD bays.

Trenton Systems TRC5006 5U Rackmount Computer – Rear Power Supplies

The TRC5006 is unique in its ability to satisfy the need for high-performance, storage density, reliability and longevity while supporting up to eighteen PCI Express 3.0/2.0/1.1 I/O cards.  The key to crafting a computing solution with this much power and flexibility is Trenton Systems’ use of systems engineering practices to ensure compatibility and reliability, as well as maintaining full system BIOS control in order to build each system to satisfy our customer’s unique specifications.

Trenton Systems TRC5006 5U Rackmount Computer Backplane View

Call Trenton Systems to create a customer-driven computing solution based on the TRC5006!

Never heard of White Space Spectrum before?  Don’t worry, it’s still a rather obscure topic that hasn’t received a lot of attention so far, but it’s caught the attention of Google, who recently announced the spectrum database, with the objective of facilitating the sharing of available spectrum bandwidth for new commercial applications.

Google White Space Spectrum Database Map

The issue at hand is the fact that demand for wireless spectrum has increased dramatically in recent years.  When it comes to publicly available wireless connections we tend to think of laptops, tablets and smartphones, but with the advent of new IoT (Internet of Things) & M2M (Machine-to-Machine) applications, demand is expected to reach new highs in the next decade, and spectrum is finite.

Google is working to enable dynamic spectrum sharing while protecting licensed bands. Our database is designed to allow the same spectrum to be shared, without interference, between multiple users, such as government agencies, licensed commercial users and individuals. This means that if part of the spectrum is being used in California, but available in Louisiana, those users will know.

According to industry expert Chris Rezendes, who’s been following the IoT/M2M world for many years, what we’re talking about is the process of connecting unattended devices (think home appliances, or dumpsters, oil rig lubricant storage tanks, drone subsystems & soda machines) to the cloud-enabled internet via wireless connections, and the number of devices will swamp the number of cell phones.

Google Spectrum Allocation Diagram Illustrates Sharing Options Within Television Band

One industry that comes up in a lot of IoT conversations is medical.  Mobile medical devices, as well as patient implants designed to communicate health statistics in real time, are expected to proliferate as health providers seek to increase levels of patient care while driving down costs by limiting the need for doctor visits.  Industrial automation and energy distribution represent two other industries which will experience serious growth in M2M connectivity for the purpose of machine monitoring systems.

In addition to the TSC3600 Shelfmount Computer that we featured in a previous blog post, Trenton now offers a series of fully-configured systems that simplify the task of meeting UL & CE certification requirements in a wide range of applications.

The following chart summarizes the computer systems & video display wall controller configurations that are now UL recognized and/or CE compliant.

Application-Ready Solutions Designed for Long-Life

These new systems all feature Trenton’s long-life single board computers, PCI Express® backplanes, embedded motherboards, and in all the video controllers, Matrox Mura™ MPX video controller boards. These fully-integrated systems are ideal for industrial automation, military computing, facility security and surveillance centers and manufacturing process control room applications.

TVC4403 4U Rackmount Video Wall Controller

The TVC4403 has been validated by Matrox Graphics to support up to nine Matrox Mura™ MPX Series video controller cards, enabling the creation of flexible 36-screen video display walls with Hi-Def video inputs and outputs.

Independent testing has confirmed that the TVC4403 video wall controller with nine Matrox Mura MPX cards installed is CE & FCC compliant via ECM Directive 2004/108/EC which includes EMI/EMC and FCC Part 15 Subpart B. CE and FCC certificates of compliance documents are available for inspection on the website under the DOWNLOADS tab on the TVC4403 video wall controller product detail page.

If your computing requirements include UL recognition or CE compliance, give us a call!

The adoption of COTS technology has lowered system cost and shortened development cycles, but the stark reality of deploying computing solutions within harsh environments while meeting the challenging constraints of SWaP-C demands a unique approach to system design.

Trenton Systems has released a new technical guide which describes a range of elements that must be taken into account when designing application-ready military computing solutions.  While the key design considerations within this guide apply to all computer systems which must operate reliably at peak performance when deployed in mission critical operations, they represent Trenton’s method of systems engineering, from board-level design with BIOS control, to fully integrated solutions.

Key technologies covered in this technical guide:

• MIL-STD-810 System Enclosure Design
• Size, Weight, Power & Cost (SWaP-C)
• Maximizing System Bus Bandwidth
• Designing for Shock, Vibration & EMI
• Electronic and Mechanical Designs
• System Integration Procedures
• Custom Design Considerations
• Thermal Management Issues
• System Power Requirements
• System BIOS Configuration

These design considerations apply to all of our single board computers, PCI Express backplanes and embedded motherboards, as well as our rackmount computers and PCI Express expansion solutions.

Download a copy of Designing Application-Ready Military Computing Solutions today!

Shelfmount computers, which can also be deployed in wallmount or tabletop configurations, are ideal for space-constrained applications which don’t allow for mounting in a standard 19″ equipment rack. Trenton’s TSC3600 shelfmount computer, featuring a JXM7031 embedded motherboard, has become the solution of choice for industrial automation, material handling and process control environments.

In addition to the unit’s rugged, lightweight all-aluminum enclosure, which was designed to withstand shock & vibration, and the industrial-grade motherboard, which is Made in America and supported by a five-year factory warranty, this system is now UL recognized, as well as CE and FCC compliant.

The TSC3600 system is a UL recognized product as listed in file #E208896-A4-UL dated 2013-02-28. Full UL test report available upon request.

The TSC3600 is also CE and FCC compliant via the ECM Directive 2004/108/EC including EMI/EMC and FCC Part 15 Subpart B. The TSC3600 certificates of compliance documents are available upon request.

The JXM7031 MicroATX (uATX) motherboard offers superior performance when configured with dual, long-life, quad-core Intel® EC5549 Xeon® processors and 2.5″ front-access, hot-swap hard drives, slim-line optical media device, and up to 48GB of DDR3 memory.  Designed and manufactured in the United States, the JXM7031 carries a full five-year factory warranty.

Cooling is provided by a pair of 80mm fans and the front-access system filter requires no tools for easy filter maintenance.  Expandability allows for the installation of one x16 PCI Express 2.0/1.1 and two x8 PCI Express 2.0/1.1 cards, as well as a 32-bit/33MHz option card.

TSC3600 Shelfmount Computer

JXM7031 Embedded Motherboard

For many years we’ve been accustomed to seeing UAV configurations which utilize either fixed-wing or rotary technology – think General Atomics MQ-1 Predator or Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout – but researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory are working on a new aircraft that combines both propulsion technologies.  This stop-rotor aircraft can operate from vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) mode, then convert to fixed-wing mode in mid-flight – at least that’s the long-range plan.

The key to this innovative design is the ability to switch flight modes by flipping the left wing/rotor blade 180 degrees, a conversion that takes just 1-2 seconds to accomplish.  During this conversion period the aircraft is essentially in free fall, which means the timing and duration need to be precise and as short as possible.

The advantage of this configuration is that such aircraft can operate as a long-range unmanned aircraft in fixed-wing mode, yet won’t require a runway for initial take-off and eventual landing.

The battery-powered prototype currently under development is limited to only thirty minutes of flight at 100 knots cruise speed, but hybrid power solutions hold promise of significantly increasing duration and range.

Development of a gas turbine propulsion system could theoretically allow for subsonic cruising at altitudes which are not feasible with today’s standard rotary wing aircraft.

The removable payload bay is designed to carry up to a twenty-five pound payload.

Aerial surveillance is one obvious application for stop-rotor rotary wing aircraft, but they could also be used for many other combat-related tasks, for example, serving as missile decoys in enemy territory or delivering pre-packaged sensor modules within hostile locations by taking advantage of the bomb-bay style doors on the payload bay.

Civilian applications include scientific research, disaster response and the collection of weather-related data for predicting a storm’s expected path and intensity.  Environmental monitoring opportunities also exist, as properly equipped aircraft could be used to measure levels of CO2 or pollution in urban areas.

The development is still in the early stages, with expected commercialization 3-5 years down the road, but some version of a stop-rotor rotary wing aircraft may eventually enter service as a personal drone, similar to Lockheed Martin’s Samarai.