Posted by Tracy Valentine
Recently a major OEM came to us with an interesting computer system design dilemma. The OEM was looking for an engineering design partner that could provide an industrial computer that met the following parameters:
- Consolidate as much computing capability as possible into a single rackmount enclosure
- Enable multiple single board computers within a common rackmount enclosure to run individual applications when necessary
- Use the same multi-SBC approach within a common enclosure to scale computing hardware requirements to match individual application software requirements
- Minimize weight by reducing the total number of rackmount computer enclosures needed for the total system solution.
- Operating in an airborne environment, the industrial computers must be able to withstand the rigors of flight, and do so without adding unnecessary weight
- The Mil-COTS end user needed U.S. made computers that met the military’s requirements for hardware availability, stability and longevity.
That is a long wish list for any industrial computer supplier. The OEM tried other suppliers, but came to us because of our ability to design a system from the ground up that satisfied their unique application requirements.
Trenton engineers working with the OEM engineers and end-user representatives developed an initial system concept around a lightweight, 5U, aluminum computer chassis with a compact 18” (45.7cm) depth dimension. Developing a rugged and lightweight chassis solution is one thing, but to reduce the total aircraft hardware weight load something more was needed. We needed to figure out how to consolidate computer capabilities within each rackmount enclosure in order to reduce the overall hardware footprint. What would you do?
Fortunately for our OEM and end-user customer, that in addition to system integration, Trenton also designs and manufactures long-life embedded motherboards, single board computers and backplanes. To pack as much computing capability as possible into a single lightweight computer enclosure, Trenton engineers devised a four-segment backplane that we call the Trenton BP4FS6890. This backplane enables the OEM to put up to four, high performance computer boards or SBCs in the enclosure. The SBCs could be single processor boards like the Trenton TQ9 or even dual-processor SBCs like the Trenton JXT6966 featuring two quad-core Intel® Xeon® C5500 series processors.
The total system solution that we call the Trenton TRC5000 could not have been possible without:
- Trenton’s ability to listen to the customer needs
- The capability of producing a COTS board solution like the BP4FS6890 backplane
- Our ability to manufacture the boards and integrate the total industrial computer solution in our ISO certified facilities located in the U.S. The BP4FS6890 backplane, as well as the other products discussed, are ready to deploy in your applications. If you need something different for your specific parameters, give us a call and lets work together to design the optimum system solution for your customer.
This submission is by Jim Renehan, Director of Marketing