Elma’s New 2nd Generation 5U ATCA Chassis

Elma Electronic (News - Alert) (www.elma.com), that huge maker of electronic packaging products, has introduced the 2nd generation of its horizontal-format, 5U high and 19-inch wide rackmount AdvancedTCA (News - Alert) (ATCA) Chassis. It now sports full redundancy and high availability features. It has side-to-side cooling via plug-in fan trays holding dual 170 CFM fans subject to PWM (Pulse (News - Alert) Width Modulation) control. The fans’ redundant push/pull configurations enhance reliability, and they can reach to the back of the chassis to cool the rear I/O slots. The 5U chassis offers dual 1200 watt AC power supplies and dual shelf managers, which are all front pluggable above the card cage. DC power versions are also available.

The unit’s 2nd generation shelf manager supports bussed or quasi-radial IPMB (Intelligent Platform Management Bus) routing. The 5-slot horizontal format ATCA backplane provides specially-placed connectors for flexible pluggability. Full mesh, replicated mesh, and dual star topologies can be implemented on the same backplane. The backplane employs the common AMC (Advanced Mezzanine Card) connector for plugging into Elma’s 2nd-gen Shelf Manager. A 6-slot backplane is also optional in certain configurations.

The card guides are equipped with Elma’s unique board mating receptacle that assures secure grounding, accurate alignment and accepts wide tolerances of alignment pin spacing. There are also convenient, dual on/off switches on each side of the rear of the enclosure, as well as NEBS-grade washable air filters that are attached via Velcro to the filter trays. For serviceability, the filter tray and fan tray are separately removable.

Richard Grigonis (News - Alert) is Executive Editor of TMC’s IP Communications Group.

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