Because of several inherent advantages over VME, CompactPCI (CPCI) will rapidly become the bus of choice for industrial applications. CPCI allows the use of cheap, high functionality silicon because of adoption of the PCI bus by high volume markets. Requiring less power than VME, CPCI's high data transfer rate (up to 264 MB/sec.), and its portability onto the Eurocard form factor further enhance its desirability. However, to be used in high reliability systems it is necessary to be able to insert and remove plug-in cards with the system powered up and operational (hot swappability). Because hot swap technology requires engineering capability in analog modeling, digital circuit design, operating systems software, and applications level software, this hot swap "building block" would be easier (and cheaper) to license, while freeing engineering resources for core competency for product development for this rapidly growing CPCI market. With the inclusion of hot swap, CPCI will satisfy virtually all industrial application demands with its low cost, robust architecture, low power consumption, and compliance with international standards.

Ronald G. Todd
Vice President, Engineering

About Kalman Saffran Associates - Established in 1978, Kalman Saffran Associates (KSA) is a leading OEM product development firm that rapidly creates innovative products for premier companies in the data communications, telecommunications and interactive/CATV industries. To ensure success, KSA applies a proven, advanced engineering methodology to all projects. KSA has a staff of more than 100, including engineers specializing in today’s “building block” technologies such as SONET/SDH, ATM, xDSL, fiber optics, MPEG and PCI. KSA’s clients include industry leaders such as AT&T, Lucent, Nortel, Cisco Systems, 3COM, Scientific-Atlanta, PictureTel, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola among many others. For further information, visit KSA on the World Wide Web at http://www.ksa1.com.

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