High Performance

The MCCS Sierra is a single-slot 6U CompactPCI board with a PICMG 2.1-compliant Slave Interface, support for internal and extended FIFOs, and an Interrupt Processing & Pacing Engine for efficient bus utilization. The MCCS combines innovative hardware design with an Industry Standard 16550 Serial I/O application interface. We use the latest generation UARTs with 64-byte internal FIFOs. Deeper FIFOs mean less interrupts, and that means less load on your host computer. The FIFO status bits are combined and readable in one single 32-bit access, as 16-bits of read status and 16-bits of write status. No need to expend extra CPU cycles polling each serial channel on the card when only one may actually have data ready. With the Sierra's Interrupt Processing & Pacing bus interface, UART interrupts are combined and presented at paced intervals, from 0 to 8ms, to the CompactPCI, dramatically reducing interrupt handling overhead by the system's Host CPU card. The pace of these intervals is user selectable via software, allowing you to tune the performance of the Sierra to match your system requirements.

Extended FIFOs are provided to further lower CompactPCI bandwidth requirements, supporting data rates over 133MB/s, and over 30MB/s block mode access over the CompactPCI bus. These FIFOs consist of 512 data/status pair receive and 1KB transmit data FIFOs. With this kind of performance, the MCCS Sierra is optimized for applications requiring high speed, high density multiplexing of asynchronous serial data streams, such as process control, data acquisition, factory automation, modem bank controllers and WAN interfaces.

Easy to Use

The MCCS Sierra brings with it the kind of simple set up and operation expected from, but seldom delivered by CompactPCI products. The UARTs incorporate an Industry Standard programming interface and feature Automated XON/XOFF handling, and automated hardware handshake. Each channel is independently programmable via software.

Macrolink's Device Driver Kit provides turnkey driver support for a number of operating systems. The binary run-time software comes complete with source code for user configuration files, test code and application examples. By seamlessly extending the number of serial ports available on the host to the operating system, application development is dramatically simplified. Device driver support is available for Solaris, VxWorks, and many popular UNIX and Real-Time Operating Systems, and Plug-N-Play support for Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003. With this ease of integration, the MCCS is the ideal solution for new high-speed async designs, and brings improved performance to legacy systems.

Mixed Electrical Interfaces

The MCCS Sierra can mix multiple electrical interfaces on a single board.  Each MCCS can be configured with any mix of RS-232, RS-422, RS-485, MIL-STD-188C and buffered TTL in 4-line groups. Up to 4 different Serial Line Conditioning (SLiC) modules can be installed with up to 12 signals per line for full modem control. This eliminates the need to commit precious slots for those few extra serial interfaces that don't match the rest in your system, or to accommodate changing needs as you deploy systems in the field. A single card can meet your varied interface requirements, and be modified in the future with the replacement of a single SLiC module. Deploying with RS-232 today, but you expect a mix of 232, 422 and maybe even some RS-485 in the future? No problem! The baseboard stays the same, and only the SLiCs need to change.

Serial line connections are made via the P3 and P5 CompactPCI connectors for back panel access. The MCCS Sierra takes advantage of the CompactPCI specification for an 80mm deep rear transition panel. This passive transition panel allows direct access to all serial signals at the rear panel, via RJ45s or other connector types. Macrolink offers a variety of rear I/O panel options to meet the needs of developers and OEM alike.

Specifications

CompactPCI

Serial Interface

General

Physical

Warranty