A6R – 6U 19″ Rackmount ATCA Chassis

ATCA stands for “Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture” and is defined under PICMG 3.x. It is designed to offer high bandwidths as well as improved reliability, availability and serviceability. Although originally designed for next generation “carrier” grade communications equipment, it is often considered in other markets & applications such as military, medical & scientific.

Unlike VME and CPCI, the Eurocard form factor is not adopted in ATCA; instead, cards (or “blades”) are 280mm deep and 322mm high to allow higher component counts and hence more processing power on each card. The chassis itself is referred to as a “shelf” and can be either 19” or ETSI rack mount

A big advantage ATCA has over other platforms is its system management functionality which is controlled by the shelf manager. System components such as fan trays, power supplies and power entry modules are collectively known as “Field Replaceable Units” or “FRUs”. Each FRU, Blade and Shelf Manager contain Intelligent Platform Management Controllers (IPMC) that communicate with each other through the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMC) via a redundant pair of I2C buses.

The ATCA backplane provides point to point connections (rather than a databus) for board to board communication. It is split into 3 zones; zone 1 at the bottom provides power and shelf management signals, zone 2 provides the connections to the base and fabric interfaces and zone 3 is for user defined signals and providing connectivity to the rear transition boards.

ATCA blades can be Processors, Switches, or Carriers. Carries support both PCI Mezzanine Cards (PMC) and Advanced Mezzanine Cards (AMC), the latter form the basis of the uTCA architecture. Blades are 6HP wide.

Dimensions
Height : 265.9mm (10.47”)
Width : 482.6mm (19”)
Depth : 423.45mm (16.67”) from 19” panel mounts to rear cable tray 42.7mm (1.68”) from 19” panel mounts to front handle

Weight
23KG (50.7lbs) (typical, 1 x power supply fitted)

Material & Finish
Outer : Steel (Powder coated in black – textured finish)
Subrack : Steel (Zinc plated)

Environmental
Operating Temperature : 0deg.C to +50deg.C
Storage Temperature : -20deg.C to +80deg.C
Cooling : 300W for front boards and 35W for RTM (dependant on ambient temperature)

Power Supply
Input : 90-264VAC, 47-63Hz
Output : -48V@17A
Active PFC : 0.99
EMI filter EN55022 Class B, FCC Part 15