Welcome to Tenetek Solutions monthly news brief "Did You Know?" The purpose of this news brief is to keep our customers informed on new developments within the embedded computing industry and new product announcements from our partners within the industry. If you would like a copy of this news brief sent to you monthly via email please click on the link Did You Know? to send us a request.

Curtiss-Wright Controls Inc. acquires Pentland Systems, Ltd

Charlotte, N.C. (February 14, 2008) – Curtiss-Wright Controls Inc. announced today that it has acquired the business and assets of Pentland Systems, Ltd for $2.3 million. Pentland develops and supplies high-performance signal acquisition solutions to the aerospace and defense markets. The business will be organized under Curtiss-Wright Controls’ Embedded Computing group.

Pentland is a world leader in the acquisition and synthesis of high quality analog signals in leading-edge computing systems. Pentland’s products are designed for the toughest aerospace and defense, industrial, applications such as precision closed loop control, process monitoring, and radar and sonar signal acquisition.

Curtiss-Wright’s New Rugged Low-Power Quad-Core VME DSP Engine Delivers 64 GFLOPS Performance

December 20 , 2007 - Leesburg, VA –Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, a leading designer and manufacturer of rugged deployed commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) VME, VPX and CompactPCI products for the Aerospace and Defense market (A&D), has announced the availability of the CHAMP-AV5, its first P.A. Semi -1682 Power Architecture -based DSP VME compute engine. The new 6U board combines the breakthrough performance and power savings of dual low-power 2 GHz dual-core 1682 processors with a reconfigurable Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA co-processor to achieve approximately 100% greater board-level performance/Watt compared to earlier DSP engine designs. The CHAMP-AV5 is ideal for upgrading existing systems that require significantly improved DSP performance.

Sensitron develops small footprint High Voltage and High Current DC Solid State Relay

Deer Park , NY - December 10, 2007 - Sensitron has developed a small footprint High Voltage and High Current DC Solid State Relay/Contactor. This device incorporates the latest state of the art technology to reduce the “on” state power losses and voltage drop to a minimum.The device is a true four terminal relay, not needing additional power sources for bias. This device uses robust magnetic isolation to achieve high isolation, reliability, and long life. Unlike opto-isolation techniques, this device will not degrade with time. The input control lead will accept any voltage from 4.6V to 36VDC.

BEAR develops custom 660-watt AC/DC power supply with ultra-low leakage current for medical equipment manufacturer

Phelps, NY - December 10, 2007 - BEAR Power Supplies, Inc. has designed a custom 660-watt AC/DC power supply for a major medical equipment manufacturer. The three-output supply features innovative isolation techniques to achieve leakage current of less than 5 µA, exceeding requirements for type CF medical equipment.

BEAR excels at innovative, high-reliability custom power supplies for medical instruments and other demanding applications. Recent custom medical power supplies have featured non-standard output voltages, unusual form factors to fit precise size and configuration constraints, and compact sizes for portable medical devices. BEAR designers frequently incorporate features not commonly included in a power supply, allowing their customers to reduce overall system size and cost by reducing the need for supporting circuitry around the power supply.

Curtiss-Wright’s CHAMP-AV6 VPX DSP Engine Excels in Demanding Environmental Tests

LEESBURG, VA -- December 10, 2007 –Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, a leading designer and manufacturer of rugged deployed commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) VME, VPX and CompactPCI products for the Aerospace and Defense market (A&D), has announced the successful testing and qualification of its CHAMP-AV6 VPX digital signal processor (DSP) engine over the full Level 200 conduction-cooled range of rugged temperature, shock, and vibration specifications. The CHAMP-AV6’s successful test results deliver on the promise of VPX (VITA 46), the new generation of high performance, rugged open-architecture embedded board modules. The VPX standard, collaboratively developed by COTS industry leaders and prime military integrators, delivers a high-speed serial interconnect with a form-factor and feature set specifically designed to meet the most demanding A&D applications.

Curtiss-Wright Debuts Rugged Network Security Processor PMC Card

Leesburg, VA - December 10, 2007 -- Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, a leading supplier of rugged embedded boards and subsystems for the Aerospace and Defense (A&D) market has announced the PMC-110 CryptoNet Security PMC, its first rugged embedded security module. The PMC-110, a Processor PMC (PrPMC) mezzanine module, available in both air-cooled and conduction-cooled versions, is the first embedded board to feature on-board Firewall, Intrusion Detection, Network Address Translation (NAT), IPSec, and hardware-enabled cryptographic engines. The PMC-110 enables system designers to quickly and easily add advanced network security functionality to VME, VPX, CompactPCI and other host embedded boards that provide a PMC mezzanine site.

Interphase Unveils Packet Accelerator AdvancedMC and PCI-x Modules

Plano, TEXAS – October 16, 2007 -- Interphase Corporation (NASDAQ: INPH), a leading international supplier of next-generation networking technologies, today introduced a portfolio of standards based packet accelerator products based on the Cavium Networks (NASDAQ: CAVM) OCTEON Plus family of Network Service Processors to address the emerging needs of security, deep packet inspection, packet routing and policy based forwarding and pattern matching functions in next generation networks. 

The portfolio includes:

1. The iSPAN 36CA quad Gigabit Ethernet mid-size and full-size AdvancedMC modules for use in AdvancedTCA, MicroTCA and other proprietary platforms

1. The iSPAN 55CA quad Gigabit Ethernet PCI-x module for use with rack-mount server platforms. 

Motorola and Hybricon Collaborate to Develop Proof-of-Concept for Conduction-Cooled MicroTCA Platform

TEMPE, Ariz. – 08 May 2007 – Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) today announced a joint effort with Hybricon Corporation to develop a proof-of-concept of a MicroTCATM conduction-cooled platform. The collaboration further demonstrates the MicroTCA standard’s viability across a number of industries with demanding environments including military, telecom, medical and industrial.

Motorola and Hybricon’s proof-of-concept will be demonstrated at the first annual MicroTCA Summit being held May 30 – June 1 in Baltimore, Maryland.

The MicroTCA proof-of-concept will be based on Motorola’s off-the-shelf MicroTCA product offerings. Hybricon, a leading backplane designs provider, will add rugged aspects such as enclosure and testing.

“Teaming with Motorola, the leading MicroTCA provider, creates the ideal alliance to address the dynamic and challenging rugged environments that are critical for a number of edge applications in the military, telecommunications and medical industries, to name a few,” said Paul Freve, president of Hybricon. “Due to the architecture’s flexibility, extended capabilities, scaling and high-performance, MicroTCA is not only suitable for multiple applications, it has become the industry’s focused architecture of choice.

“We believe that this proof-of-concept will help dispel the uncertainty in the marketplace that MicroTCA can be ruggedized and shows that MicroTCA is a viable COTS alternative and platform choice for rugged platforms,” said Freve.

“Our collaboration with a leading supplier such as Hybricon opens MicroTCA to a much broader and diverse customer base including similar network centric initiatives in the military, telecommunications and medical industries,” said Paul Virgo, director of MicroTCA marketing, Embedded Communications Computing, Motorola. “We’re breaking the barriers and truly extending the MicroTCA architecture to industries where rugged and extended environmental issues have previously been obstacles. MicroTCA has provided the solution.”

Themis Computer Announces a New Family of AMD Opteron™ processor-based Single and Dual Processor Socket VMEbus Computers

FREMONT, California -- August 2, 2007 --- Themis® Computer has announced a new family of TOP64D™ VMEbus computers. The TOP64D is the first in Themis' new family of 6U VMEbus computer boards based on the AMD Opteron™ processor. Themis' TOP64D is designed for a wide range of embedded applications and supports all of the most popular operating systems, including Windows®, Linux®, and the Sun® Solaris™ 10 operating environments.

The TOP64D joins Themis' extensive family of 64-bit server class Single-Board Computers (SBCs). The single slot version of the TOP64D offers up to two 64-bit AMD Opteron processor cores and can serve as a stand-alone computing blade. The two-slot configuration offers dual processor workstation and server class performance on a VME blade format.

The TOP64D features AMD single (2.2GHz) and dual core (1.8GHz) Opteron processors. The AMD Opteron processor features a 64-Bit extended x86 instruction set and offers enhanced performance for new 64-bit and existing 32-bit applications. The dual core AMD Opteron processor offers performance gains of up to 87% over the single core version. The AMD Opteron processor's distributed memory architecture and Hypertransport™ technology bus provides scalability to add a second AMD Opteron processor in a symmetric multiprocessor configuration for even greater performance gains.

The TOP64D single-socket configuration accommodates both single and dual core AMD Opteron processors. The board occupies a single VME slot and includes three Gigabit Ethernet ports, a single XMC/PMC slot and on-board graphics. Memory is expandable to 4 GBytes of DDR memory. The XMC/PMC slot can be used for local I/O or high performance graphics expansion.

The TOP64D dual-socket configuration also accommodates single and dual core AMD Opteron processors. The computer occupies two VME slots and includes six Gigabit Ethernet ports, two Ultra320 SCSI ports, and two XMC/PMC slots. Memory is expandable to 8 GBytes of DDR memory (4 GBytes per socket). The XMC/PMC slot can be used for local I/O or high performance graphics expansion.

"Our TOP64D single board computer provides the reliability, scalability and high performance required by today's increasingly demanding applications," stated William E. Kehret, president of Themis Computer. "With the introduction of these new boards, Themis now offers the widest range of embedded computing for compute intensive applications," Mr. Kehret added.

"The TOP64D brings the AMD Opteron processor into new segments of the embedded market," stated Peter Robinson, business development manager, AMD. "Themis' experience in 64-bit multiprocessing takes full advantage of the AMD Opteron architecture to provide server class performance for the VME market."