TCA, Actel, Pigeon Point Systems

Actel Partners With Pigeon Point Systems To Deliver TCA Management Solutions

News Release from: Actel Europe Ltd
22/04/2008

Building upon its existing portfolio for the growing TCA market, Actel has announced it has partnered with Pigeon Point Systems, a market-leading supplier of TCA management components, to deliver system management platforms for higher performance applications. Leveraging Actel's single-chip, mixed-signal Fusion Programmable System Chip (PSC) with an embedded FPGA-optimized 32-bit ARM Cortex-M1 processor and optimized Pigeon Point firmware, the first products will include development kits to speed the design of Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA) and Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) carrier board management controllers, all based on the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) architecture.

Defined by the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG), the Telecom Computing Architecture (TCA) encompasses ATCA, AdvancedMC (AMC) and the MicroTCA frameworks. An industry-standard specification experiencing rapid deployment in applications including telecommunications access, storage and data center equipment, ATCA provides manageability and redundancy at the shelf level and an IPMI-based standard management framework at the board level. According to industry estimates from market research firm VDC, the opportunity for the overall standards-based TCA system market is expected to be roughly $1.8 billion by 2009.

“As evidenced by their leading market share, Pigeon Point Systems’ industry-standard firmware is broadly chosen by major telecom equipment suppliers for their development programs. For this reason, we believe this partnership with Pigeon Point will ease the widespread adoption of Fusion-based system management implementations,” said Yankin Tanurhan, vice president, system solutions and advanced applications at Actel.

Actel’s mixed-signal Fusion PSCs incorporate analog functions, embedded flash and FPGA fabric in a single chip. As a result, the Actel Fusion PSC can integrate system management functions and offer programmable flexibility, providing an implementation that reduces parts count by 25 percent and board area by roughly 33 percent. At a time when designers are searching for system and power management solutions that minimizes system cost and complexity while improving power efficiency and reliability, Actel’s mixed-signal Fusion PSC family is an ideal alternative to multiple discrete devices.

“Designing a TCA management controller around a mixed-signal Fusion PSC yields a controller that is optimized for TCA and potentially integrates board-specific logic into the FPGA as well, with resulting benefits in bill of materials (BOM) costs and other areas for our mutual customers,” said Mark Overgaard, president at Pigeon Point Systems. “Fusion PSCs with an embedded soft ARM Cortex-M1 processor give TCA designers a new high-performance option for easily managing the critical system functions that affect the efficiency and power consumption of their systems.”

“Our existing Fusion-based, turnkey MicroTCA platforms have experienced tremendous success. The combination of our mixed-signal Fusion PSC, industry-leading Pigeon Point firmware, the FPGA-optimized ARM Cortex-M1 processor, and reference designs represents a platform able to support even higher performance TCA applications, giving us reason to expect this trend to continue as we roll out our new TCA offerings over the coming quarters,” Tanurhan continued.