Themis Computer USPIIIi

Introduction

The new USPIIIi™ is Themis' highest performance family of single-processor and dual-processor 1.28GHz UltraSPARC® based VME computers available. The new USPIIIi architecture delivers the industry's best data bandwidth, providing next generation I/O performance for government, industrial, military, and commercial VME embedded processing applications.

The USPIIIi is a multi-slot VME board assembly that implements a dual SMP UltraSPARC IIIi architecture. Based on a standard Sun motherboard licensed reference design utilizing Sun's new UltraSPARC IIIi chipset, the USP IIIi is a next generation design suitable for demanding new applications or as an upgraded replacement of earlier USP-2 SMP VME products. The USPIIIi leverages Themis' USPIIe-USB™ product family, and may be configured with either one or two UltraSPARC IIIi CPUs. The single CPU configuration consists of an I/O board and a CPU board assembly occupying two VME slots. An additional processor board is available as an ordering option; it connects to the first CPU board via the UltraSPARC IIIi processor local bus. A dual- CPU configuration occupies three VME slots. Although the I/O board includes a rich complement of I/O functionality, up to two additional 6U VME I/O boards may be configured with the base I/O board. These additional boards can be PMC carriers (two different options) or TGA3D+ graphics boards.

Like its USP-2 predecessor, the USPIIIi provides excellent Sun® graphics support. The Themis TGA3D+™ incorporates Sun XVR-500 graphics technologies and Solaris™ Operating Environment support. Each USPIIIi CPU has a local SMP readable memory module. A dual CPU configuration can have up to 8GB total memory. True SMP is maintained since each UltraSPARC IIIi CPU can access memory from the other CPU via the high-performance J-Bus. To provide CPU connection to I/O devices, two J-Bus bridge chips are used. Data-flow bottlenecks are minimized since each J-Bus device provides two separate and independent PCI buses. One of the J-Bus bridge devices connects to high-speed I/O devices such as Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL), SCSI disk drive and Gigabit Ethernet. The other J-Bus bridge connects to a 64-bit/66 MHz PCI trunk for the local PMC connection and for PCI expansion to adjacent VME I/O cards (e.g. - optional PMC carrier, PMC/IO carrier and/or TGA3D+ graphics boards). An Ultra160 SCSI interface is used to support the increased bandwidth of today's high-performance LVD SCSI devices; while automatic backward-compatibility modes protect your investment by assuring that earlier single-ended SCSI devices will continue to function properly. Serial ports, SCSI port A, and keyboard/mouse I/O are available at the VME P2 user defined pins via an optional P2 Paddle Board Adapter.