GMS has introduced its next-generation VME interface controller for use with the company’s family of 3U and 6U VME single board computer (SBC) products. GMS is one of the original members VITA, the industry standards group responsible for both VME and VPX standards, and the company has been innovating VME products for nearly 40 years.

VME Product Lifecycle Extension While Addressing Vendor Lock-In

The IC is designed to address the sole-source, supply, lead time, and obsolescence challenges of legacy VME interface controllers and is applicable to GMS products VME120, VME120-WSIO and V547.  

GMS’s VME interface controller is an FPGA‑based design that extends VME product lifecycles while providing a lower cost option while providing the prolonged support required in rugged aerospace and defense programs. As well, the controller is programmable and adaptable, allowing GMS to add and modify the features required by long-running DoD systems that often require some specialized functions or VME bus modes.

Compliant to the ANSI/VITA1 specification and supporting A16/A24/A32 and D8/D16/D32 plus A32D64 multiplexed block transfer (MBLT), the VME interface controller is specified in VHDL (VHSIC Hardware Description Language) and is synthesized onto a high-density, low-cost, Intel^® Altera-based Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA).  With this “soft” approach, VME hardware designs are no longer tied to specific IC manufacturers.  In fact, the design can be ported to other FPGA types, including those from other vendors such as Xilinx^®.

This new design approach eliminates concerns over lifecycle availability, and positions GMS to continue supporting our VME SBCs plus future VME requirements for decades to come.