AdvancedTCA®, MicroTCA™ Stretch into New Markets
Growth remains steady, but so far it’s no hockey-stick effect; military and aerospace gain ground, home market still a distant possibility.
The world of standardized, carrier-grade communications gear is growing. It’s not racing out of the gate and it’s not stalled, leaving industry insiders who want it to happen faster and outsiders who don’t think it’s growing fast enough at odds over whether the market is surging ahead or not living up to expectations.
For the most part, growth remains steady. Behind the scenes, however, Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (AdvancedTCA) and its scaled-down cousin, MicroTCA, are making inroads into some unexpected areas that actually could proliferate the use of standardized equipment and ultimately reduce the cost—which, in turn, could further boost sales.
The shape of things to come? A molded plastic microTCA
To put this into context, AdvancedTCA and MicroTCA are specifications developed by the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG), an association of about 250 companies. Both contain a standard chassis for boards that connect directly to that box, eliminating the need for a data bus. The AdvancedTCA spec has been in the market for about five years, while the MicroTCA spec has been around for less than two.
The stated goal of both was to make it easier and faster to bring products to market. That would help utilize the overabundance of fiber installed prior to the dot-com meltdown. And to some extent, both are helping that cause by simplifying upgrades and expanding the market for communications equipment that taps into the backbone.
The most visible sign of the technology’s success may be as simple as the chassis itself. Instead of the kind of metal racks found in large service providers, companies such as Radisys and Emerson Network Power have begun housing these devices in plastic shells—something that doesn’t look like an Erector Set in an enterprise or office setting.
That’s especially useful for the military and aerospace markets because it makes the boxes more rugged. The government and military suppliers have taken a particular interest in MicroTCA because of its small footprint and the push within the military and aerospace markets for standardized parts.
“What we’re seeing now is a new desire for a different cost model,” said Paul Virgo, director of marketing for embedded computing at Emerson Network Power. “They want to use this in command centers, autonomous unmanned vehicles, in drones, and even in land-based vehicles where physical space is limited. The big push now is to drive an incremental standardization to ruggedize MicroTCA, which includes shock, vibration and a wide temperature range. It also needs conductive cooling, which is like the Holy Grail of cooling, but fortunately in a Humvee there’s a lot of metal.”
Virgo said MicroTCA machines also are being employed in point of sale operations. While the boxes are unlikely to ever show up on the counter at McDonalds, they are finding a role between the front-end sales and communications to corporate headquarters and the bank. That wasn’t even on the drawing board when AdvancedTCA was being developed.
In addition, the enterprise also continues to be a growth center for both AdvancedTCA and MicroTCA, depending upon the size of the data center and the complexity of the problem being solved. With AdvancedTCA modules running upwards of $50,000, and fully loaded well into the six figures, the operation has been sizeable enough to bear the cost. Fully loaded MicroTCAs now run about $5,000, in comparison, but analysts believe that number will drop even further as volume shipments increase. The difference is the number of slots in the chassis and the capability of the AMCs. A fully loaded 12-slot AdvancedTCA chassis, for example, could include a mix of I/O boards, fiber, DSPs and WiMAX. A MicroTCA will include a subset of that.
But that subset may be particularly attractive in some newer markets, such as the home. Ernie Bergstrom, president of Crystal Cube Consulting, said he expects the price point to drop to as little as $2,000 in the next couple years, versus what he says is a low of about $4,000 with a few advanced mezzanine cards (AMCs). “The nice thing about a MicroTCA in the residential market is that you can put a router, modem, PCs and video security in a single MicroTCA cube. You don’t even need a separate router because that’s all handled by an intelligent AMC. And it can all fit into a wiring closet somewhere in your house and use intelligent WiFi everywhere.”
MicroTCA residential boxes that are pre-configured with AMCs and subsidized by providers of fiber optic to the home is one possibility, industry insiders agree. The ability to centralize and dramatically simplify home communications has been a major push for companies such as Intel, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and a variety of other players including Cisco and even service providers. The in-home network remains one of the least standardized and complicated communications environments, making it difficult for the average homeowner to tap into a raft of new services such as IP television or wireless printing.
Solid as a rock: The standard AdvancedTCA
And finally, telcos are expected to begin ordering more AdvancedTCA boxes in coming months, Bergstrom said. “When the telcos get their act together and put out RFPs, they will probably spend hundreds of millions of dollars on this equipment. That’s going to cause a huge revenue stream because most suppliers like Nortel will require the telcos to buy in volume to get their usual 40 percent discount.”
Todd Etchieson, vice president of communications networking product management at Radisys, said sales in AdvancedTCA have been solid because of the promise of faster time to market and lower cost through standardization, but the hockey-stick effect is still not quite there. He said the first round for AdvancedTCA was to get design wins, which typically take a year to show up in products. He said the next step is for Radisys’ customers’ customers to design the products into their own. He said that stage is just beginning.
“When this happens is determined by when our customers’ vendors launch commercial applications based on AdvancedTCA,” he said. “We also need to educate the market that MicroTCA is not a smaller, cheaper replacement for AdvancedTCA. One is not a replacement for the other and we don’t think it ever will be.”
Ed Sperling is Contributing Editor at Chip Design magazine. He is the recipient of numerous awards Solid as a rock: The standard AdvancedTCA for journalistic excellence.
