Mercury Computer Systems RACE++ Series PowerPC 7448 Multicomputer Upgrade

Although perhaps not as famous to the public as Intel CPUs, the PowerPC is a RISC instruction set architecture created in 1991 by AIM (the Apple–IBM–Motorola (News - Alert) alliance). Ironically, it was originally designed to take the personal computer market by storm, but instead ended up finding favor in as an embedded high-performance processor for such things as networking (e.g. Cisco (News - Alert) edge routers), though it did make a mark in the personal computer market in Apple's Macintosh product lines from 1994 to 2006, when Apple finally made the leap to the Intel (News - Alert) architecture.

 

And now, Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. (www.mc.com) of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, a well-known provider of embedded, high-performance computing solutions for image, sensor, and signal processing applications, has announced availability of the RACE ++® Series PowerPC® 7448 Multicomputer, a high-performance, drop-in product upgrade that boosts processor speed, L2 cache size, and application performance over previous RACE++ products built on the PowerPC 7447A processor. The new PowerPC 7448 Multicomputer comprises a Mercury MCJ6 motherboard and two faster daughtercards that interface directly with the RACE++ switch fabric. By maintaining commonality with previous RACE++ Series PowerPC products, Mercury provides an easy upgrade path for existing system designs.

 

The Mercury RACE++ Series interconnect fabric is an established approach for multicomputer digital signal processing; products based on it are deployed in more than 1,000 programs worldwide. With current economic pressures, the life cycles of electronic subsystems in many defense programs are being extended to reduce costs. Mercury’s new RACE++ upgrade is an example of how customers can protect their application investment by relying on compatibility across product generations. The RACE++ Series PowerPC 7448 Multicomputer allows integrators the option to increase application performance while preserving their investment in the existing system chassis, hardware, and software – thus providing savings in development costs.

 

The two daughtercards on the RACE++ Series PowerPC 7448 Multicomputer combine two 1.06-GHz MPC7448 processors with AltiVec™ technology. The low-power version of the PowerPC 7448 enables a RACE++ product upgrade that has less power dissipation than the previous generation based on the PowerPC 7447A, minimizing customer re-qualification costs.

 

Aside from the upgraded RACE++ products, Mercury offers product solutions for high-end, floating-point digital signal processing in all the major form factors, including VME, VXS, 6U VPX, 3U VPX, AdvancedTCA (News - Alert), and MicroTCA.