Sheng Peng March,

 We are talking about CPU board, not CPU  No embedded low-power low-performance mobile CPU is needed  We don’t seem to have space/heat issue  No need to use embedded CPU core within FPGA  Limited capability  Roadmap is not clear  64-bit  Industrial trend for server/backbone  No need at frontend  Local knowledge has to be counted  PPC.vs. x86  PPC has nice architecture and AltiVec™  Consider popularity, software, bus architecture and performance, I prefer x86. 2

 VME bus is getting old and the bandwidth is too low  2eSST is not widely implemented on slave boards  VXS/VPX is not “VME” anymore  Expensive and not efficiently used  CompactPCI is better than VME  Higher bandwidth  Cheaper  Moving to serial link, i.e. PICMG 2.16  High speed serial point-to-point link is clearly the future.  ATCA/ μ TCA (with RTM extension) look great  Great bandwidth  Not too expensive (comparable to VME)  High availability and fully manageable  With PMC carrier and IP carrier if needed 3

 Only standard bus architecture should be considered  Industry Pack is little brother of “VME” and is slow and old as well.  PMC/PMC-X/XMC are highly preferable over Industry Pack  More and more vendors and COTS available  Much higher bandwidth leads to more applications/choices  AMC (with RTM extension) look great  Choice of COTS AMC IO modules is still limited  But with PMC carrier and IP carrier if needed  COM Express  A PICMG standard  Snap-on solution  PCIe and multi GigaE available 4

5

 Well accepted industrial leader shall be selected  Real Time OS is definitely needed in certain application  vxWorks  Real Time Linux should be evaluated (Monta Vista, RTLinux, BlueCat)  Regular OS  Linux (RHEL is good from the experience so far)  64-bit? Debatable?  Consider the compatibility with ATCA/ μ TCA and unified development environment, Linux/Real Time Linux solution is attractive 6

 Very attractive technology:  Reduce hardware cost  Improve the availability  Easier management  Many solutions include VMWare, MS Hyper-V and RHEL Xen  VMWare is the leading solution  Hard Real Time IOC with Virtualization  VMWare or WindRiver HyperVisor  Help to isolate subsystem without extra cost to CPU/Crate  Need evaluation (performance concern) 7

 A lot of types of Fieldbus available  Most of time it is dominated by device  The preference is Ethernet  Cheap  Easy to configure  Well accepted, popular  Real Time performance is achievable to certain level  IEEE 1588  LXI could be worth a try 8

 Role of PLC  Reliable interlock (Vacuum)  Safety System  ???  AB or Siemens?  Both expensive  Should we consolidate to one supplier?  Cheaper solution  Low end of AB?  DirectLogic from AutomationDirect? 9

10