PICMG 1.3 Specification

Industry Transition to PICMG 1.3

The original PICMG 1.0 specification proliferated in the embedded computing industry due to its ability to support a large number of option cards and system peripherals, while providing longer MTBFs, faster MTTRs, long-life component support, and flexible system designs.

But engineers utilizing the latest high-performance chipsets and processors continued to run into the bandwidth limitations inherent in this parallel bus technology, a problem solved by the PICMG 1.3 specification which replaced the single board computer to backplane parallel bus interfaces with high-speed serial links, thus correcting the data bottlenecks while maintaining backward compatibility with PCI and PCI-X options cards.

Designing PICMG 1.3 Computer Systems

Trenton Systems led the effort to write and publish the original PICMG 1.3 specification, and from this history we have made the PICMG 1.3 standard our starting point when developing high-performance, rugged rackmount computing systems.

Technology enhancements found withing the PICMG 1.3 specification also include additional power pins on the edge connectors which eliminate the need for auxiliary power connectors, and support for power supply functions such as wake/sleep modes and soft system starts.

Our PICMG 1.3 single board computers are designed and manufactured in U.S.-based ISO 9001:2008 certified facilities, incorporate the latest Intel® processors, and include a five-year factory warranty, providing the reliability and performance required for demanding applications.

Our PICMG 1.3 backplanes provide optimal flexibility and option card support due to the variety of slot configurations that are found with off-the-shelf products or with custom designs which meet a unique specification.

PCI, PCI-X and PCI Express card slots, in various PICMG 1.3 backplane form factors, allow Trenton Systems to engineer robust, long-life rugged computers which satisfy the demanding requirements of our customer’s applications in areas such as industrial automation or GPU computing, government and defense, virtualization, medical, energy and communications.

As the leader in PICMG 1.3 single board computer and backplane designs, Trenton Systems utilizes a systems engineering approach that ensures every board-level product will function properly as part of a fully integrated computer system.  The fact that we maintain complete system BIOS control on all PICMG 1.3 SBCs allows us to create custom designed solutions that meet the exact needs of our customer’s application.

Visit the PICMG organizations website to order a complete copy of the PICMG 1.3 specification.