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A CompactPCI (cPCI) system is a 3U
Rack unit

A rack unit or U is a unit of measure used to describe the height of equipment intended for mounting in a 19-inch rack or a 23-inch rack ....
 or 6U Eurocard-based industrial computer, where all boards are connected via a passive PCI
Peripheral Component Interconnect

The PCI Local Bus , or Conventional PCI, is a computer bus for attaching computer hardware in a computer. These devices can take either the form of an integrated circuit fitted onto the motherboard itself, called a planar device in the PCI specification or an expansion card that fits into a socket....
 backplane. The pin assignments of the connectors are documented in standards, published by the organization PICMG US and PICMG Europe. PICMG
PICMG

The PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group is a consortium of over 250 companies who collaboratively develop open specifications that adapt PCI technology for use in high-performance telecommunications and industrial computing applications....
 stands for PCI Industrial Computers Manufacturers Group. The connectors and the electrical rules allow for 8 boards in a PCI segment.






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A CompactPCI (cPCI) system is a 3U
Rack unit

A rack unit or U is a unit of measure used to describe the height of equipment intended for mounting in a 19-inch rack or a 23-inch rack ....
 or 6U Eurocard-based industrial computer, where all boards are connected via a passive PCI
Peripheral Component Interconnect

The PCI Local Bus , or Conventional PCI, is a computer bus for attaching computer hardware in a computer. These devices can take either the form of an integrated circuit fitted onto the motherboard itself, called a planar device in the PCI specification or an expansion card that fits into a socket....
 backplane. The pin assignments of the connectors are documented in standards, published by the organization PICMG US and PICMG Europe. PICMG
PICMG

The PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group is a consortium of over 250 companies who collaboratively develop open specifications that adapt PCI technology for use in high-performance telecommunications and industrial computing applications....
 stands for PCI Industrial Computers Manufacturers Group. The connectors and the electrical rules allow for 8 boards in a PCI segment. Multiple segments are allowed with bridges.

Unlike the original Eurocard solutions such as VME
VMEbus

VMEbus is a computer bus standard, originally developed for the Motorola 68000 line of Central processing unit, but later widely used for many applications and standardized by the IEC as American National Standards Institute/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 1014-1987....
, which use connectors with a 0.1 inch (2.54 mm) pin spacing, CompactPCI cards use metric connectors with a 2-millimeter pin spacing, designed to the IEC
IEC

IEC may refer to:In education:* International Education Centre* Information, Education, and Communication* International Electrotechnical Commission - An international standards organization dealing with electrical, electronic and related technologies....
 1076 standard. 3U boards have a 110-pin connector (J1), which carries the 32-bit PCI bus signals, and an optional 110-pin connector (J2), which carries either user-defined I/O or the upper 32-bits of an optional 64-bit PCI bus. 6U cards have an identical J1, a J2 that is always used for 64-bit PCI, as well as J3, J4, and J5 connectors for a variety of uses either as user-defined I/O or specified signaling such as Telephony and/or Ethernet
Ethernet

Ethernet is a family of Data frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks . The name comes from the physical concept of the Luminiferous aether....
 signaling. Hot-plugging is a supported feature of CompactPCI. Some of the pins are slightly longer to provide proper grounding when devices are inserted and removed.

The backplanes can be designed for 3.3V VIO or 5V VIO operation. These are differentiated by having 'Cadmium Yellow' coloured key for 3.3V or 'Brilliant Blue' colour for 5V operation. If the cPCI card operates on a particular VIO voltage the card shall have the respective coloured coding key. If the card is compatible with both voltages then it may not have any coding key. The image above illustrates a 5V VIO 8-slot backplane.

CompactPCI was initially ratified as PICMG 2.0 in late 1995 as a passive backplane for PCI signaling. The 2.x series of specifications from PICMG provide support for a variety of technologies including Hot Swap (PICMG 2.1), Telephony signaling (PICMG 2.5) and most notably the expansion of the architecture to include switched Ethernet (PICMG 2.16).

Originally designed to support the PCI signaling protocol (and hence the name "CompactPCI"), CompactPCI has grown to include a variety of technologies centered around the application of the 2mm HM connector on the 3U and 6U form factor. In fact many systems are implemented with no PCI bus on the backplane, such as those implemented with switched ethernet board interconnection (PICMG 2.16).

A drawback of the design is that the signal pins can become bent when a new device is inserted.

See also

  • PXI
    PXI

    PXI is one of several modular electronic instrumentation platforms in current use. These platforms are used as a basis for building electronic test equipment or automation systems, such as might be used in a mobile phone manufacturing test environment....
  • Mini PCI
  • VMEbus
    VMEbus

    VMEbus is a computer bus standard, originally developed for the Motorola 68000 line of Central processing unit, but later widely used for many applications and standardized by the IEC as American National Standards Institute/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 1014-1987....
  • VPX
    VPX

    VPX, formerly known as VITA 46, is an ANSI standard that provides VMEbus-based systems with support for switched fabrics over a new high speed connector....


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