GEDatasheet MVME6100 Series VME Single-Board Computer

The promise of the VME Renaissance is innovation, performance and investment 

protection. The MVME6100 series from Motorola delivers on this promise. The 

innovative design of the MVME6100 provides a high performance platform that allows 

customers to leverage their investment in their VME infrastructure.

Customers looking for a "technology refresh" for their application, while maintaining 

backwards compatibility with their existing VMEbus infrastructure, can upgrade to the 

MVME6100 series and take advantage of its enhanced performance features.

The MVME6100 series is designed to meet the needs of OEMs servicing the defense 

and aerospace, industrial automation and medical imaging market segments.

■ 2eSST VMEbus protocol with 320MB/s transfer rate 

across the VMEbus

■ Migration path from existing Motorola VMEbus 

platforms

■ High-performance MPC7457 PowerPC® processor 

running at 1.267 GHz, ideal for data-intensive 

applications 

■ 128-bit AltiVec™ coprocessor for parallel processing

■ Up to 1GB of on-board DDR ECC memory 

■ Two 33/66/100 MHz PMC-X sites allow the addition 

of industry-standard, application-specific modules 

■ Dual Gigabit Ethernet interfaces

■ 128MB of Flash memory in two 64MB banks

VMEbus 2eSST Performance

The MVME6100 series is the first VMEbus single-board computer (SBC) designed with the Tundra Tsi148™ VMEbus 

interface chip offering 2eSST VMEbus performance. The 2eSST (two edge source synchronous transfer) protocol 

causes the VMEbus to run at a practical bandwidth of 320MB/s in most cases. The 2eSST protocol has existed for 

some time (the draft standard for trial use was published in 1999 and released as an ANSI standard in 2003), but 

until now, 2eSST boards would not work in a standard VMEbus backplane because the existing VMEbus transceivers 

could not support the required VMEbus 2eSST signaling speeds. Texas Instruments has developed new VMEbus 

transceivers that support the VMEbus signal switching speeds required by the 2eSST protocol. The combination of 

the new Texas Instruments VMEbus transceivers and the Tsi148 VMEbus legacy protocol support allows customers 

to integrate the MVME6100 series into their existing infrastructure providing backward compatibility and thereby 

preserving their investment in existing VMEbus boards, backplanes, chassis and software.

Balanced Performance

The MVME6100 series provides more than just faster VMEbus transfer rates; it provides balanced performance from 

the processor, memory subsystem, local buses and I/O subsystems. The processor running at speeds of 1.267 GHz is 

ideal for data-intensive applications. The state-of-the-art host bridge, with support for a 133 MHz host bus and a 133 

MHz DDR memory bus, is well matched to the processor. To ensure that the MVME6100 series can handle the 

320MB/s data rates of 2eSST, the Tsi148 VMEbus interface chip is connected to one of the 133 MHz PCI-X buses on 

the host bridge. The second PCI-X bus has dual PMC-X sites—each site supports PMC or PMC-X cards supporting 

PCI bus speeds from 33 to 100 MHz. The MVME6100 also offers dual Gigabit Ethernet interfaces. All of this adds up 

to a set of well-balanced, high-performance subsystems for unparalleled performance.

Application Benefits Defense and Aerospace 

In the defense and aerospace market segment, the MVME6100 series is well suited for command and control 

applications that utilize commercial grade products such as naval sheltered systems, stationary ground systems, and 

reconnaissance aircraft systems. The MVME6100 series helps to provide more performance for these applications 

than previous VME solutions have been able to supply by using the 1.267 GHz processor. This combined with dual 

PCI-X buses capable of 100 MHz speed for PMC modules and an 8x increase in the VME bandwidth eliminates many 

of the bottlenecks faced by command and control solutions today. These applications can now take advantage of the 

latest PowerPC processors in a dense computing configuration without the difficulties of trying to cool 

multiprocessor boards and managing I/O and VME bottlenecks. With the addition of Motorola’s processor PMCs 

(PrPMCs), additional PowerPC architecture-compatible processors can be added for a multiprocessor solution 

without sacrificing any of the MVME6100 series benefits.

Industrial Automation 

The MVME6100 is also ideally suited for semiconductor process equipment (SPE), automated test equipment (ATE) 

and a variety of other high-end industrial automation applications because of its increased bus bandwidth and faster 

processing speeds. The backwards compatibility of the MVME6100 series with existing VME products helps to 

provide OEMs a way to extend the life and capability of their current designs without sacrificing existing key 

hardware and software investments. The DSP-like AltiVec technology, which is incorporated into the processor, 

allows the MVME6100 series to be used for an assortment of vector processing applications. And with two PMC