PRODUCT OF THE WEEK: SOSA aligned VX3060-S2 3U VPX rugged blade PC with Intel Core processing

This week’s product, the Kontron VX3060-S2 3U VPX Rugged Blade PC, leverages the 11th Gen Intel Core processor for artificial intelligence (AI), CVGIP, and digital signal processing (DSP) workloads. Developed in alignment with the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Technical Standard, the VX3060-S2 serves demanding military programs with intensive processing and extreme ruggedization requirements.

The new 10 nm gen Intel system-on-chip (SoC) SKUs pack an unmatched feature set in a low power envelope enabling a solid foundation for almost all rugged computing use cases. Introduced with 15 years of availability, it is a serious candidate for long-term deployments. With the VX3060-S2, Kontron takes this silicon architecture to the next level in the form of a rugged single 3U VPX board PC, boasting numerous innovations and extensions designed to fulfill the most demanding mission profiles.

Intel Core Processor Platform Advantage

The 10nm Intel SoC of the VX3060-S2 offers superb performance in a reasonable power budget. Designed with capabilities such as PCIe gen4, it is also a perfect fit for blade computing with constrained mechanical envelope and power budget and growing software requirements to host demanding applications within a minimum number of boards.

The SKUs selected for VX3060-S2 are quad core units, with specialized instructions for artificial Intelligence (VNNI) and doubled signal processing performance (AVX512). Computer vision and media processing also enjoy twice the performance of the previous generation thanks to the Gen12 Gfx graphics engine. The featured 96 execution units benefit from a direct on-chip access to main memory, delivering outstanding performance per EU compared with traditional discrete graphics silicon with many more EUs.

Features include:

12-28 W Quad Core processor, enhanced AI, AVX-512, 32 GByte with ECC
8k Multi-Head display from Gen12 / 96 EUs high End GPU
Versatile I/O: USB, M.2 socket, XMC option
1G/10G Ethernet Multi-port with 25G capability
15-year availability, PBIT, CBIT, SEC-Line support

OpenVPX Compatibility

The VX3060-S2 is compatible with the VITA65 OpenVPX Profile: SLT3-PAY-2F2U-14.2.3

A non SOSA version of this board named VX3060 also exists and is compatible with the following VITA65 OpenVPX slots profiles:

SLT3-PAY-1F1F2U-14.2.4
SLT3-PAY-1F1F2U1TU1T1U1T-14.2.16
MOD3-PAY-1F1F2U1TU1T1U1T-16.2.15-2

Reliability and Robustness

The selected CPU SKU reliability is guaranteed for 10 years up to 100% active usage profile.
The VX3060-S2 rugged air-cooled variant is designed to meet VITA 47 class EAC6 V2 and can operate in extended temperature environments of -40 °C/+70 °C.
The VX3060-S2 rugged conduction-cooled version is a plug-in unit according to VITA 48.2 Type 2, Secondary Side Retainer. It can operate up to 85 °C card edge temperature, according to VITA 47 depending on the processing load and mezzanine power.
Built-In test capabilities enable effective local and remote maintenance
- PBIT is OS independent. It is designed as a new EFI BIOS command.
- A CBIT engine is part of the Kontron Linux BSP

Other Features

Time coordinated computing (TCC): The VX3060-S2 architecture has support for Time Coordinated Computing use cases with new Time Aware GPIO feature.
Network performance: Leveraging a server class multi MAC silicon and adequate connectors, a profile can reach up to 50Gb/s of data plane bandwidth in the form of two 25Gb/s KR ports on P1 (50GBase-KR2)
NVMe storage: top M.2 socket is available to connect legacy SATAIII or 1x PCIe gen3 SSD units. With PCIe, NVMe OS device drivers offer lower latency and better management of existing FLASH based storage.
Fiber optics: VX3060-S2 includes provisions to offer fiber optics connectivity for high performance networking, a key asset for internal box computers as well as 2nd layer routing with maximum signal quality.
XMC mezzanine: Linked to a x4 or x1 PCIe gen 3 port of the SOC. X8d+X12d VITA 46.9 XMC I/O routing with 20 differential pairs plus 4 single ended pins on the rear P2 complete this option.