MEN Mikro Elektronik has introduced the F218, a 3U CompactPCI Ethernet diagnosis buffer. The F218 is a slave CPU board in 3U CompactPCI format and was developed for use as an Ethernet diagnosis buffer. It is based on the MPC8314 processor from the PowerQUICC II Pro family and offers frequencies of up to 266MHz. This low-power processor promises an advantageous price-performance-ratio and claims to meet the requirements of the industrial market. The board communicates with the system's host computer via Ethernet. The processor is connected to the CompactPCI bus via two Ethernet controllers in the FPGA so that the host computer sees the device as an Ethernet device. As the boards communicate via the backplane, a cable connection via the front of the CPU boards is not required. The front I/O of the slave board includes two Gigabit Ethernet interfaces and a serial interface which is realised using an SA-Adapter. Optionally, the onboard FPGA offers further I/O possibilities such as fast Ethernet or UARTs. Equipped with a 256Mbyte DDR2 SDRAM and 16Mbyte flash, the board offers space for storing error messages. operating range is -40 to +85°C.
