Introduction to VPX

VPX (also known as VITA 46) is the next generation of ruggedized compact embedded systems. After years of VME systems dominating the military/aerospace field, users have finally reached the limit of available bandwidth on the VMEbus. VPX expands the possible bandwidth, compared to the traditional VME system, by replacing the parallel bus with high speed serial busses.

Much as the desktop market is transitioning from PCI to PCIe, the VME standard has been transformed to embrace the new VPX standards. The serial busses offer higher data rates while using a fraction of routing resources. This allows the new VPX standard to focus more physical backplane resources on improving other design aspects such as supporting larger power draw and more user I/O.