White Paper
Successful Carrier Card Design for COM Express: Introduction to High Speed Serial Bus Interface Design
Abstract:
While the COM Express standard offers a number of advantages for embedded system design, designers must also consider some of the potentially new issues they face when designing carrier cards for the modules. Besides physical features (component height), designers need to consider several electrical features — impedance matching, termination, and noise susceptibility — and EEPROM interfacing. When designing specific busses, designers must also consider bus-specific criteria and this white paper gives several examples.
COM Express is a modular embedded computing solution. It provides the answer for applications requiring higher CPU performance options, higher I/O bandwidth, and design flexibility in an extremely compact form. Ratified in July 2005 by the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PCIMG), the COM Express standard defines the mechanical, electrical and thermal requirements for a highly integrated COM mezzanine. The standard specifies a rich set of high-speed serial I/O interfaces and provides the option to preserve key current parallel interface technologies to ensure a smooth migration path.