PICMG AMC.0 R2.0P

The PICMG® 3.0 specification defines open architecture modular computing components
that can be quickly integrated to deploy high performance services solutions. The
specification is focused on the definition of an architecture that can:
• Enable reduced development time and costs
• Support reduced total cost of ownership
• Apply to edge, core, transport, and data center
• Apply to wireless, wireline, and optical network elements
• Support a rich mix of processors, digital signal processors (DSPs), packet processors, storage, and input/output (I/O)
• Integrate with multiple network elements
• Provide multi-protocol support for interfaces up to 40 Gbps
• Offer high levels of modularity and configurability
• Improve volumetric efficiency
• Improve power distribution and management
• Offer an advanced software infrastructure providing operating systems (OSs),
application programming interface (API), and operation, administration, management,
and provisioning (OAM&P)
• Offer world-class element cost and operational expense
• Provide high levels of service availability (99.999% and greater) through the integration
of features for resiliency, redundancy, serviceability and manageability
• Support appropriate scalability of System performance and capacity

The architecture is tailored to meet the needs of the rapidly changing communications
network infrastructure. The performance, environment and surrounding regulatory
requirements of application types, sometimes referred to as “Central Office,” “carrier-grade”
or “service provider” serve as a framework for the definition of the architecture. Industry
specifications that are representative of these environments are directly referenced or used as
guidelines for the structure of the specification.

Given the pace at which technologies and services are changing, this specification places
high priority on cost effectiveness versus attempting to support a variety of potential future
technologies at the expense of cost and complexity. While the specification is founded on the
requirements of the communications infrastructure, it is extensible to a variety of
applications and environments where highly available, highly scalable, cost effective, open
architecture modular solutions are required.

Objectives

The objective of this document is to present base requirements, and, in some cases, suggest
implementations for the PICMG® 3.0 Specification. Included is detailed information of the
following elements that must be considered during development:
• Mechanicals
• Hardware platform management
• Power distribution
• Power Connector zone (for Dual –48 VDC power to each Slot)
• Rear I/O access zone
• Data transport Connector zone (for management and switching fabric interconnect)
• Shelf thermal dissipation
• Regulatory guidelines