Apparatus interconnecting circuit board and mezzanine card or cards
An apparatus includes a circuit board and a connector assembly which extends outwardly from the circuit board and is capable of simultaneously being connected to a plurality of mezzanine cards.
It is known in a circuit board assembly (sometimes referred to as a “blade”) to mount a mezzanine card in parallel fashion on a baseboard and to provide for signal interconnection between at least one electronic device on the baseboard and at least one electronic device on the mezzanine card. There is need for increased flexibility in providing interconnection between a baseboard and one or more mezzanine cards.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The connector assembly includes a main body 104 that extends outwardly from the circuit board 100 in a first direction (indicated by arrow 106 in
As best seen from
The connector assembly 102 also includes a plurality of connectors 110, including, in some embodiments eight connectors: (1) a first connector 110-1 (
As will be observed from
Each of the connectors 110-1 to 110-8 may be arranged for connection to a respective mezzanine card (the mezzanines cards being shown in
A plurality of rails 124 (
Also mounted on the circuit board 100 are: (1) a connector 130-1 that is separate from the connector assembly 102 and located opposite the fourth connector 110-4 of the connector assembly 102 and extending parallel to the main body 104 of the connector assembly 102 and parallel to the side 128 of the circuit board 100 and adjacent to the side 128 of the circuit board 100 and capable of being connected to a mezzanine card (not shown in
Arranged along the side 128 of the circuit board 100 (which may be considered the rear side of the circuit board) are connectors 132 which are suitable for connecting the circuit board 100 to a backplane (not shown in
There may also be mounted on the circuit board 100 one or more processing devices, such as a high performance processor chipset 138 (e.g. a Pentium or Xscale chipset, available from Intel Corporation, the assignee hereof) and a high performance network processor 140 (e.g. a Castine or Sausalito network processor, also available from Intel). In addition, there may be provided on the circuit board 100 a communication bridge 142 for allowing communication between the processor chipset 138 and the network processor 140, and a power zone 144 which provides power conversion among various voltages.
The region of the circuit board 100 indicated at 146 may be used for mounting various devices (not separately shown) for “board support” functions, such as an IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) which manages communications in accordance with the ATCA (Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture) standard, hot-swappable and debugging devices, an LED (light emitting diode) display, thin elements such as memory devices, etc.
The region of the circuit board 100 indicated at 148 may be used for mounting various devices (not separately shown) for “processor support” functions, such as processor support bridges, and thin elements such as memory devices (e.g. quad data rate RAM (QDRAM), dual data rate RAM (DDRAM), etc.). The region of the circuit board 100 indicated at 150 may also be used for processor support functions, with the same type of devices (not separately shown) mounted in the region 150 as in the region 148.
The region of the circuit board 100 indicated at 152 may be used for mounting various devices (not separately shown) for “backplane support” functions, such as input/output interfaces, media access controllers, etc.
The circuit board 100 will be understood to include one or more layers of wiring/signal traces (not separately shown) to interconnect as required the devices and components mounted on the circuit board 100, including the connector assembly 102, the separate connectors 130, the backplane connectors 132 and the power connector 134.
Referring again to
Signal layers 156 may be used to carry relatively low speed signals, such as signals interfaced to peripheral devices (not shown), I2C buses (which are standard serial buses used for IPMI), UART signals, and GPIO (general purpose input/output) lines. In some embodiments the layers 156 may contain about 150 wires/traces.
Signal layers 158 may be used to carry moderate speed signals, such as PCI buses, UTOPIA (Universal Test and Operations PHY (physical layer) Interface for ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode)) buses, SPI-3 buses, CSIX (Common Switch Interface Consortium) buses (which are a standard suitable for connection to a telecommunication switch fabric), TBI/GMII (ten bit interface/gigabit media independent interface), and/or local memory buses. In some embodiments the layers 158 may contain about 150 wires/traces.
Signal layers 160 may be used to carry high speed signals such as differential pairs for, e.g., gigabit Ethernet, SPI-4, Infiniband, etc. In some embodiments, about 2×32 pairs may be provided in the layers 160.
Generally, the main body 104 and signal layers 156-160 may be formed in similar fashion to a multilayer printed circuit board.
Referring to
As best seen from
In some embodiments, a double-height mezzanine card 174 (schematically shown in
In some embodiments, a double-width mezzanine card 182 (shown in phantom in
In some embodiments, the mezzanine card 164-2 may be a personality card suitable for connection between connector 110-2 of the connector assembly 102 and a rear input/output module 186 (
In some embodiments, the mezzanine card 164-4 may be a mapping card coupled between the separate connector 130-1 and the connector 110-4 of the connector assembly 102 to provide a connection between the backplane and the personality mezzanine cards coupled to the connector assembly 102. The mapping mezzanine card 164-4 may also derive voltages not provided on the baseboard 100 to other mezzanine cards 164 via the connector assembly 102.
In some embodiments, the mezzanine cards 164-5 and 164-6 may be configuration cards that provide an interface between components on the baseboard 100 and the personality cards 164-1, 164-2, 164-3, 164-7 and 164-8.
Some signals may be provided to/from the mezzanine cards 164 via buses. Other signals may be routed among the mezzanine cards 164 over point-to-point connections via the connector assembly 102. A multibus bridge to accommodate point-to-point connections may be located on one of the configuration cards 164-5 or 164-6.
Each connector 110 may, in some embodiments, accommodate up to 300 signal pins (including power pins) for each mezzanine card 164.
By providing the connector assembly 102 illustrated in
In some embodiments, not all of the connectors 110 have a mezzanine card coupled thereto.
The circuit board assembly 200 includes a base circuit board (also referred to as a “baseboard”) 202, which has ICs 204 and discrete components 206 mounted thereon. The baseboard 202 also includes one or more layers of wiring/signal traces (not separately shown) to interconnect as required components and/or connectors mounted on the baseboard 202. The circuit board assembly 200 also includes a mezzanine card 208, which may be mounted in parallel fashion on the baseboard 202 via a conventional mounting arrangement such as a MICTOR connector 210. ICs 212 and a communications interface 214 (e.g., an optical fiber interface), may be mounted on the mezzanine card 208. The mezzanine card 208 may be, for example, a gigabit personality card or an ATM personality card. The mezzanine card 208 also includes one or more layers of wiring/signal traces (not separately shown) to interconnect as required components and/or connectors mounted on the mezzanine card 208.
The circuit board assembly 200 further includes an interface card 216 mounted in parallel fashion on the mezzanine card 208 via a mounting structure 218. The interface card 216 serves as a signal interface between at least one component on the baseboard 202 and at least one component on the mezzanine card 208. Signal connections to the interface card 216 are made via a connector structure 220 which connects the interface card 216 to signal paths (discussed below) on the mezzanine card 208. One or more ICs 222 may be mounted on the interface card 216.
A first signal path 232 is connected to the first signal connector 224 and passes along the mezzanine card 208 (
With an interface card as described above providing an interface between a baseboard and a mezzanine card, upgrades or changes in design in a baseboard may take place without requiring redesign of a mezzanine card to be used with the baseboard. Rather, it may only be necessary to redesign the interface card to accommodate changes in the baseboard. Redesign of the interface card may take less time and be less expensive than redesign of the mezzanine card. Moreover, the life cycle of mezzanine cards may be extended by use of such interface cards, and legacy mezzanine cards may be compatible with new/upgraded baseboards. Such interface cards may also facilitate field upgrades of baseboards.
The electronic apparatus 280 (which may be a computer, a server or a data communication device such as a switch, media gateway or edge router) includes a chassis 282 on which a backplane 284 is mounted. One or more circuit board assemblies 163 and/or 200 are coupled to the backplane 284.
Thus, in some embodiments, an apparatus includes a circuit board and a connector assembly which extends outwardly from the circuit board and is capable of simultaneously being connected to a plurality of mezzanine cards.
In some other embodiments, an apparatus includes a mezzanine card, an interface card, a structure mounting the interface card on the mezzanine card, first and second signal connectors connecting the interface card to the mezzanine card, a first signal path connected to the first signal connector and passing along the mezzanine card without being coupled to any device on the mezzanine card, and a second signal path connected to the second signal connector and coupled to at least one device on the mezzanine card.
As used herein and in the appended claims:
an item is said to be “mounted in parallel fashion” when mounted so as to be parallel to the item it is mounted on;
“signal connector” refers to a structure that connects one circuit element to another so that a signal may pass between the two elements;
“circuit element” refers to an electrical or electronic device, conductor or circuit board or card;
“separate connector” refers to a connector that is not part of a connector assembly;
“mezzanine card” refers to an add-on printed circuit board which is mounted parallel to a host or base circuit board;
“connector assembly” refers to a structure that extends upwardly from a circuit board and supports two or more connectors.
The several embodiments described herein are solely for the purpose of illustration. The various features described herein need not all be used together, and any one or more of those features may be incorporated in a single embodiment. Therefore, persons skilled in the art will recognize from this description that other embodiments may be practiced with various modifications and alterations.
Claims
1-14. Cancel.
15. An apparatus comprising:
- a chassis;
- a backplane mounted on the chassis;
- a circuit board coupled to the backplane; and
- a connector assembly which extends outwardly from the circuit board and is capable of simultaneously being connected to a plurality of mezzanine cards.
16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the connector assembly includes:
- a main body that extends outwardly from the circuit board in a first direction that is orthogonal to a plane defined by the circuit board and extends in a second direction that is parallel to the plane defined by the circuit board; and
- a plurality of connectors mounted on the main body, each of the connectors capable of being connected to a respective mezzanine card, the plurality of connectors including a first connector that extends outwardly from the main body in a third direction that is orthogonal to the first and second directions.
17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the plurality of connectors further includes a second connector that extends outwardly from the main body in a fourth direction that is opposite to the third direction.
18. The apparatus of claim 16, further comprising:
- a plurality of mezzanine cards each connected to a respective one of the connectors of the connector assembly.
19. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the connector assembly is located substantially centrally on a surface of the circuit board and extends parallel to at least one edge of the circuit board.
20. The apparatus of claim 15, further comprising:
- at least one integrated circuit mounted on the circuit board.
21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the at least one integrated circuit includes at least one processor.
22. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the connector assembly includes
- a main body that extends outwardly from the circuit board in a first direction that is orthogonal to a plane defined by the circuit board and extends in a second direction that is parallel to the plane defined by the circuit board; and
- a pair of connectors mounted on the main body, each of the connectors capable of being connected to a respective mezzanine card, a first one of the pair of connectors extending outwardly from the main body in a third direction that is orthogonal to the first and second directions, and the other one of the pair of connectors extending outwardly from the main body in the third direction between the circuit board and the first one of the pair of connectors.
23. An apparatus comprising:
- a mezzanine card;
- an interface card;
- a structure mounting the interface card on the mezzanine card;
- first and second signal connectors connecting the interface card to the mezzanine card;
- a first signal path connected to the first signal connector and passing along the mezzanine card without being coupled to any device on the mezzanine card; and
- a second signal path connected to the second signal connector and coupled to at least one device on the mezzanine card.
24. The apparatus of claim 23, further comprising:
- a circuit board on which the mezzanine card is mounted in parallel fashion, the first signal path being coupled to the circuit board.
25. The apparatus of claim 23, further comprising a processor mounted on the interface card.
26. The apparatus of claim 23, further comprising a field programmable gate array (FPGA) mounted on the interface card.
27. The apparatus of claim 23, wherein the interface card is mounted in parallel fashion on the mezzanine card.
28. An apparatus comprising:
- a chassis;
- a backplane mounted on the chassis;
- a circuit board coupled to the backplane;
- a mezzanine card mounted on the circuit board;
- an interface card;
- a structure mounting the interface card on the mezzanine card;
- first and second signal connectors connecting the interface card to the mezzanine card
- a first signal path coupling the first signal connector to the circuit board via the mezzanine card; and
- a second signal path coupling the second signal connector to at least one device on the mezzanine card.
29. The apparatus of claim 28, further comprising a processor mounted on the interface card.
30. The apparatus of claim 28, further comprising a field programmable gate array (FPGA) mounted on the interface card.
31. The apparatus of claim 28, wherein the interface card is mounted in parallel fashion on the mezzanine card.
32. An apparatus comprising:
- a circuit board;
- a mezzanine card mounted on the circuit board; and
- an interface card mounted on the mezzanine card and providing a signal interface between the circuit board and at least one device on the mezzanine card.
33. The apparatus of claim 32, further comprising a processor mounted on the interface card.
34. The apparatus of claim 32, further comprising a field programmable gate array (FPGA) mounted on the interface card.
35. The apparatus of claim 32, wherein the interface card is mounted in parallel fashion on the mezzanine card.
Type: Application
Filed: Sep 2, 2004
Publication Date: Mar 3, 2005
Inventors: Jacek Budny (Gdynia), Gerard Wisniewski (Gdansk)
Application Number: 10/932,590