TECHNOLOGY IN EUROPETECHNOLOGY IN EUROPEStrong businessBy Hermann Strass<strong>CompactPCI</strong> &<strong>AdvancedTCA</strong>European business trendsAlcatel, (France), one of the top five carriersoperating globally, has announcedtheir endorsement of <strong>AdvancedTCA</strong>at the 3GSM World Congress held inFebruary, 2005 in Cannes, France, as itspreferred architecture for the evolution ofits mobile <strong>and</strong> fixed network infrastructureplatforms. This comes after a yearof working to define <strong>and</strong> develop modularcommunications platforms builtupon <strong>AdvancedTCA</strong>, Carrier GradeLinux, <strong>and</strong> other st<strong>and</strong>ards. Alcatelclaims this to constitute one of the world’sfirst applications of <strong>AdvancedTCA</strong>network equipment. There are otherclaims such as this (see the July/August2004 <strong>CompactPCI</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>AdvancedTCA</strong><strong>Systems</strong>, Technology Update column).Established on May 31, 1898, Alcatel,with sales of 12.5 billion EURO (approximately$16.25 billion) in 2003 (42 percentin Western Europe) operates in morethan 130 countries.The Alcatel Evolution 9130 BaseStation Controller (BSC), based on<strong>AdvancedTCA</strong> architecture, is one ofthe elements of a radio network. It offersup to 2,000 channels in one rack. TheseBSCs are the physical link between theswitching center <strong>and</strong> base stations. Theyprovide control of h<strong>and</strong>overs, frequencyuse, <strong>and</strong> signal power control for everymobile user.Kontron, (Germany), sees itself as thenumber three supplier of open-st<strong>and</strong>ardembedded systems products worldwidebehind Motorola <strong>and</strong> Advantech.About 50 percent of their business is inEurope <strong>and</strong> 40 percent in the US. TheirCompound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR)last year in EURO currency was about 20percent (30 percent in US dollars). Withalmost 70 percent in capital resources,their business has a solid foundation. It isinteresting that a major part of their businessis in computing <strong>and</strong> control equipmentfor slot machines in Las Vegasgaming establishments. Kontron sellsmodules, systems, <strong>and</strong> applications toOEMs rather than to end users.As with many European companies,Kontron sells into the transportationmarkets. Railways (rolling stock <strong>and</strong>control equipment) in Portugal, Spain,<strong>and</strong> Corsica are equipped with a varietyof Kontron supplied control equipment.OEM customers in transportation includeBombardier <strong>and</strong> Siemens. A typical trainmanagement system may use devicesfrom several product families such as:■ An information panel(12-inch TFT controlled by anE2Brain)■ Communications networks– Wire Train Bus (WTB)– Industrial Ethernet– CAN– PROFIbus■ <strong>CompactPCI</strong> systems■ Remote I/OsAdvanced Mezzanine CardsDespite the recent collapse of the telecommarket, Kontron envisions a 10 percentCAGR in this market fairly soon. Threetypes of <strong>AdvancedTCA</strong> boards: CPU,Hub, <strong>and</strong> Advanced Mezzanine Card(AMC) are currently available to the public<strong>and</strong> some others to undisclosed OEMs.Kontron sees a great future in AMCs asmezzanines on <strong>AdvancedTCA</strong> boards <strong>and</strong>perhaps an even better future in the formof MicroTCA. One example is AMCs thatplug into a backplane directly rather thanas mezzanines on an <strong>AdvancedTCA</strong> carrierboard. Figure 1 shows the KontronAT8001 CPU board with two AMC mezzaninesinstalled. The Xeon Nocona basedCPU features PCI Express, Fibre Channel,<strong>and</strong> Carrier Grade Linux. It is too early tospeculate on this new application sinceFigure 1AMCs are not yet widely available. Theirspecification was ratified January 3,2005 by the PCI Industrial ComputerManufacturers Group (PICMG). AMCsuse card-edge connectors suitable fortelecom office application versus gastightpin-<strong>and</strong>-socket connectors, whichare required in many industrial applicationsas a protection against aggressivegases, moisture, <strong>and</strong> other factors.European market analysisEvery year in time for the CeBIT Fair,the European Information TechnologyObservatory (EITO) issues their statistics<strong>and</strong> market analysis report derived fromEuropean <strong>and</strong> US sources. The EITO is aEuropean organization supported by private<strong>and</strong> semi-government organizationsthroughout Europe. Their statistics indicatean Information & CommunicationTechnology (ICT) market of about 1,959million EURO (approximately $2,547 million),with Europe ahead (32.2 percent) ofthe US (29.4 percent) <strong>and</strong> Japan (14.8 percent).The European market breakdownof 594 million EURO (approximately 722million) shows datacom <strong>and</strong> networkingequipment at 37 million EURO (6.3 percent).Only the computer section is largerat about double this size at 12.4 percent.Overall growth rate in the EU was +3 percentin 2004 (+2.9 percent in the US), <strong>and</strong>should be +3.8 percent in 2005 in the EU.Regulatory requirements such as WEEE(see the April 2005 Technology in Europecolumn) or Registration EvaluationAuthorization of Chemicals (REACH),<strong>and</strong> others account for some of the additionalgrowth rate.SBS Technologies (Germany) continuesto grow in Europe (see the October2004 issue of VMEbus <strong>Systems</strong> magazine,VMEbus Technology in Europecolumn). During the first nine months offiscal year 2005 (ending March 31, 2005)SBS reported a sales increase of 60 percent(10 percent of which was due to thecurrency exchange rate) for the EuropeanGroup <strong>and</strong> a five percent increase for theAmericas Group. SBS is exp<strong>and</strong>ing theirproduction <strong>and</strong> office space in Augsburg,14 / <strong>CompactPCI</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>AdvancedTCA</strong> <strong>Systems</strong> / June 2005
RSC# 15 @www.compactpci-systems.com/rsc<strong>CompactPCI</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>AdvancedTCA</strong> <strong>Systems</strong> / June 2005 / 15