AdvancedTCA shelf features unprecedented cooling capability

This includes the ability to cool the chassis with a fan tray removed for 2 minutes and remaining within FCC acoustic requirements for Db levels, etc. The Pixus chassis is designed to provide at least 400W/slot while meeting all compliance criteria and recommended practices. 

The Pixus chassis leverages the original Kaparel design, referred to as 'the most successful ATCA chassis design in the industry' with over 15,000 installments. Over ten years ago, this 13U design used patented RiCool II blowers for 275W/slot of cooling. Today’s 15U unit provides more air evacuation using the next gen of reverse impellar hot-plug cartridges. The RiCool III blowers feature 185 CFM of airflow per fan with 71mm H20 of static pressure.   

Like the 13U ATCA chassis, the 15U enclosure features specially designed EMI filter trays above and below the card cage that help collimate airflow in the system. The AdvancedTCA chassis offer full redundancy of all FRUs (field replaceable units). Both 40GbE and 10GbE backplane options are available. To minimise the cost of the backplane, the signal section and power section are separate. This prevents the backplane from becoming overly thick and expensive with heavy power rails. The separation of the power plane further facilitates the migration to 100G backplane systems.

Ruggedisation options are available for the AdvancedTCA shelves. Pixus also offers backplane/chassis platforms in the OpenVPX, MicroTCA and custom architectures.