It provides the electrical, mechanical, thermal and management specifications to create a switched fabric computer system, using Advanced Mezzanine Cards (AMC), connected directly to a backplane.
The existing "carrier grade" (see RAS) computing architectures were not fit to house the high performance processors of the time.
[2] In order to answer those demands, about 100 companies worked together in PICMG, resulting in the Advanced Telecommunications Architecture (AdvancedTCA, ATCA), published in 2002.
After the introduction of AdvancedTCA, a standard was developed, to cater towards smaller telecommunications systems at the edge of the network.
[1] This standard was geared towards a more compact, less expensive systems, without cutting back on reliability or data throughput.
MicroTCA systems migrated after its release into non-telecommunication sectors, like defence, avionics and science.
[3] This includes: A second revision of the base-specifications was ratified January 16, 2020, containing some corrections, as well as alterations, necessary to implement higher speed Ethernet fabrics, like 10GBASE-KR and 40GBASE-KR4.
Possible scenarios for MicroTCA.1-based systems include outside plant telecom, industrial and aerospace environments[5] This module adds specifications for more stringent requirements with regards to temperature, shock, vibration and other environmental conditions.
These specifications are geared towards use in outside plant telecom, machine and transport industry, as well as military airborne, shipboard and ground mobile equipment.
This module adds specifications for even more stringent requirements with regards to temperature, shock, vibration and other environmental conditions.
These specifications are geared towards use in outside plant telecom, machine and transport industry, as well as military airborne, shipboard and ground mobile equipment.