Learn About the SOSA Standard — Elma’s Tutorial Series

Welcome to part one in our series of video tutorials on the SOSA Technical Reference Standard. In this first episode, you will get an introductory overview of the standard and learn about the all-important slot profiles, the key to how plug-in cards fit into a backplane to form a system We also examine how integrators can best make use of the key aspects of the **SOSA standard.**

**Watch the SOSA Tutorial Part I Elma’s Portfolio of Products Aligned to SOSA‍ High Speed Backplanes**

The backplane is at the heart of it all. High-performance signal integrity design is critical to reliable and successful systems aligned to SOSA, Building on decades of backplane manufacturing experience, Elma engineers are innovation leaders in high-speed signal processing design and developed the industry’s first SOSA backplanes.

A sample of Elma’s SOSA aligned backplanes

• VITA 66.4 optical, 67.1 RF and 67.3 RF/optical modules
• Up to 100 Gbase-KR4
• Slot counts from 2–12
• Radial clock slot for IEEE 1588 precision timing protocol and network synchronization

The highest level of signal integrity

At speeds up to 100 Gbase-KR4, every feature of backplane design can influence signal integrity (SI) — every trace, layer separation, turn bend, via, via transition, etc. Elma’s signal integrity analysis and simulations consider every element in the channel to ensure optimal performance.

We focus on each feature individually to model the complete channel and optimize the return loss for each. Once modeled, they are concatenated together along with the trace and connector models to create the complete channel. Today’s critical high-speed systems require nothing less than reliable, repeatable solutions — every time.

Shown: 8-Slot CompacFrame Development Platform

Chassis Platforms — for Test & Development and Deployment

Elma addresses the chassis platform from the early stages of test and development with follow-through to the end deployment requirements. Choose from our range of CompacFrame test platforms that accommodate air, conduction, an air flow-through configuration. IPMI chassis management and power are included.

Deployment is always the end goal, so we work with our customers to determine the specific end requirements for the system — will it need to be rugged, withstand harsh environmental factors, shock or vibration challenges? Elma has experience successfully addressing all of those challenges.

‍‍Plug-In Cards

Elma and its partners collectively offer an ecosystem of boards and software solutions to implement a deployable field platform aligned to SOSA. Embedded boards, or Plug-in Cards (PICs) can effectively be selected and configured according to the capability requirements.

Elma works with key partners to provide solutions that include PICs. Below are a sampling of what we offer.

Payload — Compute- or I/O-Intensive which can include Intel, Arm or GPGPU based cards.

Switches — we carry several Ethernet switches with up to 100 GbE speeds

Ask us about Radial Clock and External I/O options.