EMBEDDED TECH TRENDS, NEW ORLEANS, La. – January 23, 2017 — Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions division, the world’s leading supplier of open standard VPX (VITA 46) systems for aerospace and defense applications today announced that it has successfully developed the ability to meet the increased bandwidth requirements of Gen 4 PCI Express (PCIe) with standard MultiGig RT2 VPX connectors. This milestone, which uses a new optimized design approach, extends the ability of the VPX and OpenVPX (VITA 65) standards to support the full bandwidth and signal integrity required when transferring 16 Gbaud PCIe 4.0 data communications signals over the backplane. Curtiss-Wright has successfully proven the performance and signal integrity for Gen 4 PCIe over VPX using this new design approach. What’s more, the new design approach also provides a technology path to support “Gen 5” speeds in the future.

Curtiss-Wright plans to support Gen 4 PCIe using standard VPX connectors on its Fabric64™ family of modules and systems.

“The ability to support next generation Gen 4 PCIe data rates over VPX without having to abandon the current OpenVPX architecture, today’s de facto bus and board standard for aerospace and defense systems, will enable our customers to protect and preserve their investment in current VPX hardware,” said Lynn Bamford, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Defense Solutions division. “This development highlights Curtiss-Wright’s ongoing commitment to innovation and leadership in the VPX market.”

World’s Leading Supplier of VPX Systems

In December 2016, Defense Solutions announced that it was ranked as the leading supplier in terms of market share for VPX and VME open architecture system products. According to a recent market study by IHS Markit[1], a world leader in critical information, analytics, and solutions, Curtiss-Wright had the 2015 top-ranked positions for the VPX/VME system market, both in the Americas and Worldwide. Curtiss-Wright was ranked number one for the global VPX/VME system market and as number one supplier of VPX/VME system for the Americas.

About Curtiss-Wright Corporation

Curtiss-Wright Corporation is a global innovative company that delivers highly engineered, critical function products and services to the commercial, industrial, defense and energy markets. Building on the heritage of Glenn Curtiss and the Wright brothers, Curtiss-Wright has a long tradition of providing reliable solutions through trusted customer relationships. The company employs approximately 8,400 people worldwide. For more information, visit www.curtisswright.com.