SAN DIEGO, CA – March 4, 2011 — Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, a business group of Curtiss-Wright Controls and a leading designer and manufacturer of rugged deployed commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) VME, VPX, OpenVPX™, VXS and CompactPCI products for the aerospace and defense market, has introduced the newest member of its SwitchBox ready-to-deploy military network system family – the SwitchBox 684, an innovative, lightweight rugged modular system that delivers 24 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports and a choice of 4 ports of 10 GigE fiber or 2 ports of 10GibE copper interfaces. The SwitchBox 684, based on CWCEC’s high performance VPX6-684 FireBlade 6U OpenVPX™ card, is ideal for building Intra-Platform Networks (IPNs) for air, land, and sea vehicles. It’s housed in a rugged low-profile enclosure that weighs only 10 lbs. and measures 2” x 11” x 11.5”. Switchbox 684 provides system designers with unmatched flexibility for distributing fully integrated systems in vehicles. CWCEC’s SwitchBox products are autonomous field replaceable units that are easily configured and simple to connect to existing subsystems. They can significantly reduce development costs and Time-to-Integration (TTI), freeing system integrators to focus on the optimal partitioning and segmentation of their application’s network.
“The SwitchBox 684 combines Curtiss-Wright’s industry leading VPX6-684 network switching OpenVPX module with our packaging expertise,” said Lynn Bamford, vice president and general manager of Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing. “This rugged, compact network switch lets our customers quickly deploy high performance, reliable network switching in extreme environmental conditions.”
The SwitchBox 684 switch provides 24-ports of GigE (10/100/1000MB/s) + four (4) ports of 10GB/s (10Base-S) uplink fiber or two (2) ports of 10GB/s copper interfaces packaged in a rugged stand-alone chassis. All of the SwitchBox 684’s 10 GbE ports support full auto-negotiation and auto MDI/MDIX crossover to simplify integration. Furthermore, the switching core provides a full-speed, non-blocking architecture for full wire-speed performance on all ports.
This switch, designed for reliable operating in harsh environments, up to 70 degrees C, uses natural convection cooling and requires no active cooling components.
SwitchBox 684 Key Features:
- Based on VPX6-684 FireBlade card
- 28-port switch
- 24 ports x1GbE
- 4 ports x10GbE fiber or 2 ports x 10GbE copper
- Data plane designed with Broadcom® StrataXGS® III switch chip
- Control and management functionality designed using a Freescale Power Architecture™ MPC8245 integrated system controller with 256MB SDRAM, 4MB boot flash, 128MB Flash File System Disk
- Fully integrated Layer 2 switching, Layer 3 routing, Quality of Service (QoS), IP multicast, security and network management
- 28VDC power supply
- Ruggedization:
- Natural Convection, extended temp
About the VPX6-684 FireBlade Ethernet Switch Card
CWCEC’s VPX6-684 FireBlade card provides systems integrators with a fast, secure and unified approach to interconnect subsystems, chassis, cards, and compute nodes within any given platform using 1 Gigabit Ethernet links. Providing up to 24 wirespeed 10/100/1000 Mbps interfaces and up to 4 10Gbps interfaces in a single 6U VPX slot, the VPX6-684 is ideal for architecting system-wide Intra-Platform Networks (IPNs). It comes with a powerful set of management interfaces and complete layer 2/3 software with dual IPv4/v6 support for building secure, high performance networks.
The SwitchBox 684 is newest member of CWCEC’s broad family of rugged Gigabit Ethernet switching/routing products. These ready to deploy network switches enable system integrators to reduce development costs and Time-To-Integration (TTI) by simply connecting the CWCEC switch with their subsystem, connecting the appropriate Ethernet ports, and focusing on the optimal partitioning and segmentation of their application’s network. They provide a completely integrated and unified management, control and data lane solution for wire-speed performance of switched Gigabit Ethernet traffic that enable system integrators to develop and deploy the latest switched-fabric based architectures.
For pricing information, please contact the factory. Availability is Q2 2011.
About Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing
Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing is the industry’s most comprehensive and experienced single source for embedded solutions, ranging from Processing, Subsystems, Data Communication, DSP, and Video & Graphics to the most advanced board level components and fully integrated custom systems. The Embedded Computing group serves the defense, aerospace, commercial and industrial markets and is part of Curtiss-Wright Controls Inc. For more information about Curtiss-Wright visit www.cwcembedded.com.
About Curtiss-Wright Controls, Inc.
Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Curtiss-Wright Controls is the motion control segment of Curtiss-Wright Corporation (NYSE: CW). With manufacturing facilities around the world, Curtiss-Wright Controls is a leading technology-based organization providing niche motion control products, subsystems and services internationally for the aerospace and defense markets. For more information, visit www.cwcontrols.com.
