Course Title: 
VME Bus Architecture and Analysis
Date: Determined by Customer
Time: 6 hours
Location: Customer Facility
Goals:
To obtain an in depth understanding of the VME Bus Specification and the operation of the VME850 Bus Analyzer.
Course Description:
This course presents a comprehensive examination of all aspects of the VME Bus specification and the capabilities and use of a VME analyzer. The following topics are covered:
1. VME Bus Overview – The specifications and elements that make up the VME bus along with a brief historical look of the development and enhancements to the bus over time.
2. Data Transfer Bus – The main VME bus that transfers data between devices. All aspects of the data transfer bus are covered including signals, protocols and timing.
3. Arbitration Bus – In systems where devices share a common bus, an arbitration scheme is required to control access. An arbiter grants access in response to requests to use the bus. Various priority schemes and operation are discussed.
4. Interrupt Bus – The bus that provides a mechanism to signal and service interrupts. The signals, operation and timing of interrupts and interrupt service routines are discussed.
5. Utility Bus – System functions such as clocks, reset and failure signals are discussed.
6. Electrical Specifications – The power supply and signal specifications for VME boards and backplanes are presented including signal levels, drivers and terminations.
7. Mechanical Specifications – Outlines and dimensions for various board and backplane types are presented.
8. Bus Enhancements – The VME bus has been enhanced to improve speed and performance with the addition of many new features to the original specification. VME64x, 2eVME and 2eSST are some of these new protocols. The VME instrumentation bus, VXI., is also presented.
9. New Specifications – Some of the newest serial bus architectures have been incorporated into VME such as PCI Express. The structure and protocols are radically different then the parallel architecture of the VME bus but share a common form factor.
10. VME Bus Analyzer – The features and operation of the VME850 bus analyzer to understand, diagnose and analyze system problems and performance of a VME bus is presented. Each analyzer feature is covered including state, waveform and performance analysis, exerciser and stimulus, anomaly detection and slave memory. The analyzer is controlled by either a windowed software interface or API software.
