VITA™ members have worked together to define and develop key computer bus, board, and system specifications such as VMEbus, PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC), VXS, VPX, FMC™ and many more. Since VITA™'s inception in 1984, nearly 100 working groups have been formed to develop specifications and standards important to designers of critical embedded systems around the world. Systems from medical imaging to space launch control, semiconductor processing to defense systems, have depended on products based on VITA™ Technologies.

VITA™ broke new ground in the area of disclosure and licensing of patents in standards, becoming the first standards developer in the world to receive guidance for 'ex ante' procedures from any legal authority. VITA™ is frequently cited by the U.S. Department of Justice as a role model for 'ex ante' procedures. Visit the Patents Disclosure page to learn more.

The world depends on VITA™ Technologies for safety, control, defense, communications, entertainment, transportation, and many other applications.

Samtec supports many extensions of the VITA™ standard with a variety of different products.

VITA™ 42 XMC™ is a widely deployed mezzanine Standard used in high-reliability computers implementing switched-fabric architectures. XMC™ combines PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC) with serial fabric technology on proven mezzanine form-factors.

The FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC)  was developed and ratified by a consortium of FPGA vendors and end-user members of the VITA™ 57 working group. FMC™ is an ANSI standard which defines a compact electro-mechanical expansion interface for a daughter card to an FPGA baseboard or other device with reconfigurable I/O capability.

The FMC™ Standard is essential for FPGA vendors making baseboards and comprehensive development kits to enable Designers to accelerate their application development. FMC™ products are continually introduced by Supplier companies for targeted market specific applications in industries such as Datacom, Broadcast, Aerospace/Defense, Industrial and Instrumentation. Click here for more information about I/O Design Flexibility with FMC.

Building on FMC™, FMC+™ employs a larger connector from the SEARAY™ family of high-speed, high-density arrays. This High Serial Pin Connector (HSPC) has 560 pins arranged in a 14x40 array. While new FMC+™ cards can only plug into new FMC+™ carriers due to their larger connectors, original FMC™ cards will also fit thanks to a customized polarization system providing true backward compatibility.

The FMC+™ Standard increases the number of multi-gigabit interfaces from 10 to 24. In addition, there is an optional extension connector (the High Serial Pin Connector extension, or HSPCe) to boost pin-count by 80 positions, arranged in a 4x20 array. This brings the maximum multi-gigabit interfaces to 32 full duplex channels. Throughput per multi-gigabit interface has increased to 28 Gbps in each direction.

As an extension of VITA™ 65 OpenVPX, VITA™ 66 enables a compatible VPX interface containing blind mate optical connectors with fixed contacts on the Plug-In Module and floating displacement on the backplane.

VITA™ 66 allows for improved and diversified I/O density via fiber transceivers and cables. While transceivers can be dense and perform at a high speed, they often consume valuable board real-estate, require additional hardware, and are difficult to integrate due to an ultra-fine pitch.

Samtec compliments the VITA™ 66 standard by offering our cabled FireFly™ Micro Flyover System™. FireFly™ supports SWaP-C and offers more density and performance (28+ Gbps) than optical transceivers while consuming less board space.

VITA™ 74 NanoX Small Form Factor defines both mechanical and electrical specifications to implement a small form factor system. The specification addresses the need for a standardized approach to small-scale systems to be used in a range of applications. The specification encourages multiple vendors to supply components to be used in small systems at various levels, including modules, backplanes, enclosures and completed solutions. The goal is to allow vendor implementation flexibility at the same time as ensuring component interoperability.

VITA™ 88 defines an open standard that provides an alternative option to VITA™ 42.0 connector systems. This connector provides support for higher band rate high-speed serial interfaces. Maximizing footprint compatibility, VITA™ 88.0 XMC+™ supports the widely accepted XMC™ platform, while updating both electrical and mechanical characteristics in existing and future designs.

VITA™ 90, a next step for VITA™ 74, is an enhanced standard delivering size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) benefits for small form factor (SFF) applications. While initial designs have been aimed at military and aerospace applications, the modular approach of VITA™ 90 to a system Standard lends itself to many areas of the embedded marketspace.