PICMG, or PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group, is a

consortium A consortium (plural: consortia) is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources ...

of over 140 companies. Founded in 1994, the group was originally formed to adapt PCI technology for use in high-performance

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that ...

s, military, and industrial computing applications, but its work has grown to include newer technologies. PICMG is distinct from the similarly named and adjacently-focused PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG). PICMG currently focuses on developing and implementing specifications and guidelines for

open standard An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a prerequisite to use open license, non-discrimination and extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in the development. There is no single definitio ...

s-based computer architectures from a wide variety of interconnects.

Background

PICMG is a standards development organization in the embedded computing industry. Members work collaboratively to develop new specifications and enhancements to existing ones. The members benefit from participating in standards development, gain early access to leading-edge technology, and forging relationships with thought leaders and suppliers in the industry. The original PICMG mission was to provide extensions to the PCI standard developed by PCI-SIG for a range of applications. The organization's collaborations eventually expanded to include a variety of interconnect technologies for industrial computing and telecommunications. PICMG's specifications are used in a wide variety of industries including industrial automation, military, aerospace, telecommunications, medical, gaming, transportation, physics/research, test & measurement, energy, drone/robotics, and general embedded computing. In 2011, PICMG completed its transfer of assets from the Communications Platforms Trade Association (CP-TA). Since 2006, CP-TA had been a collaboration of communications vendors, developing

interoperability Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader defi ...

testing requirements, methodologies, and procedures based on open specifications from PICMG,

The Linux Foundation ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

, and the

Service Availability Forum The Service Availability Forum (SAF or SA Forum) is a consortium that develops, publishes, educates on and promotes open specifications for carrier-grade and mission-critical systems. Formed in 2001, it promotes development and deployment of com ...

. PICMG has continued the educational and marketing outreach formerly conducted by members of the CP-TA marketing work group. the benefits of open specifications and standards include multiple sources, scalability and upgrades, a large ecosystem of interoperable products, proven and tested designs, etc. But they should not be confused with

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...

. Open source groups tend to focus on specific product designs where even the Gerber files, schematics, and mechanical drawings are included. This lends itself to monochrome, commodity products with little differentiation. Open specification/open standard groups on the other hand define focus on common interfaces for interoperable products rather than finished products. Multiple vendors contribute to the base definitions and interfaces, but the implementation varies greatly. The result is a variety of interoperable products with a wide range of applications.

Specification naming convention

For many years, PICMG used a numerical naming convention with specification being referred to as “PICMG X.YY”. Where X was used denoted differing form factors ("1" for slot card based single board computers, "2" for

CompactPCI CompactPCI is a computer bus interconnect for industrial computers, combining a Eurocard-type connector and PCI signaling and protocols. Boards are standardized to 3 U or 6U sizes, and are typically interconnected via a passive backplane. The ...

and "3" for

AdvancedTCA Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA or AdvancedTCA) is the largest specification effort in the history of the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG), with more than 100 companies participating. Known as AdvancedTCA ...

) while YY was used to indicate incremental changes, option definitions or slight variation of a specification form its core specification. In 2003, PICMG added an acronym-based naming convention for its specifications to yield better results from internet search engines. Specifications are now often named ABCD.X where ABCD is an acronym of the specification. In this naming convention, base or main specification are denote with X=0 (i.e. ABCD.0) and PICMG subsidiary specifications are denoted X>0. PICMG subsidiary specifications represent how various options or variations of a based specification should be handled.

Adopted specifications

: PICMG 1.0 - PCI/ISA : PICMG 1.1 - PCI/ISA Bridging : PICMG 1.2 - PCI only : PICMG 1.3 - SHB Express : PICMG 2.0 - CompactPCI : PICMG 2.1 - CompactPCI Hotswap : PICMG 2.2 - CompactPCI VME64x : PICMG 2.3 - CompactPCI PMC I/O : PICMG 2.4 - CompactPCI IP I/O : PICMG 2.5 - CompactPCI Telephony :PICMG 2.7 - Dual CompactPCI : PICMG 2.9 - CompactPCI Management : PICMG 2.10 - CompactPCI Keying : PICMG 2.11 - CompactPCI Power Interface : PICMG 2.12 - CompactPCI Software Interoperability : PICMG 2.14 - CompactPCI Multicomputing : PICMG 2.15 - CompactPCI PTMC :PICMG 2.16 - CompactPCI Packet Switching Backplane (PSB) :PICMG 2.17 - CompactPCI Starfabric :PICMG 2.18 - CompactPCI RapidIO :PICMG 2.20 - CompactPCI Serial Mesh : PICMG 2.30 - CompactPCI PlusIO : CPCI-S.0 - CompactPCI Serial :CPCI-S.1 - CompactPCI Serial for Space : PICMG 3.0 - AdvancedTCA Base :PICMG 3.1 - AdvancedTCA Ethernet :PICMG 3.2 - AdvancedTCA Infiniband :PICMG 3.3 - AdvancedTCA StarFabric :PICMG 3.4 - AdvancedTCA

PCI Express PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common ...

:PICMG 3.5 - AdvancedTCA RapidIO :PICMG 3.7 - AdvancedTCA Extensions : AMC.0 - AdvancedMC Mezzanine Module :AMC.1 - AdvancedMC PCI Express and AS :AMC.2 - AdvancedMC Ethernet :AMC.3 - AdvancedMC Storage :AMC.4 - AdvancedMC Serial RapidIO :IRTM.0 - Intelligent Rear Transition Module :SFP.0 - System Fabric Plane :SFP.1 - iTDM :EXP.0 - CompactPCI Express : COM.0 - Computer on Module :CDG - COM Design Guide :MTCA.0 - MicroTCA :MTCA.1 - Air-cooled rugged MicroTCA :MTCA.3 - Hardened conduction-cooled MicroTCA :MTCA.4 - MicroTCA Enhancements for Rear I/O & Precision Timing

Design Guides

:Physics Design Guide for Clocks, Gates & Triggers in Instrumentation

Current standing committees

These groups represent standing committees which may result in new subsidiary specification, revisions to existing specification, reference materials for future PICMG committees or new PICMG specifications. :MicroTCA NG :COM-HPC :COM-HPC Mini :ModBlox7 :COM Express Rev 3.1 :Industrial IoT

ASI specifications

The following specifications were developed by the ASI SIG which has now disbanded and has transferred these documents to PICMG. :ASI Core - Advanced Switching Core Architecture Specification :ASI PI-8 - ASI Protocol Interface #8 :ASI SDT - ASI Socket Data Interface :ASI SQP - ASI Simple Queuing Protocol :ASI SLS - ASI Simple Load/Store (SLS) Specification :ASI Portal - ASI Portal Specification

Joint projects

The PICMG has active liaisons with several industry bodies including DMTF.

References

External links

* {{authority control Standards organizations in the United States Technology consortia Organizations established in 1994 Open standards Peripheral Component Interconnect