As AdvancedTCA or ATCA and other standards increasingly make their mark in the Open Standards Chassis (OSC) market driven by the growing need for connectivity, components manufacturers are finding themselves working with their customers, fellow suppliers and other industry players, in a more open, communicative way. As a leader in the provision of fastening solutions, Southco is fully embracing the opportunities that connectivity offers.
ATCA, Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture, provides the telecommunications and computing industries with the opportunity to adopt standard architecture for a broad spectrum of products. The key driver for the introduction of this product standardisation has been the increasingly competitive nature of the telecoms industry. Rapid evolution of technology and the growing expectations of the market to see prices falling as new technologies become established have created a pressure on operators to cut costs. That in turn pressurises equipment manufacturers to compete for business at lower prices and on the whole the industry is looking for products that are better, more cost-effective, and brought to market faster.
Standardisation of equipment such as the chassis is a key opportunity for equipment manufacturers to be more profitable while still delivering a lower priced product to the service providers. The focus for the AdvancedTCA is currently the communications market, but pundits predict penetration into other markets such as medical, industrial and ultimately the commercial arena.
Amedeo Aversa of Southco explains the key drivers for the adoption of standard architecture: “Principally, the need for connectivity is driven by the widespread use of the internet, home computing and system networks in general. This has created market forces where OCS manufacturers and suppliers have to think in terms of moving away from proprietary products towards commercial off-the-shelf components. The rapid pace of innovation combined with the need of the providers to cut operating costs is encouraging the shift to open standards.”
The growing importance of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components in system design has had a significant impact on relationships. Aversa: “Buyer, supplier and competitor relationships are becoming more open with the emphasis on collaboration, with each bringing their core competences to the table. It is collaboration that will make standardisation work and ensure that COTS components are developed that meet the objective of delivering lower costs.”
Southco sees standardisation as offering the ideal opportunity for the company to demonstrate its capabilities. Significantly, one of Southco’s principal design engineers, Rick Schlack, has played an active role in the standardisation and ECN committees created by PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturer’s Group (PICMG), a consortium of over 450 companies who collaboratively develop open specifications for high performance telecommunications and industrial computing applications.
Mr Colleoni, Product Manager of leading technology service provider Compel, one of the OEMs using Southco ejectors, comments: “Southco solutions helped the Compel engineering team solve problems of compliance to the standard and ergonomics.”
Aversa says: “The ethos of our business makes it easy for us to embrace the concept of standardisation. Our key words are ‘connect, create and innovate’: in this context they relate directly to the need to connect with our partners in the market, our global engineering capabilities which enable us to bring forward innovative solutions and our strong worldwide manufacturing structure that enables us to make innovation into reality. For us, it is a real opportunity to demonstrate our global positioning and capability, adherence to the principle of connectivity and market leadership in what we do. We don’t see the openness required in the supply chain relationships as anything of a threat – on the contrary. Increasingly we see ourselves as a key team player holding the unique position of being exclusively a hardware access specialist. In addition to the specific requirements of hardware to meet ATCA, AMC and MicroTCA applications, we provide a wide range of other access hardware products that are common to many electronics enclosure and rack-mount applications such as latches, hinges, pulls, quick access fasteners, captive fasteners, heat sink screws, rack-mount inserts, circuit board standoffs and inject/eject mechanisms.
A typical situation for us is to work from the early stages of a project with the customer’s engineering team. They trust our capabilities far beyond the boundaries set by the ATCA specs. For example we have been challenged with addressing thermal management issues in a customer ATCA board design project and Southco has promptly provided hardware engineered solutions such as heatsink screws and nuts that not only address these needs, but in doing so create the perfect fit. In essence, with the experience we have in the electronics and telecommunications sectors, we are global specialists in a specialist area.”
Although the emphasis is on standardisation, Southco also appreciates its customers’ needs for differentiation. Whilst the basic design platform may require standardisation, there are steps beyond that where Southco talks of an engineering responsiveness which enables it to modify products within the standard. Aversa: “The core products will be compliant to the standard, but remember, the standard does not define areas such as aesthetics or ergonomics. Yes, our customers will be looking for standardisation within whichever platform applies, but they will still be looking for ways to make their products stand out from the crowd. As a specialist in the development of touchpoints – the human/machine interface – we can address both needs.”
There are three ‘families’ of standards under which Southco components: AdvancedTCA, AdvancedMC and MicroTCA. Already recognised as a market leader for its ejector capabilities, these have now been packaged with captive screws, alignment/grounding pins, and alignment and keying modules to create an AdvancedTCA compliant kit. Within these product areas, there is the capacity to address the needs for both aesthetics and ergonomics – colour matching ejector handles or modification of materials specification for instance. Working to the AdvancedMC and MicroTCA standards, the company offers a range of solutions from AMC Module handles for compact, mid and full size AMC modules, AMC carrier handles and MicroTCA handles, to light pipe brackets.
Amedeo Aversa: “Essentially, working within and beyond defined standards is something that has a complete synergy with the way in which Southco operates. We are able to offer a level of engineering responsiveness that enables us to customise within standardisation. We have already embraced the industry’s challenges to deliver solutions at the speed required by the development of the specifications. Our global positioning matches the global nature of the market where a product might be designed in Europe, manufactured in Asia and delivered in South America – wherever in the world our customers are, we can support them with a local presence.”
While AdvancedTCA and COTS may be the words on everyone’s lips, it will take time for the new standards to become established – current predictions estimate two to three years, but Southco sees its role evolving as standardisation starts to bite. Aversa: “The telecommunications industry is at the beginning of a re-engineering phase where product design will start to embrace the move from proprietary to standardised components. With established relationships and trusted brands, we have the capability of partnering them within that transition.”