As requirements change, individual cards or subsystems or both can be changed without affecting other constituents in the system. The proposed change dramatically improves the performance, scalability and reliability of CompactPCI while preserving its mechanical, power and hot-swap attributes. It also leaves the H.110 telephony bus intact for systems that support that standard. Components that support CompactPSB can be mixed with units that still rely on the CompactPCI bus for communication within the same chassis. Developers will be able to organically grow system capabilities onto the CompactPSB framework over time, since there is no need to change subsystems built around legacy CompactPCI elements.
Systems can evolve over time in response to changing needs, without scrapping prior design work.
Redundant hot-swappable fabric slots can support up to 19 link slots. System expansion is accommodated by running CAT5 Ethernet cables to external connections to extend the packet-switched bus. Integrators can choose the best solution for any given application. Ethernet connects all units in the chassis so system-integration tasks are greatly simplified. As features are added to the Ethernet standard, systems based on CompactPSB can capitalize on the improvements.