Hello, I am new to the PMC (PCI Mezzanine Card)world, and have spent the last few days coming up to speed on PCI, the different form factors, and how everything plays together in hopes of utilizing in an embedded system I am working on.
I am interested in utilizing a PrPMC board (like one of the many PowerPC-based boards out there) as the main controller in a small embedded system. In addition to this, I would like to be able to add in a few peripheral PMC boards (such as those sold at
...except for the fact that I don't want to use a standard carrier board like those that plug into a VMEbus. I would like to develop a carrier board that would essentially let me stack PMC boards on top of each other (sandwich them) instead of running them side-by-side which seems to be the way everyone does it. This would then provide a stand-alone configurable embedded system (no rack, just the boards and the required power supply on the middle board). At minimum, I would like my carrier board to accept one PrPMC module, and one other PMC module. If more than two board were needed, then I would consider going side by side (unless there is a way to stack 3+ boards up...maybe some fancy, hinged connector that ran the PCI bus through ribbon cabling???).
I can certainly envision this setup, so here is my question: am I crazy? Is there something I am inherently missing that disallows this scenario from working? My background is embedded systems, and this is my first crack at diving into this topology. It seems like if you had such a carrier board it would be a very nice way to integrate and build a high capability, stand-alone embedded system...unless I am missing something here...
If you made it this far, I appreciate it. I'd welcome any feedback and would be happy to provide any additional details if needed.
Regards, John O