Thursday, April 12, 2007

Vertical and Horizontal Module Arrangements

Modules are available with edge connectors that can be mounted in bulk on a mother board as shown in the image below. The dimensions match the standard motherboard found in 1U Enterprise server designs, about 12x13 inches. The diagram shows 120 modules, but its quite likely to be possible to pack them in more densely than this.

The alternative is to mount modules flat on the boards as shown in the second diagram. This has the same 12x13 inch area, but is a very thin board, and at least four of them could be stacked in a 1U package, which also comes out to 120 modules.





In practice these board sizes and layouts will need to be adjusted to take into account the mechanical problems of flexing, mounting, cable routing etc. In each case the power and cooling management should be relatively simple, since there is a total peak power of around 100 watts for the entire 1U package, and no localized hot spots.

Some of the module designs have built-in temperature sensors and they all have power voltage sensors, so they can detect and report on environmental conditions across the motherboard.

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