PCA200E Interface Card

The PCA 200E card is a 155MHz ATM card manufactured by Marconi (formerly FORE). The figure below shows a picture of an PCA 200E card.

(Click image to enlarge.)

The PCA 200E cards have a good level of signalling performance because they have an on-board 25MHz i960 Intel RISC processor performing cell processing using buffer rings in the same manner as an Ethernet controller.

Driver

Features

Following are some features of the PCA200E card:

155 MHz ATM, ST/SC SM/MM and RJ-45 UTP 5
AAL1, AAL2, AAL3 and AAL5 modes.
Integrated 25 MHz i960 RISC cell processor.
Enhance SAR Processor (ESP) ASIC
Special-purpose hardware for AAL5 and AAL3/4, HEC, and CRC calculations.
Dual-ported RAM and Buffer Ring technique similar to Ethernet Controller.
Serial communications emulation.
Supports ABR
ATM cell processing per ANSI T1S1.5/92-002R3, ITU I.361, ATM Form UNI v3.0, 3.1, 4.0

Advantages

Following are the advantages of the PCA200E card:

Inexpensive (about $200 a card).
Supports MTP3b.
Can support 3GPP UMTS Iu User and Control Plane over PVCs.

Disadvantages

Following are the disadvantages of the PCA200E card:

Does not support traditional SS7 links.
Requires external ATM switch or point-to-point ATM connection.

Disclaimer

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