Ruggedisation

MBS's engineers have many years of experience in the design of products utilised in harsh environment applications, where they are subjected to extreme temperatures, thermal cycling stress, and high shock and vibration conditions.

Products can be designed to provide cooling via one of two methods, air-cooled or conduction cooled. Air-cooled (also referred to as convection-cooled) products are for use in applications where cooling air is blown over the surface of the card. VME, CompactPCI (3U and 6U) and PMC designs as well as custom form factors are all available in air-cooled configurations.

Air-cooled cards can comply with the mechanical specifications of the ANSI/VITA-1, ANSI/VITA-30 or ANSI/VITA-20 published standards.

Additional stiffening bars, heat sinks and heat spreaders can be utilised to conduct heat away from "hot spots" such as processors and FPGA's.

Conduction-cooled cards can be utilised in applications where there is no direct cooling air, or where there are requirements for reliable operation when cooled air is removed for sustained periods. Advanced cooling techniques such as the of aluminium frames, use of top-side copper shunts, dedicated cooling layers in the PCB's provide low thermal resistive paths for the conduction of heat from the electronic components to the edge of the card where it is transferred to the chassis.

Conduction- cooled cards can be designed to comply with the mechanical specifications controlled by the IEEE 1101.2 specification (VME) or ANSI/VITA-30-199x (cPCI) as well as custom form factors.