Abaco Systems / Radstone PPC-604 VME PowerPC Board

The Abaco Systems / Radstone PPC-604 is a 6U VME single-board computer built around the PowerPC 604 RISC processor. Engineered for embedded systems, it delivers superscalar instruction execution with six parallel execution units and integrates 64-bit VMEbus connectivity via the Tundra Universe II chipset. The board supports up to 128 MB user memory, 4 MB flash storage, and multiple I/O interfaces including Ethernet, serial ports, SCSI-2, and audio channels.

Technical Specifications

• Processor: PowerPC 604 at 66 MHz or 100 MHz


• Memory: Up to 128 MB user memory; 4 MB user flash


• VMEbus: 64-bit interface, VME64 and VME64 extensions compliant (5-row P1/P2 connectors)


• I/O Interfaces:

Ethernet: 10BaseT/100BaseTX

Serial: Two RS-232 channels (front panel) plus on-board serial ports

Parallel ports

SCSI-2 peripheral interface - 16-bit business audio

JTAG port

• Supply Voltage: 3.3 V ± 5% DC


• Operating Temperature: 0 to 105 °C junction temperature


• Power Dissipation: 100 MHz - 14.5 W typical, 19.0 W maximum; 120 MHz - 17.0 W typical, 22.5 W maximum; 133 MHz - 18.5 W typical, 24.0 W maximum

Key Features

• Superscalar architecture executing up to six instructions in parallel


• Six execution units: floating-point unit (FPU), branch processing unit (BPU), and load/store unit (LSU)


• Separate 16 kB instruction and data caches


• Demand-paged virtual memory with MMU and TLB


• On-chip cache coherency snooping for multiprocessor support


• Configurable cooling: air-cooled or conduction-cooled options


• Available build styles from Level 1 (Standard) to Level 5 (Rugged)

Compatibility & Integration Fully compliant with PowerPC Reference Platform (PReP) recommendations. Supports multiple VMEbus masters through external arbitration protocol. Input capacitance: 10 pF maximum.