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===== AXPvme and Alpha VME =====

<WRAP box right 340px>
^ AXPvme and Alpha VME ^^
^ CPU | [[wp>Alpha_21064#Alpha_21066A|21066A]] (LCA45) (AXPvme), [[wp>Alpha_21064#Alpha_21064A|21064A]] (EV45) (Alpha VME 4), [[wp>Alpha_21164#Alpha_21164A|21164A]] (EV56) (Alpha VME 5/480) |
^ Memory | 8 to 128 MiB (AXPvme, Alpha VME 4) |
^ Buses | PCI (onboard), VMEbus |
^ Form factor | 6U VMEbus |
^ Onboard I/O | 21040 Ethernet, NCR 53C810 SCSI, serial |
^ Firmware | SRM |
^ Linux | Never |
</WRAP>

Digital's AXPvme and Alpha VME boards are 6U VMEbus single-board computers sold for embedded and realtime work rather than as general purpose machines. The first series, AXPvme, was built around the 21066A, which Digital introduced on 14 November 1994 as "the heart of Digital's AXPvme series of VMEbus single-board computers (SBCs)", for control systems in military and industrial realtime applications; the boards also ran VxWorks for Alpha. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/biz-digital-announce-mbox/googlegroups-1994-November.mbox#L5561|"Press/Alpha 21066A Chip With PCI Puts More Speed Into Embedded Apps"]], Digital Press and Analysts News, biz.digital.announce, 14 Nov 1994)] Members of that series include the AXPvme 160, 166, and 230. [(>{{wiki:hardware:systems:alpha_vme:alpha_vme_4_user_guide_and_technical_description.pdf?linkonly|Digital Alpha VME 4/224 and 4/288 Single-Board Computers User Guide and Technical Description}}, p. 2-1)]

Later boards moved to faster processors and dropped the AXPvme name. The Digital Alpha VME 4/224 and 4/288 use the 21064A, [(>{{wiki:hardware:systems:alpha_vme:alpha_vme_4_user_guide_and_technical_description.pdf?linkonly|Digital Alpha VME 4/224 and 4/288 Single-Board Computers User Guide and Technical Description}}, p. 1-1)] and an Alpha VME 5/480 identifies itself to Digital UNIX as a 21164A at 480 MHz with the 21172 chipset, 2 MiB of external cache, and the VMEbus system controller on PCI. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/comp-os-linux-alpha-mbox/googlegroups-1999-August.mbox#L3894|"Linux to an Alpha 5/480 VME card?"]], bgeer, comp.os.linux.alpha, 24 Aug 1999)]

Digital announced the 4/224 and 4/288 on 24 April 1996 for "industrial automation, military defense and communications", claiming double the CPU performance of the AXPvme 230 and four times the memory bandwidth of the 21066 based boards. The CPU design used "the same core logic found in Digital's AlphaServer 1000 system", and PCI carried the on-board SCSI, Ethernet, and VME interfaces. Digital offered Digital UNIX and VxWorks for Alpha for them. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/biz-digital-announce-mbox/googlegroups-1996-April.mbox#L3335|"Press/Digital Announces New Family of Alpha-Based VME Single Board Computers"]], Digital Press and Analysts News, biz.digital.announce, 25 Apr 1996)]

Digital also sold the **Alpha VME 2100**, an [[hardware:systems:sable|AlphaServer 2100]] in 19-inch rackmount packaging with VME64 in place of EISA, announced in October 1994 as the AlphaServer 2100 4/190 VME. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/biz-digital-articles-mbox/googlegroups-1994-October.mbox#L252|"Digital AlphaServer 2100 4/190 VME"]], Customer Update, biz.digital.articles, 5 Oct 1994)] [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/biz-digital-articles-mbox/googlegroups-1995-June.mbox#L12012|"Digital Alpha VME 2100"]], Customer Update, biz.digital.articles, 16 Jun 1995)]

==== Specifications ====

=== AXPvme ===

  * 6U VMEbus module built on the LCA processor family, with integrated memory and PCI controllers [(>{{wiki:hardware:systems:alpha_vme:axpvme_technical_description.pdf?linkonly|AXPvme Single-Board Computer Technical Description}}, EK-EBV1X-TD.B01, July 1995, pp. 1-1 to 1-4)]
  * 8 to 128 MiB of DRAM, with a 256 KiB (AXPvme 64, 64LC, and 160) or 512 KiB (AXPvme 100, 166, and 230) backup cache
  * Full master and slave VME interface, built on the Cypress VIC64, able to act as VME system controller
  * DECchip 21040 Ethernet, NCR 53C810 SCSI, and 85C30 serial lines on PCI

=== Alpha VME 4 ===

  * [[wp>Alpha_21064#Alpha_21064A|21064A]] at 224 MHz with 512 KiB of cache, or at 288 MHz with 2 MiB of cache, with a DECchip 21071-DA PCI host bridge [(>{{wiki:hardware:systems:alpha_vme:alpha_vme_4_user_guide_and_technical_description.pdf?linkonly|Digital Alpha VME 4/224 and 4/288 Single-Board Computers User Guide and Technical Description}}, pp. 1-1 to 1-5)]
  * 8 to 128 MiB of ECC memory on DIMMs
  * VME64 interface built on the Cypress VIC64, capable of DMA transfers
  * DECchip 21040 Ethernet, NCR 53C810 SCSI, two DEC423 serial ports, and one double-width or two single-width PCI mezzanine cards, in a two board set occupying two adjacent 6U VME slots

==== Firmware ====

The boards run the SRM console. Beyond the usual environment variables, it has ''VME_A32_BASE'', ''VME_A32_SIZE'', ''VME_A24_BASE'', ''VME_A24_SIZE'', ''VME_A16_BASE'', and ''VME_CONFIG'' for the VMEbus windows, and ''VX_BOOTLINE'' for the VxWorks bootstrap. [(>{{wiki:hardware:systems:alpha_vme:alpha_vme_4_user_guide_and_technical_description.pdf?linkonly|Digital Alpha VME 4/224 and 4/288 Single-Board Computers User Guide and Technical Description}}, pp. 3-3 to 3-7)] During power-on self-test the SROM counts down from 8 to 1 on the status display and stops at the number of a failing test. [(>{{wiki:hardware:systems:alpha_vme:alpha_vme_4_user_guide_and_technical_description.pdf?linkonly|Digital Alpha VME 4/224 and 4/288 Single-Board Computers User Guide and Technical Description}}, pp. 4-1 to 4-2)]

Unlike the evaluation boards, the VME boards had their firmware published on Digital's Alpha firmware CD-ROM and ''gatekeeper.dec.com'', in ''axpvme'' and ''alphavme'' directories. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/netbsd-port-alpha-mbox/1997-February.mbox#L2455|"Re: Support for AXP Motherboard"]], Carl S. Shapiro, port-alpha, 21 Feb 1997)] [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/netbsd-port-alpha-mbox/1997-April.mbox#L2076|"Re: Where should I start?"]], Carl S. Shapiro, port-alpha, 28 Apr 1997)] [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/axp-list-mbox/1999-October.mbox#L7397|"Re: How to flash MILO? ( Not a faq )"]], Peter Rival, axp-list, 6 Oct 1999)]

The ''SMMTABLE.TXT'' file on the V7.3 firmware CD lists SRM 1.3 as the last version for the Alpha VME 4/224 and 4/288 and names no update file for it (the entry is ''[ARCHIVE]NOFILE.EXE''). [(>''SMMTABLE.TXT'', Alpha Systems Firmware Update CD V7.3, 14 Mar 2007)]

==== Linux ====

Linux was never ported to these boards: no kernel platform for them exists. [(>[[https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/arch/alpha/Kconfig?h=v6.9|arch/alpha/Kconfig]], Linux 6.9)] The Alpha VME 4 is supported by VxWorks for Alpha and by Digital UNIX. [(>{{wiki:hardware:systems:alpha_vme:alpha_vme_4_user_guide_and_technical_description.pdf?linkonly|Digital Alpha VME 4/224 and 4/288 Single-Board Computers User Guide and Technical Description}}, p. 1-1)] The AXPvme and Alpha VME boards are listed among the systems supported by Tru64 UNIX V4.0F (see [[software:operating_systems|Operating Systems]]).

==== Known issues ====

  * **Breakout module compatibility:** the Alpha VME 4 must be used with its own primary breakout module, part 54-24663-01. Powering the board with no primary breakout module installed, or with the breakout module from an AXPvme 160, 166, or 230 (part 54-22605-01), may damage the backplane, the board, or both. [(>{{wiki:hardware:systems:alpha_vme:alpha_vme_4_user_guide_and_technical_description.pdf?linkonly|Digital Alpha VME 4/224 and 4/288 Single-Board Computers User Guide and Technical Description}}, p. 2-1)]
  * **Interrupts from user boards:** a VMEbus interrupt that crashes the machine with an "invalid memory or i/o controller error" rather than reaching the handler can be caused by the backplane interrupt grant jumpers. [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/comp-sys-dec-mbox/googlegroups-1995-October.mbox#L1|"HELP! AXPvme Interrupts"]], Ian Cunningham, comp.sys.dec, 30 Oct 1995)] [(>[[https://github.com/alphalinux/mailing-list-archives/blob/main/comp-sys-dec-mbox/googlegroups-1995-November.mbox#L15967|"Re: HELP! AXPvme Interrupts"]], Ian Cunningham, comp.sys.dec, 13 Nov 1995)]

==== Part numbers ====

Field replaceable units for the Alpha VME 4: [(>{{wiki:hardware:systems:alpha_vme:alpha_vme_4_user_guide_and_technical_description.pdf?linkonly|Digital Alpha VME 4/224 and 4/288 Single-Board Computers User Guide and Technical Description}}, p. 2-35)]

^ Order number ^ Part number ^ Description ^
| EBV14-*A | 70-32976-04 | 224 MHz single-board computer, two board set, 512 KiB cache |
| EBV14-*E | 70-32976-02 | 288 MHz single-board computer, two board set, 2 MiB cache |
| | 54-24663-01 | VME primary breakout module |
| | 54-24729-01 | VME secondary breakout module |
| EBV1P-AA | 54-24665-01 | PMC I/O companion card |

An asterisk stands for any of A, Z, R, or X.

==== Documentation ====

^ Document ^ Part number ^ Date ^
| {{wiki:hardware:systems:alpha_vme:alpha_vme_4_user_guide_and_technical_description.pdf?linkonly|Digital Alpha VME 4/224 and 4/288 Single-Board Computers User Guide and Technical Description}} | EK-DAVME-TD.B01 | September 1996 |
| {{wiki:hardware:systems:alpha_vme:axpvme_technical_description.pdf?linkonly|AXPvme Single-Board Computer Technical Description}} | EK-EBV1X-TD.B01 | July 1995 |
| {{wiki:hardware:systems:alpha_vme:axpvme_installation_user_guide.pdf?linkonly|AXPvme Single-Board Computer Installation/User Guide}} | EK-EBV1X-IN.B01 | September 1995 |
| {{wiki:hardware:systems:alpha_vme:axpvme_release_notes.pdf?linkonly|AXPvme Single-Board Computer Release Notes}} | EK-EBV1X-RN.B01 | December 1994 |
| {{wiki:hardware:systems:alpha_vme:alpha_vme_2100_drawer_rackmount_front_bezel_installation.pdf?linkonly|Digital Alpha VME 2100 Drawer Rackmount Front Bezel Installation Information}} | EK-DALDR-IS.B01 | 1995 |
| {{wiki:hardware:systems:alpha_vme:alpha_vme_2100_vertical_rackmount_front_bezel_installation.pdf?linkonly|Digital Alpha VME 2100 Vertical Rackmount Front Bezel Installation Information}} | EK-DALVR-IS.B01 | 1995 |

{{tag>hardware motherboard 21064 21066 digital}}