Elma (www.elma.com) has announced a new 4U-wide MicroTCA portable tower, a slimmer and more compact version of the 6U-wide unit announced earlier in the year. The 4U Type 32M MicroTCA Portable Tower features a Star backplane with up to 6 AMCs. It also features one MicroTCA carrier hub (MCH) slot, a power module slot, and advanced EMC shielding. The price is under $2,300, depending on volume and options with a lead time of six to eight weeks.

In the silicon world, value-added is defined by the ability to accommodate any eventuality. Israel’s Surf Communications Solutions (www.surf-com.com) is pitching a DSP chip multimedia processing solution, the Surf DSP-12TM, at the convergence market on the premise that the platform can handle the multimedia requirements of multi-play carriers. As voice, data, and video-processing requirements grow in as yet undetermined ways, seamless chip solutions that allow for all bases to be covered are fast becoming the standard. Octasic Inc., a media-processing solution provider based in Montreal, Canada, (www.octasic.com), has also recently rolled out a multi-core gateway DSP platform for voice, video, and data over IP applications. According to the company, the Vocallo platform emphasizes a “comprehensive solution for current and future media gateways.” And that’s the point–silicon has to be built for any purpose. No longer will carriers have the money or the time to anticipate exactly where their customers will take them. Thus, the fundamental processing power behind those services has to be flexible.