ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTIONS FOR THE TACTICAL EDGE
Rugged Packaging and Cooling Technologies
mrcy.com 2
Even the best commercial components cannot survive hostile environments without
protection. To intensify extreme temperature resilience and mechanical durability without
increasing pre-integration risk, cost and schedule, Mercury takes a modular open systems
architecture (MOSA) approach to design subsystems for operation at the tactical edge.
AIR COOLED
CONDUCTION
COOLED
AIR FLOW-BY
AIR FLOW-
THROUGH*
LIQUID FLOW-
THROUGH
LIQUID FLOW-BY
VITA Standard
48.1 48.2 REDI* * 48.7 REDI* * 48.8 REDI* * 48.4 REDI* * REDI* * *
Cooling Efficiency
Low Low Med Med High High
Weight
Low High Med Med Med Med
Environmental Protection
Low Med High Med High High
Ruggedness Level
L0 - L2 L3 L4 L5 L6 L7
* 48.8 REDI covers 1.0" 1.2" 1.4" pitch
** VPX-REDI compliant: OpenVPX paired with the ruggedized enhanced design implementation standard (REDI) VITA 48.
VPX-REDI supports higher functional ruggedness and two-level maintenance (2LM).
*** VPX-REDI aligned
Applying MOTS+ rugged packaging and effective cooling
technologies across a portfolio of OpenVPX™ building blocks
creates scalable, interoperable processing subsystems
that easily move from the lab to the tactical edge. Mercury 's
agnostic cooling approach applies the air, conduction, Liquid
Flow-Through, Air Flow-Through, Air Flow-By™ and Liquid
Flow-By™ architectures to a single OpenVPX board design.
OpenVPX (ANSI/VITA 46), championed by Mercury and
introduced in 2009, is the standard for packaging high-
performance commercial processing technology into
rugged, SWaP- optimized subsystems capable of operation
in a wide range of environments—from industrial to defense
and aerospace applications. OpenVPX is the foundational
standard for many other defense open systems architectures,
including Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA), Future
Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) and Common/
C4ISR/EW Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS).
As processing capabilities and their thermal signatures
increase, the OpenVPX standard working groups within the VME
International Trade Association (VITA) Standards Organization
continue to add greater capability and performance to the
VITA portfolio of cooling architectures. The environmental
protection, cooling effectiveness and SWaP performance
of these architectures are summarized in the table below.
