The aerospace and defense embedded computing industry is on the cusp of some of the biggest changes in more than a decade, as board and backplane speeds are increasing, board dimensions are about to expand by including a new size, and small-form-factor embedded computing architectures are poised to move to credit-card-sized modules.
The VITA open-standards organization, which oversees the leading design standards for much of the world's embedded computing industry, is near finishing the most influential change since the VITA 65 OpenVPX standard was ratified in 2010.
Changes revolve around the emerging VITA 100 standard, expected to be ratified in early 2026, which has the potential to double I/O board and backplane connector speeds over OpenVPX, breathe new life into 3U and 6U embedded computing architectures, and add a new 4U standard board size to accommodate the relatively large sizes of state-of-the art microprocessors, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPUs), and other high-performance components.
Yet these revolutionary changes to military embedded computing are not only about VITA 100. Designers of extremely small embedded computing designs for unmanned vehicles, handheld devices, manpack systems, and other lightweight designs are looking ahead to the VITA 74 VNX+ standard to determine how this standard's credit card-sized boards will influence extreme small-form-factor embedded computing.
The VITA 100 suite of standards, in development now, is an evolution to OpenVPX, VPX, and related mechanical standards while embracing a paradigm shift in technology and capability with at least double the pin density, speed, and power for electrical contacts.
The in-progress VITA 100 standard is expected to be ratified in early 2026, with some of the first VITA 100-compliant products expected to hit the market in late 2026 or early 2027. The VITA 100 baseline standard outlines the essential electrical and system architecture for the VITA 100 ecosystem. The VITA 100 working group is developing the draft standard document.