 Defined by the VITA (VME International Trade Association) working group (composed of companies such as Abaco Systems, ADLINK, Aitech, Boeing, Connect Tech, Curtiss-Wright, Elma Electronic, Extreme Engineering Solutions, Inc. (X-ES), GE Intelligent Platforms, General Micro Systems, Inc. (GMS), Kontron, Mercury Computer Systems, Pentek, Cornet Technology, Inc., and Northrop Grumman), it has been designed specifically with defense applications in mind, with an enhanced module standard that enables applications and platforms with superior performance.VPX retains VME's existing 6U and 3U Eurocard form factors, supporting existing PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC) and XMC mezzanines (PMC with high-speed serial fabric interconnect), and maintaining the maximum possible compatibility with VMEbus.New generations of embedded systems based on the VPX standard reflect the growing significance of high speed serial switched fabric interconnects such as PCI Express, RapidIO, Infiniband and 10 Gigabit Ethernet.