In order to apply new technologies such as IEC 61850 and IEEE 1588 to substation automation system， a new generation of general hardware platform with high performance and high reliability for the control and protection system should be designed. The development process of control and protection hardware platform is summarized， and the hardware structure and internal data interactively shortcomings of the most existing control and protection device are analyzed. A hardware platform design based on distributed multi-processor and modular hardware frame is proposed for development of control and protection system. A communication architecture with a distributed bus is designed. Also the CPU module， DSP module and I/O module features are introduced. Now the AC and DC control and protection systems based on the hardware platform have been successfully applied to several substations and high-voltage direct current（HVDC） transmission projects.