Doug Sandy is the CTO of PICMG, an industry consortium focused on developing open and modular computing specifications. He, along with dozens of member companies who participated in the development of the upcoming COM-HPC specification, believes that engineers building edge systems need new hardware. “Between converged network rollouts and advances in AI, the hardware requirements for edge computing have changed,” Sandy says. “Modern edge workloads need a combination of high-end compute, managed power consumption, and low-latency data transmission.” These merging requirements led PICMG to pursue a new standard for high-performance computing. The result is COM-HPC, a computer-on-module specification that brings unprecedented computing power and I/O bandwidth to resource-constrained applications. First ratified in 2021, COM-HPC has expanded to address various use cases. Most recently, COM-HPC Mini was created to address small form factor applications. “COM-HPC Mini introduces a credit-card-sized form factor with features like expanded connectivity support, efficient thermal management, and […]
Kontron K3931-N mITX – An industrial mini-ITX motherboard with Intel Alder Lake N-series processor
Kontron K3931-N mITX is a mini-ITX motherboard based on an Intel Core i3 or Processor Alder Lake N-Series processor designed for fanless industrial applications with features like TSN and wide 8V to 34V DC input, but still only operating in the 0 to 60°C temperature range. The motherboard supports up to 32GB DDR5 memory, SATA, M.2 NVMe and/or M.2 SATA storage, up to triple display setups, and offers dual Ethernet (GbE + 2.5GbE), plenty of USB interfaces, five serial interfaces, as well as expansion through M.2 sockets, a PCIe slot, and a GPIO header. Kontron K3931-N mITX specifications: Alder Lake-N SoC (one or the other) Intel Processor N50 dual-core processor up to 3.4 GHz with 6MB cache, 16EU Intel UHD Graphics; TDP: 6W Intel Processor N97 quad-core processor up to 3.6 GHz with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel UHD Graphics; TDP: 12W Intel Processor N200 quad-core processor up to 3.7 GHz […]
Kontron D3724-R mSTX – A Mini-STX motherboard based on Ryzen Embedded R2000 CPU
Kontron D3724-R mSTX is an upcoming industrial Mini-STX motherboard powered by an AMD Ryzen Embedded R2000 Series SoC and designed for applications with high graphical requirements such as casino gaming, medical displays, thin clients, and compact industrial PCs. The motherboard supports up to 32GB RAM, SATA & NVMe storage, and is equipped with up to three DisplayPort outputs, one HDMI port, as well as eDP and dual-channel LVDS interfaces to support up to four independent 4K displays. Kontron D3724-R mSTX specifications: SoC (One or the other) D3724-R1 – AMD Embedded R2312 dual-core/quad-thread processor @ 2.7 / 3.5 GHz (Turbo) with 3-core AMD Radeon Vega Graphics; 12-35W TDP D3724-R2 – AMD Embedded R2314 quad-core processor @ 2.1 / 3.5 GHz (Turbo) with 6-core AMD Radeon Vega Graphics; 12-35W TDP D3724-R3 – AMD Embedded R2514 quad-core/eight-thread processor @ 2.1 / 3.7 GHz (Turbo) with 8-core AMD Radeon Vega Graphics; 12-35W TDP System […]
Kontron D3723-R – An AMD Ryzen Embedded R2000 motherboard in mini-ITX form factor
Kontron D3723-R is an industrial mini-ITX motherboard equipped with the just-announced AMD Ryzen Embedded R2000 processor family that delivers higher performance than Ryzen R1000 Series while keeping the costs lower than AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 solutions, and enabling Windows 11 support. Manufactured in Germany, the Kontron D3723-R will be offered with Ryzen R2312, R2314, R2514 and R2544 SKUs, and be particularly suitable for embedded graphics applications such as professional casino gaming systems, medical displays, thin clients, industrial PCs, infotainment, and digital signage systems. Kontron D3723-R specifications: SoC (one of the other) AMD Embedded R2312 dual-core/quad-thread processor @ 2.7 / 3.5 GHz (Turbo) with 3-core AMD Radeon Vega Graphics; 12-35W TDP AMD Embedded R2314 quad-core processor @ 2.1 / 3.5 GHz (Turbo) with 6-core AMD Radeon Vega Graphics; 12-35W TDP AMD Embedded R2514 quad-core/eight-thread processor @ 2.1 / 3.7 GHz (Turbo) with 8-core AMD Radeon Vega Graphics; 12-35W TDP AMD Embedded […]
Kontron Pi-Tron CM4 mini PC leverages Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 for industrial applications
Kontron Pi-Tron CM4 is a single-board computer and mini PC based on the Raspberry Pi Compute Module with a Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor, up to 8GB RAM, up to 32GB eMMC flash, HDMI video output, two Ethernet ports, optional WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, and an M.2 slot for AI or wireless expansion. Designed for industrial applications, the Pi-Tron CM4 is also equipped with RS232, RS485/CAN FD bus, and GPIO terminal blocks, supports 24V input voltage, and is optionally sold as AL Pi-Tron CM4 in a housing suited for challenging environments. Kontron Pi-Tron CM4 specifications: SoM – Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4) with Broadcom BCM2711 quad-core Cortex-A72 processor @1.5 GHz, VideoCore VI GPU, H.265 (HEVC) up to 4Kp60 decode, 1080p30 encode, up to 8GB LPDDR4, up to 32GB eMMC flash Storage – MicroSD card socket (only for Raspberry Pi CM4 Lite module) Display I/F HDMI 2.0 up to 4Kp60 […]
Overview and List of System-on-Module and Computer-on-Module Standards – Q7, SMARC, COM HPC, and More
A System-on-Module (SoM), also known as a Computer-on-Module (CoM), is a small board with the key components of a computer such as SoC, memory, and possibly others components such as PMIC (Power Management IC), an Ethernet PHY, as well as one or more connectors used to connect to a baseboard, also called carrier board, which features standard ports such as Ethernet (RJ45), USB ports, SATA, power jack and so on. The advantages of using of baseboard + SoM design compared to a single board are at least twofold: Most of the PCB design complexity is often around the CPU/SoC and high-speed buses connected to the CPU/SoC. So you could buy an SoM, design your own baseboard and get a complete design relatively in a short amount of time, with reduced development resources and costs. The design is modular, so you could easily upgrade from one SoM to another one. For […]
Linux 5.12 – Main Changes, Arm, MIPS and RISC-V Architectures
Linux 5.12 release was expected last Sunday, but Linus Torvalds decided to release one more release candidate, namely Linux 5.12-RC8, to “make sure things are all settled down“, so the latest Linux kernel is now expected this weekend. Tihs should not yield any significant changes, so we can check what’s new in Linux 5.12, notably with regards to Arm, MIPS, and RISC-V architectures often used in SoC’s found in embedded systems. Around two months ago, the release of Linux 5.11 added support for Intel’s software guard extensions (SGX) and Platform Monitoring Technology (PMT), AMD “Van Gogh” and “Dimgrey cavefish” graphics processors, MIPI I3C host controller interfaces, and much more. Some interesting changes in Linux 5.12 include: Added support for ACRN hypervisor designed for IoT & embedded devices Added support for Playstation DualSense & Nintendo 64 game controllers, as well as Nintendo 64 data cartridges Dynamic thermal power management via a […]
Ryzen Embedded V2000 COM Express Module supports up to 1TB NVMe SSD, 64GB DDR4
We’ve already covered some COM Express modules based on AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 processors with products like ADLINK cExpress-AR COM Express Type 6 Compact computer-on-module, but Kontron COMe-bV26 is the first we’ve seen that follow COM Express Basic Type 6 standard. The module supports up to 64GB DDR4 via two SO-DIMM connectors, up to 1TB NVMe onboard SSD, exposes 8x PCIe lanes, and with an 8-core/16-thread Ryzen Embedded V2000 processor is well-suited to IoT edge devices that must perform parallel processing tasks. Kontron COMe-bV26 specifications: AMD Embedded V2000 SoC AMD V2748 octa-core/16-thread processor @ 2.9 GHz / 4.15 GHz (Turbo) with 4MB L2 cache, 7CUs Radeon RX Vega 7 GPU @ 1.6 GHz; TDP: 35-54W AMD V2718 octa-core/16-thread processor @ 1.7 GHz / 4.15 GHz (Turbo) with 4MB L2 cache, 7CUs Radeon RX Vega 7 GPU @ 1.6 GHz; TDP: 10-25W AMD V2546 hexa-core/12-thread processor @ 3.0 GHz / 3.95 […]