The time spent designing and implementing a motherboard for a product can be painstaking at best. Troubleshooting and deciding the exact specifications that an OEM’s product will require can be the lynch pins for development, and in some cases, provide the most challenges for designers.
Many of the questions surrounding this process pertain to determining what kind of board will complement the overall design. There are always choices, depending on the product’s application. One such avenue is a COM Express module.
These small footprint modules hold a unique place within the embedded systems world. They fill a certain set of applications that necessitate a powerful and expandable motherboard that can handle the main component specifications. By taking care of this aspect, designers are free to focus on making the product do all that it possibly can via a custom designed carrier board. A COM Express module helps to simplify an OEM’s design process through great tech and the addition of a starter kit.
COM Express Starter Kits: A Box of Possibilities
COM Express starter kit contains a sample ATX carrier board with a plethora of different I/O which designers can Continue Reading…
Industrial computing is a constantly growing market and one that doesn’t seem to slow down for anything, and this means that there is always a growing need for new innovations within the sector. The mantra of “small, cool running and powerful” seems to be driving some of the options behind creating new standards for embedded systems. There are tough decisions to be made on the technical specifications, but in 2004 a great breakthrough was made.
Enter the EPIC motherboard standard. A grandiose-sounding name, perhaps, for what is essentially a mid-sized embedded board. It does not have the largest board space, nor does it pump out the most processing power. It cannot match up to the larger ITX boards for I/O capabilities, but then again, it Continue Reading…
When it comes to motherboards, the industrial and commercial sectors do a pretty good job at keeping themselves separate. Even to the point where commercial manufacturers don’t sell industrial motherboards and, conversely, where industrial manufacturers don’t sell commercial motherboards.
Industrial motherboard manufacturers just aren’t set up to compete with the likes of ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte, while still keeping motherboards with lifecycles of 5 years or more on their product roadmap. And simply put, their procedures require a higher overhead and resultantly higher priced motherboard.
Commercial manufacturers on the other hand have the opposite problem of not being able to support a motherboard for 5+ years. They also can’t offer all of the different custom options and small runs of quantities like 50-100 boards, because they are set up to manufacture THOUSANDS of boards at a time. It’s just a matter of the two industries not being economically set up to overlap.
Commercial Manufacturers Making Industrial Motherboards?
However, in recent years, whether due to exponential growth in the industrial motherboard and embedded PC market, or simply because a recent analysis showed it to be a prudent move, commercial manufacturers are now getting involved Continue Reading…
If there is one industry that deserves the most powerful, accurate, and efficient computer systems available, it is the medical field. The systems used by hospitals and specialist clinics vary from imaging products all the way to handheld blood analyzers. These kinds of products are essential in running medical facilities, and need to be built and maintained properly. Furthermore, the machines must keep up with the rigors of the medical field, needing to be faster and, most importantly, mobile. Form factor plays a major role in technology usage, regardless of field or discipline. Modern equipment has been chasing the “smaller is better” mentality for years, demanding a change in component manufacturing.
Pico-ITX Finds its Perfect Place
Enter the Pico-ITX: a new breed of embedded motherboards that could meet the necessary tasks of modern medical systems. Of course, this size of motherboard could not replace larger boards that run major imaging equipment or servers. But Pico-ITX systems have nevertheless carved out a sizable niche by combining powerful processing and graphical prowess in a diminutive form. Since their unveiling in 2007, these boards have only become faster and more feature rich, allowing the medical field to implement more complex and sophisticated software in the workplace.
Advantages of Pico-ITX Boards
Basically, decreasing the size of an embedded system’s motherboard means two things: Continue Reading…
The time spent designing and implementing a motherboard for a product can be painstaking at best. Troubleshooting and deciding the exact specifications that an OEM’s product will require can be the lynch pins for development, and in some cases, provide the most challenges for designers.
