Intel® Atom™ modules with Celeron® and Pentium® processors feature powerful Gen 9 graphics and deliver impressive performance per watt, enabling even more powerful designs with even lower power consumption. This, combined with a 10-year long-term availability, makes the new high-end low-power modules a perfect fit for both entry-level COM Express Compact designs and high-end Qseven platforms.
The application areas for congatec's new Computer-on-Modules can be found in many highly specialized embedded systems and IoT applications. This requires a custom, high-performance, fanless design and a low-power form factor of 5W to 12W. These applications include IoT gateways and industrial control systems, GUI (Graphical User Interface) machines and devices, medical devices, digital signage systems, vending machines and stations, as well as eMobility—the full range of rugged mobile devices, handheld devices, and in-vehicle systems. Some motherboards even utilize standard onboard modules to accelerate time to market, with system upgrades requiring only module replacement.
“Congatec’s new designs address the full range of low-power embedded and IoT applications. The two new modules are the spearheads of congatec’s broad roadmap for the latest Intel® Atom™, Pentium®, and Celeron® processors, based on Intel’s new, highly optimized 14nm microarchitecture. A range of standard products, such as SMARC 2.0 Pico-ITX and Mini-ITX boards, as well as custom carrier boards and fully customized designs, some of which are already on order, will be unveiled throughout the year,” says Martin Danzer, Head of Product Management at congatec AG. “With this broad range of complementary form factor standards, as well as our embedded design and manufacturing services, we are significantly simplifying the development of highly integrated, feature-rich, small form factor applications.”
All form factors will support real-time applications. These applications will benefit from the integrated hardware compliant with IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP), which can deliver nanosecond timing accuracy. Alternative software implementations require microseconds. There is also an integrated hardware audio DSP that can be used for new speech recognition applications. Another convenient feature is the ability to switch from a static, hardware-based PCIe lane configuration to a flexible, software-based configuration that allows the modules' predefined GbE lanes to be used for other purposes as well.
Features at a Glance:
The new congatec Qseven and COM Express Compact real-time capability modules incorporate low-power Intel® Atom™ E3930, E3940, and E3950 processors for an extended industrial-grade temperature range of -40°C to +85°C, or are equipped with the more powerful low-power Intel® Celeron® dual-core quad-core N3350 and N4200 Intel Pentium processors. A key highlight is that the industrial-grade module variants with Intel Atom processors have a capped cooling interface that connects directly to the processor. Therefore, no additional copper heat block is required for most straightforward deployments and for heat dissipation. All modules feature high-performance Gen 9 graphics, providing up to 18 execution units and supporting 4K encoding and decoding capabilities for HEVC4, H.264, VP8, SVC, and MVC.
What's so special about the new Qseven module?
With up to 8 GB of integrated low-voltage DDR3 RAM, the new conga-QA5 supports 4K resolution on up to three displays, which can be controlled via dual-channel LVDS, eDP, DP 1.2, and/or HDMI 1.4. For IoT connectivity and general expansion, it features a Gigabit Ethernet interface, four PCIe lanes, and six USB ports, one of which is USB 3.0. Additional peripherals can be connected via one SPI and one serial interface. Two MIPI CSI camera inputs are also provided. For storage integration, up to 64 GB of flash memory is offered with fast eMMC 5.5, 2x or 6 Gbps SATA, and one SDIO. Audio signals are handled via HDA.
What's so special about the new COM Express Compact module?
Supporting up to 8 GB of low-voltage SODIMM memory, the new conga-TCA5 also supports 4K on up to three displays, which can be controlled via dual-channel LVDS, eDP, DP 1.2, and/or HDMI 1.4. For IoT connectivity and general expansion, it features a Gigabit Ethernet interface, four PCIe 2.0 lanes, and six USB ports, three of which are USB 3.0 and one is a USB OTG interface with host/client capability. Additional peripherals can be connected via two SPI ports, one LPC port, and two UART interfaces. Two MIPI CSI camera inputs are also provided. For storage integration, up to 64 GB of flash memory with fast eMMC 5.1 is optional, or two 6 Gbps SATA ports and one SDIO port are available. Audio signals are handled via HDA. An optional TPM 2.0 completes the feature set of the COM Express Compact module.
All modules include software support for Windows 10, including Windows 10 IoT versions, and all current Linux operating systems. The BSP will also include support for the latest Wind River IDP 3.1. Custom integration support, a wide range of accessories, and optional design and manufacturing services for specific carrier boards and system designs are also available.
Processor Cores Intel® Smart Cache [MB] Clock/ Burst [GHz] TDP [W] Graphics Execution Units
Intel® Pentium® N4200 4 2 1.1 / 2.5 6 18
