They will be designed to meet the requirements of next-generation IoT markets, where they must handle and process large amounts of data.
This new standard was necessary because the existing COM Express Type 7 standard, introduced in 2016, is not capable of meeting new requirements such as 5G data communication. Future applications will include real-time data synchronization and processing by machinery on production lines or in other locations for industrial automation. Defense systems, medical imaging, and warehouses using robots will be other common applications for this high-performance module.
The five COM-HPC module standards (A ~ E) will use 800 pins through two new high-speed connectors with at least 4 x 100 pins each and two 400-pin board-to-board connectors.
Along with other improvements, this results in increased input power and optimized I/O expansion capabilities. The available board sizes allow for the use of high-end processors. Larger COM-HPC models support 4–8 DIMM memory expansion slots. Furthermore, the module's TDP supports processors up to 110W; by comparison, COM-Express only goes up to 65W. COM-HPC accepts input power exceeding 300W and achieves excellent performance in high-performance devices. Size E incorporates up to 1TB of memory with 8x DIMM memory capacity. Size C offers 128GB with 4x SODIMMs (Figure 1).
COM-HPC achieves higher bandwidths through innovative BGA-type board-to-board connectors. These solutions, compatible with PCIe 4.0 and PCIe Gen 5 (32GT/s), can have up to 65 lanes. They feature ports for 4x USB 4.0 or USB 3.2 Gen 2 x 2, up to 10GBASE-T, and 8x 25GBASE-KR ports with sideband signals. COM-HPC also offers more low-power I/O such as 12x GPIO, SPI, IPMB, I2C, and SMBus for intelligent system management.
Advantech will introduce a COM-HPC evaluation kit called the SOM-8990 and a motherboard called the SOM-DB8900 in the fourth quarter of 2020. It features a server-grade pin configuration and incorporates an Intel Xeon® D processor.
These will be its main features:
- Intel® Xeon® D 16Core Processor/110W TDP
- Up to 512GB of memory with 8x 288-pin RDIMM/LRDIMM slots
- PCIe Gen. 3 (x16, x8, x4, x1) with up to 45 lanes, 4x USB 3.0 ports and 2x SATA III ports
- Up to 4x 10GBASE-KR ports and 1x 1000BASE-T port
- Pin configuration: Server-type COM-HPC
- Dimensions: Size E 200 x 160 mm (0.65 x 0.52 inches)
