To address customer challenges, the two German competitors are cooperating not only to improve standardization but also to enhance security of supply through dual-sourcing strategies. Global supply bottlenecks have dramatically increased the sensitivity of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) over the past two years. Combining German design and engineering expertise responds to this need for high supply chain security by improving interoperability through joint motherboard design initiatives. Congatec and Kontron will therefore focus on plug-and-play capabilities, enabling COM modules from either manufacturer to be used on any evaluation motherboard from either company, thus facilitating genuine multi-vendor COM and carrier strategies.

The initial goal of the collaboration between congatec and Kontron is the standardization of evaluation motherboards for COM-HPC® Client and Server form factors, followed by other module standards such as COM Express® and SMARC™. Customers will be able to use not only the design guidelines but also the motherboard layouts as a best practice reference for their own designs. Given the rise in global threat scenarios, the new standardized and interoperable evaluation motherboards will adhere to the highest cybersecurity requirements.

Both companies emphasize that the cooperation refers exclusively to the standardization of the evaluation carrier boards and that the development of modules will remain strictly separate, as this core business is highly competitive.