"Data growth is unstoppable, and the upcoming 5G wireless standard will accelerate it. Experts anticipate new digital business models that are only conceivable due to the high data transfer rates of the upcoming 5G standard. Applications like artificial intelligence have an enormous data appetite and require the rapid evaluation of vast amounts of data, based on algorithms. IoT devices, sensors, and actuators, each of which is connected to the internet every hour, continue to generate enormous amounts of data from autonomous vehicles, for example. Hundreds of signals must be processed in fractions of a second. Many of these scenarios no longer take place in a secure, high-performance computing center or in the cloud, but closer to where the data originates: on mobile masts, on production lines, in warehouses, in processing plants, or in autonomous vehicles, to name just a few. Where previously embedded industrial computing provided reliable and long-lasting service, data performance is now essential.".
This also necessitates new concepts for embedded systems: existing standards will no longer be sufficient to handle the high volume of data and the computing power required to process it. COM Express® already offers increased bandwidth with Type 7, released in 2016, but it is reaching its limits for future high-performance applications. For applications requiring less performance, COM Express® will continue to evolve.
Leading manufacturers in the industry have established a new working group within the PICMG standardization committee to future-proof the COM standard. Computer-On-Modules High Performance Computing, abbreviated COM HPC (formerly known as COM HD), will be an upgrade to the existing COM Express® standard.
COM HPC will support high-end server processors and up to eight SODIMMs for memory, and will likely allow for power dissipation of up to 125 watts, whereas COM Express® was previously limited to 60 watts. It supports the new PCI Express® 4.0 standard, as well as the upcoming 5.0 standard, which COM Express® can no longer offer. Therefore, COM HPC features a new connector design that also supports 64 PCIe lanes. COM HPC is also equipped for future high-speed connections via USB 3.2 and networking standards such as 100 Gigabit Ethernet.
COM HPC will use two new high-speed connectors with at least 4 x 100 pins, for a total of 800 pins. The foundation will be Samtec's ADF6/ADM6 series, but the spacing between rows will be increased, making the final product compatible with other manufacturers as well: a single source is deliberately avoided.
The target group for the new COM HPC modules is clearly factory floor applications and other applications with harsh environmental conditions. The focus here is on industrial scenarios where the modules and support boards have to withstand heavy use. Unlike traditional IT servers, which were developed for use in a protected data center or server room, COM HPC boards are also designed for harsh industrial environments, where they offer the performance and flexibility of typical IT servers. Kontron expects the COM HPC-based industrial embedded servers to be available in two versions: a powerful version with graphics, as known in COM Express®, and a version without graphics but with significantly more data lines for sophisticated server concepts.
At COM HPC, Kontron is working with other manufacturers to bring performance and flexibility to Intelligent Edge, previously only available on IT servers. This will form the basis for digital applications that are close to the data source, regardless of the environmental conditions: "The servers are integrated and resilient.".
