Programme allows customers to integrate SMARC CoMs

The programme also considers the software aspect of hardware integration, including OS image creation, driver adaptations and the integration building blocks such as the new Intel Gateway Technologies for the Internet of Things. b-plus, Fortec, HY-LINE, ies and Next-System are the first SMARC Certified Design Partners to qualify.

"The Certified Design Partner Program aims to ease the integration of SMARC modules into customer-specific applications", Jens Wiegand, CTO, Kontron explains. "One particularly important goal of the Partner Program is to expand and intensify the individual software services within the hardware integration of the modules and carrierboards to enable engineers to focus on developing new services required for the Internet of Things. So the more application-ready platforms including value adding services are available, the better engineers are equipped to achieve tough roadmap goals."

Michael Sieg, Managing Director, b-plus, comments: "For a large number of OEMs, dealing with a new platform such as SMARC presents a challenge. The implementation efforts are becoming more and more complex, especially for all the internet-connected applications with high security demands. Parallel to this, the global competition is stepping up and fast time-to-market is required, even when developer teams are pushed to their capacity limits. It is therefore essential to offer extensive services for efficient hardware integration for ARM as well as x86 appliances accomplished by a fitting software environment making the whole customer systems power saving and reliably working in mobile and extended temperature applications. I'm sure that with our SMARC modules and complementary carrier boards as well as the Kontron Certified Design Partner Program we can offer a very efficient solution to this."

"Credit card-sized, low-power SoC modules are a great fit for embedded computing designs. Leveraging these SoCs is even more attractive with standardised cross-platform SMARC modules. On top of these standard components, we offer engineers fast entry into the application-specific system configuration with additional, off-the-shelf components, such as displays, latest touch technologies, cover glasses, or SSD memory. We even care for the power supply by providing fully tailored LiIon battery packs. In addition to these standard building blocks, we help engineers in the Kontron Certified Partner Program to set up their dedicated engineering environment in a minimum of time. This includes project-based finetuning of the OS, kernel modification, and the hardware-relevant adaptation of customers' software. All this contributes to a faster 'time-to-design-in' and a higher design-in efficiency",says Guido Brüning, Managing Director, HY-LINE.