Motherboard is designed for IoT connected devices

Besides all the enhancements of the processor generation, they also offer comprehensive IoT support including a SIM card socket for 3G/4G or Narrow Band connectivity and first versions of the congatec Cloud-API that will be demonstrated at Embedded World (Hall 1, Booth 358).

The low profile design of congatec’s new Thin Mini-ITX industrial motherboard family makes it suited for slim system designs such as industrial GUIs/HMIs, digital signage systems, point-of-sale terminals, and medical tablets.

The boards improve ultra-fast Intel Optane memory via M.2 connector, enabling fast system boots, application starts, video recording and processing, and software updates. The boards further support Hyper-Threading which turns the dual-core design into a 4-in-1 system when utilising the RTS real time hypervisor.

“Our new Thin Mini-ITX motherboards can be employed in all the various embedded and IoT applications as the low-power versions of the high-end 64-bit Intel Core processors offer a highly configurable TDP of 15W, with the flexibility to scale dissipation from 7.5W cTDP to 25W cTDP for an exceptional balance of power and performance,” explains congatec Director Product Management Martin Danzer.

Tailored for the embedded and rugged industrial market, the flagship motherboard design offers at least 7 years long term availability as well as a comprehensive set of industrial interfaces and drivers. Thanks to congatec’s personal integration support, the design-in phase is highly simplified and becomes an easy job for OEM engineers.

The industrial grade conga-IC175 Thin Mini-ITX motherboards ship with 4 different dual-core variants of 7th Gen Intel Core U SoC processors and have a configurable cTDP from 7.5 W to 25 W. Two SO-DIMM sockets support up to 32GB DDR4-2133 memory.

For non-volatile memory the boards offer 1x M.2 slot supporting the new Intel Optane memory for lower latency and higher data rates mass storage devices. 2x SATA 3.0 interfaces allow additional HDDs or SSDs to be connected.

The boards connect the DirectX 12 capable Intel HD Graphics 620 with up to three independent displays in 4k resolution @ 60 Hz via 2x DP++ plus eDP or dual channel LVDS. The new hardware-accelerated 10-bit encoding/decoding of HEVC and VP9 videos offloads the CPU while HDR support makes videos more vibrant and lifelike.

The industrial grade I/O set includes 2x Gigabit Ethernet and 1x SIM card socket for 3G/4G or Narrow Band M2M and IoT connectivity, 1x PCIe x4 and 1x mPCIe for generic expansions, 4x USB 3.0, 6x USB 2.0, 8x GPIO, and 2x serial COM ports – one of which can be configured as ccTalk.

An integrated Board Management Controller, HDA audio including a stereo amplifier, a MIPI CSI-2 interface for direct connection of low-cost CMOS cameras as well as optional TPM 2.0 round off the feature set.

The boards support the 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows 10 and Windows 10 IoT as well as all common Linux operating systems. A comprehensive choice of add-ons for easier design-in, including cooling solutions, I/O shields and cable sets, is also available.