Building Blocks Initiative Drives Embedded

Mainstream PCs are built in volume and meant to be extremely flexible in their daily use. Their availability is typically limited to six to twelve months before they are superseded by successors with newer features and technology. Their primary value lies in the general computing capabilities and the main penalty of failure is unavailability until repair or replacement.

With industrial applications the situation is very different. Most embedded computers are only one part of an overall solution which means that failure here can and will have a much more significant cost as it may lead to the breakdown of an entire system or even process chain.

Being part of a more complex solution means that even simple changes in the basic computing configuration can result in consequences up to fatal function disturbances. That’s why in medical applications a change of hardware components is simply not permissible without undergoing a tedious recertification process. In many other applications long-term availability of identical hardware is as important as longevity. Further requirements for industrial and embedded PCs are special I/O interfaces and support of specific real time operating systems. Here changes in hardware can be fatal on functionality as well. Possible solutions can be custom designed embedded hardware which requires long and costly design and test efforts or industrial computers and expensive rack based computer systems with specific interfaces with an adequate longevity.

Common industrial and mainstream PCs share the benefits of low prices and availability on demand. Distribution companies have built up excellent logistic channels to provide their customers with the required number of devices quickly, no matter whether one or 1000 pieces are needed. However, this is only true while these devices are still within their specific window of availability. It’s obvious that purchasers want to take advantage of the benefits of both worlds: Buying high quality, highly reliable embedded computers at mass prices using channel logistics, while taking comfort from long-term procurement availability periods of at least five to seven years.

One major problem here is to find a one fits all concept that is flexible enough to enable wide scalability for embedded demands. Another is to find the know-how to achieve embedded quality in a mass production process. This can only work by bringing world class companies with proof of performance together to jointly develop the respective concept and technology.

To implement required flexibility and scalability, the computing system is split into three hierarchical levels: A computer on module, CoM, as the basic computing set; a baseboard with standardised I/O peripheral support to hold the CoM and a set of further, optional, expansion cards for specialised, dedicated interfaces. The key to compatibility, exchangeability and integration lies in clearly defined and integrated hardware and software interfaces, in this case COM Express and MiniPCIe or PCI/PCIe featuring the PCI-express bus system.

Blending the different blocks into an easy to integrate, application ready platform also requires the integration of robust, EMC-proof housing and a selection of standard and real-time operating systems.
CoMs are not new. They have been going through a long evolution from the early PC/104 boards to today’s COM Express boards. CoMs come with many advantages. A major aspect is their wide range of uses resulting in large numbers across companies and applications leading to higher product maturity and lower prices per unit. There are two major trends in the electronic industry: The first one is outsourcing everything which isn’t core competency of the business. The second is a trend towards modular systems with application-ready platforms enabling shorter time-to-market cycles. Both trends are emerging in the embedded industry, too, but there is still time and effort to be spent to build a carrier board.

Fig 1: Embedded building blocks.
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Under the auspices of Intel and in co-operation with TQ-Group and apra-norm, congatec recently launched its Embedded Building Blocks initiative. This joint effort is designed to make it easier for SMEs to gain access to embedded computer technology and entry into the industrial computer market. As a best fit approach for SMEs and to support a wide variety of computer platforms without need for a fan, TQ-Group chose to start its part of the initiative with a new motherboard based on the well established mini ITX form factor.

A specific feature of this baseboard is an upside-down integration of the supporting CoM boards to enable direct thermal coupling with standard mini ITX enclosures. To be even more flexible and to share the interface world with conventional mainstream and industrial PCs, TQ-Group designed a revolutionary new riser card concept. With this adapter, traditional standard PCI and PCIe cards can be added to expand a system as required, as shown in Figure 2.

Standard features of the baseboard include standard I/Os like four USB 2.0, two Gbit Ethernet, DVI and RS-232, with SATA, CompactFlash and CFast slots for internal mass storage. A MiniPCIe interface has been integrated to allow flexible expansion. In case that's not enough, a proprietary I/O interface is available providing additional USB, PCIe, HD audio, Siemens VDO and I²C interface extensions. This allows designers to implement, for example, an additional DVI-I interface or field buses such as CAN in application or industry-specific add-in boards. A seamlessly integrated heat-spreader and apra-norm’s high-quality, robust and EMC-proven enclosure complete the Embedded Building Blocks to a high quality overall solution.

Fig 2: TQ-Group’s PCI and PCIe riser card concept.
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SMEs can now focus on core competencies which usually are not computer hardware development and debugging. The latest computing and memory interfacing technologies are overtaxing even sophisticated development departments. Expensive upgrading of development tools and production equipment won’t pay off for most companies building their own hardware. Outsourcing the tough part is a logical first step as the vehement rise of CoMs over the last year’s shows.


Other reasons to build proprietary hardware have been demands for adequate quality and downsizing designs to the absolute feature minimum for cost reasons. The Embedded Building Blocks initiative addresses these issues too. Using the highest level of chip integration delivers a rich feature set on the CoM device without extra cost, and the quality and longevity of the featured Embedded Building Blocks exceed common industry standards by far. Unlike many other vendors, congatec’s development effort focused on CoMs since its incorporation and this knowledge has been vital for the ability to deliver mainstream numbers of embedded computing modules designed in Germany with their high quality and reliability.

Table 1: congatec’s COM Express module range.
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Traditional users of embedded systems can drastically decrease their development effort and reduce time to market using the modular and widely scalable Embedded Building Block initiative. Table 1 shows the wide range of congatec’s COM Express modules featuring longterm available embedded processors starting with the Intel Atom up to the recently announced second generation i7. Thorough integration of all building blocks provides the developer with an application-ready platform.

The availability of multiple-project proven hardware from the beginning significantly reduces software development and total development times and simplifies debugging. The high flexibility of baseboard and CoM blocks enables large numbers of boards and applications at an early stage of the life cycle resulting in highest maturity and quality. With TQ’s patented riser concept, customer-specific hardware expansions can now be added via traditional PCI/PCIe or mini PCIe cards without changing the basic platform.

At a later stage of successful projects, standard baseboards can be switched against custom baseboards with inbuilt extension functionality for maximum efficiency once the necessary volume has been reached.

Fig 3: Apra-norm enclosure.
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The same applies for the enclosure: off the shelf enclosure blocks from apra-norm can be used for instant availability of prototypes and small to medium production quantities. For mass production and specific requests, custom enclosures can be tailored without hassle at the commercially right time. The possibility of upgrading an application by simply swapping CoMs endows SME customers with a rich choice of variants and upgrade paths at virtually no costs with all the other Embedded Blocks being reused unchanged.

All CoMs and baseboards come with a guaranteed availability of five to seven years which may be even further extended by upgrading the respective embedded system with backward compatible modules once a CoM has come to its end of live. The use of standardised Embedded Building Blocks available through channel distribution highly simplifies procurement and life-cycle management. This reduces maintenance effort and total cost of ownership significantly. Instant availability of application-ready embedded platforms which will stay on the market for many years without changes clearly reduces project risks.

So with Embedded Building Blocks everybody can profit from the current market upturn and start embedded projects. Target applications include virtually all possible industry segments, in particular automation and medical technologies, digital security, digital signage and even retail business.
Scalable Embedded Building Blocks will create a new trend in embedded computing. Linking the trends towards outsourcing and application-ready platforms results in significant cost and time-to market benefits. For current users of industrial and mainstream PCs the upgrade is easy: They simply replace their current platforms with complete, ready to use and easy to configure Embedded Building Block platforms.

Benefits include highest quality and perfect scalability, typically at a significantly smaller form factor and with fanless operation. Long availability and greater robustness reduce maintenance risks and total cost of ownership considerably. This makes Embedded Building Block computers a perfect fit for system integrators, opening an easy entry to embedded technology and projects. Up to date fanless CoM technologies enable easy transition to battery buffered and mobile applications and open further business opportunities.

Christian Eder is congatec’s EMEA Sales & Marketing Manager.