Teaching an old dog new tricks with Gunnar Holm of Avnet Embedded

Using a Computer on Module is a simple means of including a full embedded computer within your equipment design. COMs enable a very dense solution to be realised and are often preferred in specialised applications requiring low power consumption or small physical size, as is often the case with embedded systems. More, designs based on COMs enable a modular approach to be adopted, allowing different performance standard modules to be swapped in and out for different applications or system performance specs. Upgrades and updates are also easily accommodated.

There have been a number of different standards for COMs, dating all the way back to 1998 with ETX. However, this once-popular standard cannot keep pace with today’s PC performance. The most recent standard, Qseven is an off-the-shelf, multi vendor COM platform that integrates all of the core components of a common PC mounted on a specific carrier board measuring 70mm x 70mm. Because of its mix of features, Qseven suits a wide range of markets including handheld and ultra-mobile devices, Panel PCs, entry-level-gaming, entry-level/midrange medical, entry-level digital signage, industrial computing, low-power industrial computing, automation, transportation, entry-level and mobile POI/POS/kiosks and any kind of battery or PoE operated X86 computing device.

Qseven modules provide the main functional requirements for an embedded application, including graphics, audio, storage, networking and multiple USB ports. Designers can utilise as many or as few of the I/O interfaces as they need, so the carrier board will provide all the interface connectors necessary to connect the system to the application specific peripherals. This versatility allows the design to be optimised, increasing reliability while simplifying system integration. Pin-outs are based on a vendor-independent, high speed, ruggedised and well-proven MXM system connector which carries all the I/O signals to and from the module.

And of course, Qseven retains one of the key benefits of all COMs: applications are scalable, so that once a product has been created it is not ‘set in stone’ forever — there is the ability to diversify the product range through the use of different performance Qseven modules. Upgrading should simply be a matter of unplugging one module and replacing it with another, with no redesign.

Qseven’s total power is limited to 12W but more importantly the supply voltage is 5V enabling a mobile device to be run efficiently using only two lithium cells. Complementing this, new functions that have been added include CAN, SPI, and Card SDIO interfaces to ensure maximum flexibility for mobile applications. On board graphics support LVDS and SDVO (shared with HDMI/Display Port). However, Qseven does not support PEG or 32-bit PCI bus. LPC is supported for legacy designs.

It is important to mention that Qseven is not limited just to the X86 platform; the latest versions support ARM as well, and other emerging CPU/GPU solutions. A very useful new feature is a common software API for industrial applications that enables features such as watchdog timer, I²C Bus, display brightness control, BIOS storage area and reading of system temperatures to be included. This also facilitates boards from different manufacturers to be used without software modifications.

congatec has been involved with COMs right from the beginning and now offers a wide range of technologies, including Qseven modules. congatec understands how important it is that in an embedded module system both the customer’s baseboard and the embedded PC work together perfectly. There are many aspects customers must consider when designing an embedded module system to ensure optimum performance. The company is also able to advise on other vital system issues such as software and drivers, display interfacing and bios.

Although it is still actively developing many Intel X86–based modules, congatec is one of the first manufacturers to deliver Qseven COM products using AMD’s new Embedded G-Series platform with Fusion technology; a completely new type of processor architecture for the embedded market, combining the computing power of processors and graphics cores into one compact package. Users benefit from a high CPU and graphics performance, an excellent performance-per-Watt ratio and flexible task allocation on the CPU and GPU.

Until now, the graphics performance of embedded solutions increased proportionally to CPU performance. Simply, if a greater graphics capability was required, the CPU had to be clocked correspondingly. Yet this dependency is not intrinsically linked: the more tasks the GPU takes on, the less the CPU has to do. So in theory, if the GPU is more powerful, the CPU could be clocked down. However, this has previously been a somewhat irrelevant discussion since more performance is usually required from both GPU and CPU.

Individually increasing the performance of CPU and GPU makes even less sense now; hence, in the Embedded G-Series platform, AMD has combined both technologies into one package. Now, an extremely high-performing graphics core with a broadly scalable processor performance is available to users — for COM makers the exciting news is that this is achievable using an extremely compact footprint of only 19mm x 19mm. Fusion also goes beyond merely a ‘fusion’ of the hardware: the APU combines the serial computing power of the processor core with the parallel computing power of the graphics card. This means that the graphics core can relieve the processor cores during parallel tasks and thus increase the total performance of the system far beyond what was previously possible.

The positioning of the Fusion technology is not only suitable for special applications; with a broadly scalable performance, from economic single core variants with 1.2GHz to variants with 2 x 1.6GHz dual core processors, the G-Series platform covers around 80% of all application requirements in the embedded market.

congatec offers four standard Qseven COMs, including the conga-QAF based on the AMD Fusion technology and the conga-QMX6, a quad-core ARM module announced in February which will begin shipping in September. conga-QMX6 runs on Freescale’s new i.MX6 ARM Cortex A9 processor; its key benefits include broad scalability, long-term availability, an extended temperature range and, above all, power dissipation of less than 5W.