Blue Chip Announces New Intel Atom Board

“The Intel Atom has become a popular choice with embedded engineers because of its low power usage and impressive performance,” said Barry Husbands. “In this respect, this new board from Aaeon is a welcome addition to our own range of single board computers. I feel sure that its many impressive features and overall capabilities will be attractive to engineers looking for a new embedded platform for their next project.”

'Computer on Module' (COM) is a concept whereby a single board computer is split into two parts. A 'compact core module' containing all the components needed for a bootable host computer - processor, North bridge, South bridge, memory and Flash but without the standard connectors for any input/output peripherals. This COM is sold as an off-the-shelf entity and will have a standardised footprint and set of connectors that mate to an 'application specific carrier board' with the system IO and peripherals. The carrier board is capable of accepting any COM in that specific Computer On Module family of boards. Together, the COM and carrier board deliver the functionality of a single-board computer.

“The Computer on Module, COM, concept offers designers and manufacturers design freedom,” said Barry Husbands. “ It enables different products to share similar core modules or maybe, a single product to easily be upgraded. Adopting a COM approach to a range of intelligent devices can also help reduce costs, so it can be a powerful approach to embedded design.”