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Mini-ITX board with i3-330E CPU and a wide range of communication interfaces

5th September 2011

ES Admin

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Gleichmann Electronics now offers a cost-effective entry into the Intel iX world with the IX55HM Mini-ITX board from BCM. The IX55HM, which is available until at least 2017, is specifically for industrial applications where long-term availability of the components used is important.

The Mini-ITX board has a size of 17 x 17 cm (approximately 6.7 x 6.7 inches) and is equipped with an i3-330E at 2.13 GHz CPU, a HM55 chipset and up to 8 GB memory. The board already supports the new Standard Display Port and offers developers, among other things, multiple dual display functions: VGA + LVDS, VGA + DP, VGA + HDMI. For the panel control via LVDS, two dual channels with 24-bit resolution as well as a connection for the backlight control are available.

Beside four SATA II, two COM RS-232 and eight USB interfaces (four as sockets on the rear of the board and four as pin headers on the board), among other things, a PCI-E x16 (PEG & SDVO) and a MiniPCI-E connection for a flexible system extension - for example, the integration of a WLAN card - are also available to the user. Additionally, a parallel 8-bit General Purpose I/O (GPIO) interface with TTL level simplifies the communication with its own external components - for example, with sensors and actuators.

In addition to the status monitoring of voltage, cooling fan speed, CPU temperature (auto throttling control to protect the system against damage when a defined temperature limit is exceeded) and a Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE) interface for activating the board via Ethernet, among other things, a watchdog is integrated on the IX55HM, which checks the system and shuts it down if irregularities occur.

The IX55HM can be easily integrated in a network by means of two RJ45 sockets on the rear of the board. Also on the rear of the board are, among other things, the PS/2 sockets for mouse and keyboard as well as the line in, line out and mic in connections. In addition to Dolby Digital 5.1, the audio codec part of the IX55HM, based on a Realtek ALC888, provides 2 channels for streaming in high definition (HD) quality.

The supply voltage for the board is provided by a standard 20-pin ATX power supply connector and a 4-pin 12 V connector. Depending on the energy saving mode used, the current consumption is less than 19 W. A 3-step fan control ensures low noise levels.