COM Express SBC tucks neatly into rugged shoeboxes
ProductMarch 29, 2011
Alice Moss
Military Embedded Systems
Chris A. Ciufo
General Micro Systems, Inc.
The trend in many military systems is a purpose-built box that fits the required space and I/O ports.
The trend in many military systems is a purpose-built box that fits the required space and I/O ports. This means that what’s inside the box is insignificant – and increasingly, COM Express is what’s so “insignificant.” One perfect example is congatec AG’s conga-CA6 COM Express Type 2 module, based upon Intel’s E6xx Atom and EG20 platform controller hub. Consuming only 5 W at 95 x 95 mm, the COM boasts low battery life and all-rugged components with long-life longevity.
There are four speed grades available for the Atom: 600 MHz, 1.0 GHz, 1.3 GHz, and 1.6 GHz. Each accesses up to 2 GB of directly soldered DDR2 SDRAM. The onboard graphics controller has a 256 MB frame buffer, and Intel has made it 50 percent faster on tasks like DirectX 9.0E, OpenGL 2.0, and MPEG-2/-4. Graphics output is via 24-bit LVDS or SDVO. Other onboard I/O includes 3 PCIe x1, 2x SATA, PCI, EIDE, GbE, High-Def audio, and 6 USB. congatec can equip the conga-CA6 with up to 32 GB of flash memory, accessed via the SATA interface.
