Single-board computer resists obsolescence

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Jul 19, 2002

The modular design of Inova's ICP-PIII-6U single-board computer provides an "all in one" automation engine with close to a future-proof design for the OEM.

The modular design of Inova's ICP-PIII-6U single-board computer provides an "all in one" automation engine with close to a future-proof design for the OEM.

A 6U-format CompactPCI SBC, it incorporates an innovative interposer module that accepts a wide range of microprocessors, complemented by extensive and expandable communications, networking and I/O capabilities.

The ICP-PIII-6U's interposer module accepts Socket 370 CPUs, from Intel's pure FCPGA PIII CPUs to mobile variants in a BGA2 housing, offering wide scalability in performance (400MHz to 1.2GHz) as well as in power dissipation.

The board can also be configured with dual Ethernet interfaces, dual FireWire (IEEE 1394a) interfaces, dual USB interfaces and dual EIDE interfaces, as well as mouse and keyboard connections, a front-panel COM port and, optionally, an LPT interface.

For optimal system integration, various optional configurations are available with different peripheral connections brought out to the J2 or J3 CompactPCI connector.

For even more flexibility, the ICP-PIII-6U SBC features two expansion sites that accommodate, depending on configuration, one fieldbus module, two fieldbus modules or one standard PMC module.

This enables various communications standards or specialised I/O to be supported on the baseboard, including Profibus DP, Interbus S, and CAN (DeviceNet, CANOpen).

The SBC also has built-in SXGA+ graphics capabilities, based on the ATI Radeon-VE graphics accelerator chip, providing a wide range of multimedia functions such as MPEG-2 hardware decoding.

Graphics output is available through a conventional analogue VGA connector for short-range connections or, for the long haul, through a digital interface piggyback board that adds either a DVI (digital visual interface) interface (for up to 5m) or GigaSTaR interface (for up to 50m).

Additionally, the ICP-PIII-6U provides space-efficient mounting for a choice of a 2.5in hard disk drive, EIDE Flash memory or CompactFlash.

It's available with soldered base memory configurations of up to 256Mbyte of ECC DRAM, while accommodating up to an additional 256Mbyte of socketed memory.

The SBC comes equipped with a Phoenix BIOS that has an extensive feature set, including legacy USB support, green functions, ACPI and programmable watchdog functions.

The BIOS is available in source code for easy OEM adaptation.

An additional backup BIOS is incorporated into flash memory on the board for problem-free recovery in case of corruption due to human error or faulty BIOS field updates.

The ICP-PIII-6U is available in standard (0 to 70C) and extended (-40 to +85C) temperature ranges.

Driver support is available for the Windows operating systems, Linux, QNX, VxWorks and OS9.

For problem-free construction of multiprocessor systems, the ICP-PIII-6U can be configured with a special PCI bridge that allows it to function as a slave CPU.

The design of multiprocessor applications is facilitated by a universal OS-independent TCP/IP backplane driver, which supports different operating systems in the same multiprocessor system.

Proprietary drivers are unnecessary.

The ICP-PIII-6U is backwards compatible with Inova's Super Socket 7 CPU products in the 6U format, enabling full scalability from 166 MHz AMD K boards with only 6W power dissipation up to the 1.2 GHz ICP-PIII-6U.

The ICP-PIII-6U comes with a three-year limited warranty.

In-house series manufacturing per DIN ISO 9001, standardised tests plus comprehensive burn-in testing with numerous temperature cycles ensure superior quality and high reliability.

Suitable for industrial automation, military/aerospace, medical, imaging, telecommunications and other rigorous embedded applications, the ICP-PIII-6U has an entry-level price tag starting at $1350 in OEM quantities, and it's available for delivery 4 to 6 weeks ARO.

A PDF version of the full datasheet for this product is available on the company's website.