Boards embed advantages of PCI and PCI Express

Unveiled at Embedded World by Kontron Embedded Modules Pisa Express is a new CPU slot card concept that implements both PCI and PCI Express via a single half-size slot.

Kontron Embedded Modules is releasing a new CPU slot card concept called Pisa Express at Embedded World.

The new concept implements both PCI and PCI Express via a single half-size slot.

As with the successful ISA and PCI Pisa standard, which was developed by Kontron in 1996 and has found numerous supporters, the gap between proven, established and new high-performance expansion assemblies is bridged using a minimum of slot space.

In the classic format, this would require full-size slot assemblies.

Pisa Express is thus ideal for the development of space-saving embedded systems that need fast PCI Express performance, but cannot do without proven PCI I/O assemblies.

Moreover, the CPU board sits much more firmly in the slot thanks to the two-level interface, and so is more resistant to vibration.

The open specification, freely available at no cost, will be ready for download from www.Pisa-express.com as of Q2, 2005.

As with Pisa, other companies are invited to participate in this market with Pisa Express.

Pisa Express boards communicate via a 360-pin standardised slot with a maximum of two PCIe x1 slots, one PCIe x4 slot, one PCIe x16 slot, three PCI slots, as well as with one LPC bus and two Express cards.

Furthermore, the power supply for the expansion assemblies is also provided via the slot in accordance with ATX and BTX standards.

The first Pisa Express-compatible CPU slot board from Kontron will carry the product family name Raptor and will be equipped with a 1.8GHz Intel Pentium M 745 or 1.0GHz Intel ULV Celeron M 373 processor, as well as the Intel 915/ICH6 chipset, along with a 533MHz processor bus.

Besides the wide variety of Pisa Express expansion interfaces, it also boasts a number of attractive onboard features: communication is controlled via two gigabit Ethernet interfaces, three USB 2.0 ports, sound, four serial and one parallel port, as well as PS2 keyboard and mouse.

Up to three internal hard drives can be connected via two serial and one parallel ATA interfaces.

A third SATA pin out for external storage media is also available.

Monitors can be connected via both DVI A and D and JILI.

A DDR/DDR2 SDRAM slot is available for RAM as needed.

As a product family, all Raptor assemblies will have an identical pinout, not only on the slot, but also with the most important standard interfaces on the boards.

This simplifies upgrading within the newly created Pisa Express slot PC line.

Moreover, the board processors are not simply plugged in, but firmly soldered, so that Raptor is designed for even the harshest industrial applications.

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