The New
HERCULES
III
Ruggedized SBC for mobile and
harsh environment applications!
CPU Features
♦ 1.6GHz Intel Atom E680T CPU
♦ 1 GB or 2GB soldered memory
♦ 4 RS-232/422/485 + 2 RS-232
♦ 6 USB, 1 CAN
♦ 2 Gigabit Ethernet, 1 SATA
♦ LVDS and VGA support
♦ HDA audio with power
amplifier
High quality, rugged
performance, affordable price.
Data Acquisition Features
♦ 32 channel 16-bit A/D, 250KHz
♦ Bipolar and unipolar input
ranges
♦ 4 channel 12-bit D/A
♦ Autocalibration of A/D and D/A
Additional Features
♦ +7-40V VDC power supply
♦ PCIe MiniCard socket
♦ 2 24-bit counter/timers
♦ mSATA socket for up to 64GB
SLC SSD
♦ 40 digital I/O lines
♦ GPS socket
♦ 4 PWM outputs
♦ PC/104-Plus (ISA + PCI)
expansion
♦ Supported by Universal Driver
7.0 for Windows 7 and Linux
♦ High resistance to shock &
vibration
♦ EBX form factor 5.75”x 8.00”
♦ 50% thicker PCB for increased
ruggedness
♦ Backward compatible with
Hercules II for long life support
♦ -40°C to +85°C operating temp
w w w. d iamo nd systems. com
© 2013, Diamond Systems Corp., PC/104™ is a trademark of the PC/104 Consortium.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc.
High-End Performance Meets Low-Power
Gigabit Ethernet
Solid State Disk
2 USB 2.0
COM 2 & 4
DisplayPort
(DP++)
COM 1 & 3
VGA
Advanced Digital I/O
2 USB 2.0
Utility Port 2.0
1 USB 2.0
Speaker
Battery
Reset
Power
Gigabit Ethernet
Stackable PCI Express Connector
CMX32GSS1000
Power
AMD Fusion G-Series
PCIe/104 & PCI/104-Express cpuModules
Bus Structure
PCIe/104
Part Number
CMX34GSS615
–40 to +85°C Operation
Speed
SDRAM
SSD
Max
SATA
Ports
PCIe
x1
GigE
USB
2.0
615 MHz
2 GB
32 GB
4
6
2
9
Serial aDIO™ SVGA
4
14
1
DP++
HD
Audio
Power
1
1
9.0 W
PCIe/104
CMX34GSS1000
1.0 GHz
2 GB
32 GB
4
6
2
9
4
14
1
1
1
9.5 W
PCI/104-Express
CMA24GSS615
615 MHz
2 GB
32 GB
4
7
1
7
4
14
1
1
1
8.5 W
PCI/104-Express
CMA24GSS1000
1.0 GHz
2 GB
32 GB
4
7
1
7
4
14
1
1
1
9.0 W
PCBs fabricated to IPC 6012 Class 3 Standards. Visit www.rtd.com/gseries for full datasheets.
Stackable, rugged enclosures are available
for RTD’s complete line of products.
PCIe, PCI, and ISA Experts
Design, Engineering, Manufacturing & Tech Support
www.rtd.com
AS9100 and ISO 9001 Certified
GSA Contract Holder
Copyright © 2013 RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.
RTD is a co-founder of the PC/104 Consortium and an AS9100 and ISO9001 Certified Company.
All trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective companies.
AMD Fusion G-Series Single-Core & Dual-Core SBCs
sales@rtd.com
w w w. s m a l l f o r m f a c t o r s .c o m
w w w. p c10 4 o n l i n e.c o m
ON THE COVER:
There is big potential for embedded
in the healthcare market and
enough small form factors to match
the demand. The Summer Issue
of PC/104 takes a look at how the
Qseven standard is gearing up for
mobile operation, and how PC/104
has moved out of industrial and
into mainstream medical.
Volume 17 • Number 2
Features
IT'S A SMALL (FORM FACTOR) WORLD
Medical systems
Qseven COMs take
healthcare mobile
Columns
10
Small matters
SFFs and the scope of medical demands
By Brandon Lewis
By Brandon Lewis
SFF-SIG
PC/104 stacks up against
COMs for next-gen medical
applications
10
16
By Jonathan Miller,
Diamond Systems Corporation
20
20
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Summer 2013
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PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide
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By Brandon Lewis
THE BIG YET SMALL PICTURE
ISA bus: still going
strong in PC/104
Medical and industrial I/O gets
Pico-sized
Editor’s Choice Products
Interview with
J.C. Ramirez and George Ruano,
ADL Embedded Solutions Inc.
Low power
7
High-end Graphics Performance for Low-power
Small-Form-Factor (SFF) Designs
By Kontron
www.embedded-computing.com/articles/id/?6028
PC/104 and Small Form Factors
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So advanced, it’s out of this world
19
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18
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Qualified to perform
3
RTD Embedded Technologies,
Inc. – High-end performance
meets low-power
12-13 RTD Embedded Technologies,
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ISA experts
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small MATTERS
By Brandon Lewis
SFFs and the scope of medical demands
At SMART TECHnology World 2013,
Mario Morales of International Data
Corporation (IDC) shared a projection
that there will be 4 million intelligent
systems operating in the healthcare
segment by 2016. That figure was dead
last in a field that included numbers
for retail, industrial, transportation,
and other verticals, but rather than
an obstacle, Morales viewed it as an
opportunity (Figure 1). “Doctors need
more mobility and remote access to
your data because keeping you in the
hospital is expensive,” he said. “There
is a lot of regulation and a lot of cost in
the medical space, and it is primed for
disruption.”
Of course, the current medical systems
market consists of much more than
connected intelligent devices. From
patient monitors to medical scanners
to analysis equipment, embedded computing platforms can play a role from the
ambulance to the lab and everywhere in
between. However, a few factors have
limited SFFs in healthcare:
❚❚ Low volume – Medical systems
typically do not ship in consumer
volumes, and are often limited
to quantities in the hundreds or
low thousands. This makes Bill Of
Materials (BOM) costs and Return
On Investment (ROI) considerations
all the more critical.
❚❚ Legacy – Most SFFs come from
legacy environments outside the
medical space, with standards
like PC/104 originating in
industrial/military applications
and COM Express seeing initial
successes in consumer and
retail settings.
❚❚ Regulatory compliance –
As an extension of their legacy
backgrounds, many standard SFFs
were not originally developed
Figure 1 | IDC projects 4 million intelligent systems will operate in the healthcare
industry by 2016. This data was originally presented at the SMART TECHnology
World 2013 conference in Menlo Park, CA.
to meet some of the strict
compliance and certification
requirements of healthcare
systems. On the hardware side,
some of these standards include
ISO 13485, ISO 14971, IEC 62366,
and IEC 60601, while standards
like IEC 62304 govern software
quality and processes.
On the other hand, there are also reasons to be optimistic about the future
of SFFs in healthcare. One is that
Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) SFFs
are an obvious solution for the long
lifecycles typical of medical systems, as
an ecosystem of providers ensure longterm product support. A second bright
spot for SFFs is that they are ideally
suited for portable systems, and there is
no reason to think that medical applications will not evolve mobility in the same
way so many other verticals have. Finally,
the diversity of medical applications is a
form, fit, and function match for an SFF
market full of sizes, shapes, and options.
The summer issue of PC/104 and Small
Form Factors considers the previously
mentioned challenges and benefits of
SFFs in medical, with industry perspectives on PC/104 and an examination of
developments in Qseven ComputersOn-Module (COMs). In addition, our
Low Power feature on page 20 reviews
the ISA bus that was defined in the
original PC/104 specification, and how
it is still going strong after more than
30 years.
I hope that what follows is informative,
useful, and, where it can be, enter­tain­ing. Good luck in your design choices
and product selections, and feel free to
drop me a line.
Brandon Lewis
Associate Editor
blewis@opensystemsmedia.com
PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide
y
Summer 2013
y 7
Small Form Factor
www.sff-sig.org
SIG
By Alexander Lochinger, SFF-SIG President
Medical and industrial I/O gets Pico-sized
Medical and industrial instrument manufacturers have a very
reasonable expectation for an ecosystem of off-the-shelf I/O
cards in smaller form factors than ever before. Many generations of semiconductor geometry shrinks have yielded not only
high-performance processors and SoCs in smaller packages,
but also FPGAs and A/D chips at a fraction of their previous
sizes and power consumptions. Why should tiny new Intel Atom,
AMD G-series, VIA Nano, and Freescale i.MX ARM processors
be paired up with bulky desktop I/O slot cards or s­ tackable
form factors from 20 years ago?
To address such a need for smaller industrial I/O modules, the
Small Form Factor Special Interest Group (SFF-SIG) created
the Pico-I/O form factor. At a mere 60 mm x 72 mm, Pico-I/O
modules are half the size and weight of the next smallest stackable I/O standard. Pico-I/O is also the logical choice for custom
SBCs when OEMs prefer several side-by-side mezzanine I/O
card sites rather than a tall stack of cards for thin and light
portable instruments.
I/O goes Pico-sized
Smaller chips benefit I/O module designers in two ways.
More features (such as A/D channels and serial ports) can be
squeezed into existing large I/O cards, or alternatively the same
feature set can fit easily into smaller I/O form factors. The latter
is the breakthrough achieved by the Pico-I/O standard.
I/O cards typically use pin header connectors to conserve
board space and give flexible cabling options to the device
OEM. Flexibility includes the number of ports to cable to the
outside of the enclosure, the types of connector on the outside
end of the cables, cable length (for ease of system assembly),
and stress relief from the external connectors to the internal
­circuit boards. Conversely, I/O cards with external connectors
soldered to them cannot prevent shock generated by rough
usage from being coupled directly to the circuit boards, which
in turn transfers stress to internal connectors and IC solder
joints (by flexing the circuit boards).
The Samtec QFS/QMS board-to-board mated connectors used
on Pico-I/O are designed for high reliability and harsh environments. The connectors feature durable contacts that “wipe”
during insertion, form air-tight connections, and have strong
retention forces by design. This is in contrast to card-edge
­“fingers” with thin gold plating that can rub off during usage.
Center ground blades in both the QFS and QMS connectors not
only help maintain the characteristic impedances of high-speed
8 y
Summer 2013
y
PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide
Figure 1 | ACCES I/O’s PICO-DIO16RO8, shown plugged
into a small SBC, is an example of the tiny Pico-I/O modules
available on the market.
signals as they pass through the connector, they also keep EMI
at bay and provide a low-resistance, low-inductance ground
return path for medical and industrial I/O.
To each I/O, its own bus
High-speed I/O cannot marry up to a low-speed bus. Lowspeed I/O can be attached to high-speed buses like PCI Express
(PCIe) through bus bridges, but this approach comes with high
costs, power consumption, and unnecessary complication to
device drivers and firmware (BIOS for x86, for example). A
“right-size” approach is to attach high-speed I/O to PCIe and
USB, and low-speed I/O directly to SPI and I2C buses. As an
example, many small A/D chips come with native SPI interfaces.
Pico-I/O implements the SUMIT “multi-bus,” which supports all
of these buses in a single connector (the Samtec QMS/QFS),
unlike one-size-fits-all single-bus sockets and slots. According
to what the desired Pico-I/O modules have implemented, the
custom SBC simply routes PCIe, USB, I2C, and/or SPI interfaces
from the SoC or chipset to the Pico-I/O modules by way of
SUMIT. Available modules contain analog input, analog output,
TTL I/O, isolated inputs, electromechanical relay outputs, FET
outputs, counter/timers, and RS-232/422/485 serial ports.
Figure 1 shows an example of a Pico-I/O module plugged into
a tiny 100 mm x 72 mm x86 SBC.
The Pico-I/O specification is a free and open document available without license fees, royalties, or web solicitation/mailing
list forms to fill out. It can be downloaded from www.sff-sig.org.
Small Form Factor Special Interest Group
(408) 480-7900 | info@sff-sig.org
EDITOR’S CHOICE
Editor’s Choice
4th generation Intel Core COM Express module advances
performance and displays for medical, retail apps
Engineers at American Portwell Technology, Inc., in Fremont, CA, wasted little time on their
4th generation Intel Core offerings, and have introduced the PCOM-B630VG Type 6 COM Express
module for medical systems that require accurate responses and high performance. Based on quadcore Intel Core i5/i7 processors and the Mobile Intel QM87 Express chipset, the 125 mm x 95 mm
“Basic” module is equipped with Intel Turbo Boost, Intel vPro, and Intel Hyper-Threading technologies
for fast, multi-threaded processing performance and remote functionality in next-generation
healthcare applications. In addition to new security features, the backwards-compatible COM also
supports 16 GB ECC DDR3L 1333/1600 MTps SDRAM via two 204-pin SODIMM sockets.
Video applications will benefit from the x16 PCI Express Gen3 expansion interface, which is capable of 8 GTps and can be alternatively
configured as 2 x8-lane or 1 x8-lane and 2 x4-lane connections. The PCOM-B630VG is also capable of driving three independent displays via
DisplayPort, HDMI, or DVI and VGA interfaces, making it applicable in retail and digital signage systems as well. The PCOM-B630VG is available
through American Portwell Technology, Arrow Electronics, and Avnet.
American Portwell Technology, Inc. | www.portwell.com | www.smallformfactors.com/p9913172
LynxOS 7.0 adds real-time security to the world of
connected devices
As connectivity moves from the exception to the rule, securing embedded devices from cyber
threats is increasingly critical. Realizing the need for individual device protection, software developers
at LynuxWorks have integrated military-grade security into version 7.0 of the LynxOS Real-Time
Operating System (RTOS). LynxOS 7.0 provides POSIX-conformant APIs like the General-Purpose Operating System Protection Profile (GPOSPP),
which provides medium-assurance security to connected embedded devices. Also added in version 7.0 are security features like access control lists,
account management, local trusted path, OpenPAM, and a trusted manager menu to ensure device integrity.
In addition to symmetric multiprocessing support for both PowerPC and Intel architectures, LynxOS 7.0 provides networking features
and carries communication stacks for TCP/IPV4, IPV6, 2G/3G/4G cellular, and WiMax for long-haul networks, and 802.11 WiFi, ZigBee, and
Bluetooth for short-haul networks. This makes LynxOS 7.0 a secure selection for any connected application, from industrial Machine-to-Machine
(M2M) communications to medical patient monitoring. Board Support Packages (BSPs) for LynxOS 7.0 are available on select targets from
GE Intelligent Platforms, Curtiss-Wright, and Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES).
LynuxWorks | www.lynuxworks.com | www.smallformfactors.com/p9913012
Freescale MCU and transceiver chipset put radar and autonomy
on wheels
With the progression from human drivers to driver assistance to driverless cars, engineers at
Freescale Semiconductor developed the Qorivva MPC577xK Microcontroller (MCU) and MRD2001
77 GHz radar transceiver chipset to add a little extra to Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADASs).
Based on Power Architecture technology, the Qorivva MCU packs analog and digital functionality
into a single chip to minimize PCB components and reduce cost. The MPC577xK features integrated
digital accelerators and an advanced signal processing toolbox, providing all of hardware necessary
for short-, mid-, and long-range radar needed in collision avoidance systems.
The low-power MRD2001 77 GHz radar transceiver chipset features excellent Voltage-Controlled
Oscillator (VCO) phase noise and uses simultaneous active channels to support fast modulation for
clear spatial resolution and detection accuracy in ADAS systems. Scalable to 4 TX channels and 12 RX channels, the MRD2001 also features
advanced packaging technology that provides reduced insertion loss and parasitic frequencies of up to 100 GHz. Together, the Qorivva MPC577xK
Microcontroller (MCU) and MRD2001 77 GHz radar transceiver chipset can be equipped in low- or high-end solutions for frontal radar applications
like adaptive cruise control and autonomous emergency braking. Freescale has sample quantities of the Qorivva MPC577xK Microcontroller (MCU)
and MRD2001 77 GHz radar transceiver chipset on hand.
Freescale Semiconductor | www.freescale.com | www.smallformfactors.com/p9913174
PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide
y
Summer 2013
y 9
IT'S A SMALL (FORM FACTOR) WORLD
IT'S A SMALL (FORM FACTOR) WORLD
Medical systems
Qseven COMs
take healthcare mobile
By Brandon Lewis
Increasing numbers of patients, shrinking numbers of physicians, and rising costs are
pushing the medical field further into the age of telehealth. Unlike traditional clinical platforms,
however, telemedicine demands portability, flexibility, and long lifecycle support from
Small Form Factor (SFF) technologies. Targeted at low-power mobile applications, Revision 2.0
of the Qseven Computer-On-Module (COM) specification added support for ARM CPUs and
defined a “micro” form factor, making it good Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) medicine
for next-generation telehealth systems.
Go to doctor’s office.
Wait. See Primary Care
Physician. Get tested.
Wait. Get referred to
specialist. Get retested.
Wait. Get referred to
another specialist. Wait.
See how much insurance
covers. Pay accordingly.
This is just one example of why telehealth strategies are poised to revolutionize medicine. Telehealth not only
provides quick access to specialists,
but can also remotely monitor patients
and reduce clinical expenses. Many of
the systems needed to realize these
benefits will operate on the edge, and
10 y
Summer 2013
y
require technology with the portability
and price point of commercial mobile
platforms, as well as the flexibility to
perform multiple functions securely and
in real time. All of this must be provided
in a package that can meet the rigors of
certification and scale over long lifecycle
deployments.
“If it is a mobile application with low
to medium computing performance
requirements, then Qseven is the right
choice,” says Christian Eder, Marketing Manager at congatec AG headquartered in Deggendorf, Germany
(www.congatec.com). “Medical systems
typically require special functionalities
such as ultrasonic control or high levels
PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide
of isolation in order to protect patients
in case of a malfunction. Standard SBCs
typically do not feature that. The l­ogical
consequence is to create a custom
­car­rier board that takes all specific functionalities and complete it with a standard COM. Once this combination is
certified, it is quite easy to upgrade or
scale to other CPUs while the certification remains or just needs to be updated.
This provides a lot of freedom to choose
the best-fitting CPU and graphics for a
given application.”
“Qseven was defined from scratch for
mobile and carries no old legacy interfaces,” Eder continues. “The maximum
power consumption for Qseven is
TS-4710
High End CPU Module
pricing starts at
138 qty 100
155 qty 10
TS-4710
shown mounted
on TS-8160 baseboard
with PC/104 bus
TS-4710 Features
Up to 1066MHz CPU w/ 512MB RAM
User-Programmable 8K LUT FPGA
Figure 1 | Revision 2 of the Qseven specification defined the 70 mm x 40 mm
µQseven form factor, which is nearly half the size of the original 70 mm x 70 mm
Qseven module.
Boots Linux in under a half second
Robust DoubleStore Flash storage
LCD video output up to WUXGA
USB2, Ethernet, PCIE, SPI, 6 UARTS
defined at 12 W – the first definition for
COM Express defined a 188 W maximum – this example clearly shows the
thinking behind the specification.”
Qseven supports power management
features and requires only a 5 V power
supply, making it well suited for batteryrun applications. Recent updates to the
specification also introduced a reduced
form factor module and extended support for mobile processors, increasing
the specification’s viability for lowpower, portable applications.
“Revision 2 of the Qseven specification
allows for even smaller modules, taking
into account the future will bring more
highly integrated, powerful single-chip
CPUs,” Eder says. “The 70 mm x 40 mm
µQseven is about half the size of the
regular Qseven (Figure 1). With support
for USB 3.0, it is possible to get a really
fast transfer rate to mobile devices. The
major improvement with Revision 2 is
full support of ARM CPUs to allow the
mixed use of x86 and ARM modules with
the same carrier board.”
Qseven scalability
The ability to transition between x86 and
ARM processors is critical for low-volume
medical applications because a single
­carrier board – often the most costly
component of a COM architecture – can
suit the needs of both graphics-intensive
systems and platforms that require more
mobility and lower power. In addition
to reducing Time-To-Market (TTM),
this decreases Bill Of Materials (BOM)
costs and eases Board Support Package
(BSP) implementation, says Christoph
Budelmann, General Manager, Budelmann
Elektronik GmbH in Münster, Germany
(www.budelmann-elektronik.com).
“Scalability is a key factor, especially for
lower volumes, and the Qseven standard offers the possibility to use the
same baseboard with different processors depending on the user’s needs,”
Budelmann says. “Some users only
need a small control unit and prefer a
simple ARM processor, whereas other
customers want to implement large
screens and need the graphical power
of an x86 system. Of course, this can
also be the case in medical applications. Even if the baseboard has to be
adapted to very special demands, this
is less complex than switching from a
pure ARM platform to an x86 platform
or vice versa. In the majority of cases,
only some drivers, such as Ethernet PHY,
have to be exchanged whereas the
real application software can remain
the same.”
“It might sound curious, but maybe the
most important part of a COM is a good
software support,” Budelmann continues. “The best hardware is useless if
there is no BSP, or if the supported software is outdated. Writing the BSP on
Touch Panels available
Other TS-SOCKET CPUs
TS-4200: Atmel ARM9, super low power
TS-4600: 450MHz at very low cost
TS-4712: like TS-4710 + 2 ethernets
TS-4800: 800MHz iMX515 with video
TS-SOCKET Benefits
Simplifies custom embedded systems
Rapid design process with CPU Cores
COTS development boards available
Design your own baseboard or
use our design services
Interchangeable for future upgrades
Design your solution with
one of our engineers
Over 25 years in business
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IT'S A SMALL (FORM FACTOR) WORLD
your own is normally too expensive and
time consuming, so users should regard
this important point when identifying
and evaluating new COMs.”
Qseven (software) support
“Bringing up an Android or Linux BSP is
non trivial,” says Ravi Kodavarti, Senior
Director of Business Development and
Strategy at Inforce Computing, Inc. in
Fremont, CA (www.inforcecomputing.
com). “Say our application has a 6440
carrier board, and on top of it we put a
Qseven COM (Figure 2). However, Wi-Fi
is really on the COM and the GPS chip
is on the COM as well. These are welltested interfaces not just from a hardware standpoint but also from a software
standpoint, and writing these drivers
and bringing these up is a pain. Every
time you want to do that on a custom
board, it is reinventing the work.”
“Qseven does make it easier to design
with because bringing up an Android
system is not easy, contrary to popular
opinion. Everybody has an Android
system but those also drive a significant
amount of volume in mobile and they
put a lot of investment and people to
Figure 2 | The IFC6400 is a
Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Probased Qseven module that supports
Android and Linux OSs.
make that happen. You cannot really
do that in other spaces. Bringing up
a stable platform is very important,
and just having that modular architecture makes it so you do not really have
to go and change things around too
much.”
The Qseven specification supports
Windows Embedded, Linux, and other
Real-Time Operating Systems (RTOSs) on
x-86 modules, and Windows Embedded
and Linux for ARM. Although Windows
initially drove medical segment, some
users now prefer Android OSs because
they can create custom apps, it is easy
to find Android developers, there are no
licensing fees, Kodavarti adds.
Qseven sustains
Removing legacy I/O and tracking
advances in mobile technology have
positioned Qseven to provide the long
lifecycle support that telehealth systems demand. In an SFF market full
of options, this will be critical to the
platform’s success.
“Due to the fact that medical is looking
for long-term support because of very
long lifecycles, the Q7 form factor has
found a good niche in the industry,”
says Fabio Lanini, USUK Area Manager at SECO srl out of Arezzo, Italy
(www.seco.com). “It provides long-term
support and flexibility so that customers
can move forward with different solutions or processor architectures based
on their long-term needs. With the
Qseven form factor we have a lot of
potential.”
14 y
Summer 2013
y
PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide
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IT'S A SMALL (FORM FACTOR) WORLD
Q & A
IT'S A SMALL (FORM FACTOR) WORLD
Medical systems
PC/104 stacks up
against COMs for
next-gen medical
applications
Interview with J.C. Ramirez and George Ruano, ADL Embedded Solutions Inc.
Just as the Small Form Factor (SFF) market provides a wide range of options for
medical system designers, the health field offers an array of applications for SFFs. As
J.C. Ramirez and George Ruano of ADL Embedded Solutions Inc. explain, the medical
successes of SFF technologies to-date may be attributed to their legacy heritage, but
that is not keeping established standards sowing new seeds. Edited excerpts follow.
SFF: How does PC/104 stack up
against COMs in the medical space?
RAMIREZ: A lot of PC/104 applications
have tended to be focused on the laboratory side, so we have not really been in
the mobile, portable, battery-operated
monitor side of things; we have been in
the back room doing ophthalmology,
scanning, image processing, blood analyzing – that type of heavy-duty application. I think some of this maybe derives
from the legacy applications that our
various form factors have come from.
COM Express has traditionally been a
controlled environment, ambient room
temperature type of form factor and
it spread a lot from there. A lot of its
early success was in casino gaming and
Point Of Sale (POS) systems. PC/104
comes from a more rugged, extended
temperature, military/industrial background, so we are coming into this
middle space, as I will call it, from
different directions.
The advantage of PC/104 for the lab
applications I mentioned – to the extent
that instrumentation is not a mass volume
type of segment – is that they are selling
in the hundreds; they are not selling in the
thousands. A lot of the quick-to-market
advantages that PC/104 brings to that
space make it a powerful technology.
COM Express, and COMs in almost all
16 y
Summer 2013
y
Your average COM module with a carrier card
is really just a two-board stack – there is no difference
in what PC/104 could equivalently do.
cases, requires that some sort of custom
carrier board be designed and built,
and your Return On Investment (ROI)
does not happen until you are several
thousands into that production run
volume wise.
To the extent that the volumes are
smaller, it is a lot easier to come to
market with a stackable solution where
you might be able to cobble your application together with a pretty big ecosystem of PC/104 peripherals. In a lot
of cases, like I was saying before about
COM Express, unless you are talking
thousands or tens of thousands, the
ROI is hard to come by – it is not cheap
to get these custom carrier boards
developed.
SFF: What are the benefits of
using PC/104 rather than a COM
architecture in medical applications?
RAMIREZ: One thing that I would mention architecturally is that we do not
see a whole lot of difference between
PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide
PC/104 and COM Express. It is really
a matter of perspective. If you look at
the average PC/104 board, Intel Atomwise you are talking 95 mm x 96 mm,
and an extended version of the PC/104
form factor is on the order of 95 mm x
115 mm. When you look at the “Basic”
COM Express module, which is about as
small as any of the COM manufacturers
are doing their Intel Core modules in,
those are 95 mm x 125 mm and they still
have to wrap a carrier board around it
to get all of the I/O connectivity that we
already have at 95 mm x 115 mm.
This whole idea of “yeah, but we can do a
custom carrier board to meet the custom
needs of the particular application,” well,
we play that game all the time – it is called
a custom peripheral card (Figure 1). We
have customers that are doing custom
peripheral cards for FPGA/DSP types
of applications, we have customers that
are doing custom I/O cards to address
Positive Train Control (PTC) types of
applications in transportation, and there
is no reason why that same concept does
not fly for any number of other fields,
including medical.
Your average COM module with a carrier
card is really just a two-board stack –
there is no difference in what PC/104
could equivalently do. Especially in the
early development stages of a product,
we probably have a broad enough portfolio of off-the-shelf peripheral cards that
if it does not exist as a two-card stack,
you could put a three- or four- or fivestack solution together that allows you
to quickly approve your product and get
it to market in the Phase 1 introduction
stage. A lot of customers will do exactly
that in Phase 1, but by Phase 2 they have
now collapsed those three or four peripherals to one custom peripheral card. Now
you are down to two cards and now you
are apples to apples with whatever the
COM guys want to do.
Where it gets a little bit confusing is that
people imagine that the average PC/104
stack has the CPU in the middle with
peripheral cards stacking up or down.
COM Express likes to tout the fact that,
“hey, wait a minute, that CPU in the
middle means that you have got to bring
that heat out sideways in some way,
shape, or form.” This certainly would
complicate the situation, but the vast
majority of PC/104 applications have
the CPU card attached directly to the
chassis wall and you are stacking your
peripherals away from it. It is no different
than putting that COM module directly
against the chassis wall with the I/O
carrier card stacked on top of it. Your I/O
card is my peripheral card.
SFF: What kind of processing
scalability does PC/104 provide,
particularly for some of the more
graphics-intensive applications in
the medical space?
RAMIREZ: Some of the early blood
analyzer applications that we were
doing were using AMD Geode LX800
processors and some of the low-power
Z510/530 Atom processors. The portfolio of processor choices in PC/104
runs the gamut from very-low-power
Atom Cedarview at 3.5 W Thermal
Design Power (TDP) all the way up to
25 W and 45 W Intel Core machines in
the new Ivy Bridge and 4th Generation
Figure 1 | The quad-core ADLQM67PC i7-2715QE PCIe/104 SBC can be combined
with a custom I/O card for secure IP mobile networking to create a two-card stack.
3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7/i5/i3 + QM77 chipset
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2 GbE with teaming function, Intel® iAMT 8.0
4 USB 3.0 + 3 USB 2.0 (x2 external, x1 internal)
2 CFast sockets, onboard SATA III
Rugged, up to -20C to +60C fanless operation
MXC-6300 Series
Ultra low power 32-bit ARM processor
Built-in Linux OS with GNU C/C++ compiler
Reliable 128-pin 2.0mm pin header
Compact 50x80 mm foot print
Extended wide temperature
M-9G45A
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PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide
y
Summer 2013
y 17
IT'S A SMALL (FORM FACTOR) WORLD
Intel Core architectures. So it really just
depends on the application: the more
I/O intensive it is, image processing
certainly pushes bandwidth a lot, and
the processing of that information consumes a lot of graphics and computing
power. So those kinds of applications
tend to go towards the Intel Core end
of the spectrum, but there are plenty
of smaller, less compute-intensive but
maybe graphics-oriented types of applications that lend themselves very well
to some of the current Cedarview offerings and future low-power Intel processors (Figure 2).
Figure 2 | The ADLN2000PC is a
PCIe/104 Type 2 module with a
maximum TDP of 3.5 W.
The 4th Generation Intel Core quadcore processors saw a lot of product
releases from any number of desktop
and mobile computing companies, but
in the background on the embedded
side, you saw the COM guys and the
PC/104 guys do press releases for their
products as well, so we are absolutely
keeping pace. And our bus specifications are keeping up with the processor
technology as well. You saw PC/104
release their PCI Express Gen3 specification earlier this year, and for all we
know that will continue.
SFF: Which of the PC/104 specifications is best suited for medical, or
does it vary across applications?
RAMIREZ: We have applications with
legacy ISA-type of I/O, so that would be
the PC/104-Plus specification. Some of
these applications have become more
graphics and computing intensive, and
architectures have moved over to the
PCI Express bus. In there you will find
form factors like PCI/104-Express and
PCIe-104.
SFF: You mentioned that some
applications are still using the ISA
bus. What is keeping legacy alive in
some medical equipment? [Editor’s
note: see page 20 for more on the
ISA bus.]
RUANO: When you are dealing with
patient-intensive types of products, it
is obviously Food and Drug Administration (FDA) certified and the certification
process is time intensive and money
intensive. That is one of the reasons
medical device manufacturers want to
stay with legacy as long as possible.
They do consider whether it is an
upgrade to an existing platform or a
change to something like PC/104. If
they are going to go through the effort
and the expense and are looking to
18 y
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PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide
next-generation platforms, in the case
of a lab system – it would consist of the
higher performance CPUs that we have
performed well in.
in Carlsbad, among others, where there are a variety of mundane or dangerous tasks
that can be automated in the medical field. When you localize the intelligence in that
functionality, that is where our strengths come into play. Where we can ruggedize a
high-performance platform right in that robotic, mobile application.
SFF: What consideration does ADL
take in terms of FDA-certification?
RAMIREZ: PC/104 will definitely have a presence in medical, but what form that
presence will take, I do not know. We will continue to make inroads into the lowpower, mobile, battery-operated types of applications. We have already made heavy
inroads into heavy instrumentation, both in patient rooms and in the laboratory.
What form will it take five years from now? I think we are going to see some pretty
interesting things.
RUANO: To support that particular effort
by the Original Equipment Manufacturers
(OEMs) we target our roadmap development to match products that are on the
Intel embedded roadmap, which lends a
longer product lifetime. When it comes
to our manufacturing we also offer the
opportunity to lock in particular revisions.
So both of those help the OEM as they
go through the certification process.
J.C. Ramirez is Product Marketing Manager at ADL Embedded Solutions Inc.
George Ruano is National Sales Manager at ADL Embedded Solutions Inc.
RAMIREZ: For companies like ADL,
we have a long tradition of doing military and defense and homeland ­security
types of applications, so this whole
idea of locking down Bill Of Materials
(BOMs) and Basic Input/Output System
(BIOS) revisions and hardware revisions
is nothing foreign. To the extent that this
matters to FDA-certified types of products in the medical space, it plays to
our strengths.
SFF: What will PC/104’s role be in
medicine in the next 5-10 years?
RAMIREZ: It is tough to say, but we are
seeing some very interesting futurelooking types of applications ourselves.
For example, there is a company in
Carlsbad, CA, that is working on robotics
applications in healthcare using a quadcore, second generation Intel Core
machine that is PC/104. They are
looking at funky applications like using
robots for patient transfer from room
to lab to wherever you have to get that
patient in the hospital. They are applying
UAV navigation technology, automobile
radar technology, and cobbling together
some of these future-generation technologies that are really pretty out there.
RUANO: That is part of this segment
that we are seeing that I believe is
exciting. We see it in the military segment where you are taking the human
element out of mundane and regular,
and maybe even dangerous types of
applications and functionalities. We see
that happening now with the company
PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide
y
Summer 2013
y 19
THE BIG YET SMALL PICTURE
Low power
ISA bus:
still going strong in PC/104
By Jonathan Miller
The ISA bus – the original bus used in PC/104 – is still going strong. In contrast to the
design challenges posed by PCIe and PCI, the ISA bus is extremely easy to design with,
making it not only possible to easily design your own I/O board, but also to purchase a wide
variety of I/O boards from vendors who also continue to benefit from the simplicity of ISA.
W
ith all the recent talk about
PCIe these days in embedded
systems, it is easy to forget
about the technology at the other end
of the scale: the venerable ISA bus, still
going strong after 30 years. Although
that may seem like an eternity in the
technology world, there are other technologies that have sustained popularity
despite age, such as RS-232. Dozens of
popular Integrated Circuits (ICs) are also
from the same vintage and continue to
be used in new designs today, including
voltage regulators, operational amplifiers (op amps), and 74xx logic ICs. As
they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
The secret to long life is simplicity: the
ISA bus is extremely easy to use. PCIe
20 y
Summer 2013
y
offers tremendous speed and space
saving advantages, yet its implementation requires extremely careful considerations in both the layout and fabrication
of Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs): the
traces must be laid out carefully in pairs,
their lengths match precisely to .005",
and distance maintained between them
and other signals on the board. Many
expansion buses even provide layout
guidelines describing precisely how the
signals must be routed on the board to
ensure correct operation.
When all is done, yet another challenge
remains in the physical implementation
of the PCB. Conversations back and
forth with the PCB fabrication house are
required to ensure proper impedance
PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide
characteristics are provided on the PCB
layers dedicated to the PCIe signals. An
error here can result in unreliable performance, requiring an expensive redesign
that also causes schedule delays. Even
when done properly, the implementation of PCIe consumes days of time in
PCB design and vendor discussions.
The PCI bus poses similar challenges
to designers. Its trace length matching
requirements are no simple feat when
dealing with 32 multiplexed Address/
Data lines snaking between multiple
high-density ICs on a densely laid out
board.
All of these factors apply just to the
PCB. While it is possible to purchase a
wide array of standard peripheral ICs
using PCIe as the host interface, many
embedded applications involve the
use of FPGAs. In order to use an FPGA
with PCIe, either a cost- and spaceconsuming bridge chip is required or
the FPGA must contain a “hard core”
SERDES interface to provide the link.
Only certain models of each vendor’s
product line include these SERDES
interfaces, and their prices are usually
significantly higher than non-SERDES
FPGAs. This core requires another
“soft core” pre-designed logic block
that takes up a significant share of the
FPGA’s available logic gates. Even then,
significant custom code development is
required to convert this soft core into
a platform for the designer’s actual
circuit.
Finally, there is system software to
consider. The use of PCI technologies requires the intervention of Basic
Input/Output System (BIOS) to scan the
bus, identify boards and their resource
requirements (in order to address block
sizes and Interrupt Requests (IRQs)), and
then assign address and IRQ settings to
the boards. The application software
must then use a driver that can access
this table of information to communicate
with the board.
Another limitation to remember is that
most PCI bus designs are limited to four
devices, meaning four I/O boards or four
peripheral chips. This is a problem for
applications that require a large amount
of I/O.
The simplicity of ISA
None of these challenges exist with the
ISA bus. At only 8 MHz base frequency
(although many implementations can run
at higher clock rates), it is extremely forgiving. Trace length matching and other
PCB layout concerns are completely
eliminated (Figure 1). In addition, ISA is
an asynchronous bus in which all operations are driven by the edge of a command signal. There is enough setup and
hold time designed into the timing that
a clock is not required in most cases, and
even sloppy designs have no problem
functioning correctly. The ISA bus layout
is essentially a game of “connect the
View from Top of Board
J2: PC/104 16-bit bus connector
Ground
MEMCS16IOCS16IRQ10
IRQ11
IRQ12
IRQ15
IRQ14
DACK0DRQ0
DACK5DRQ5
DACK6DRQ6
DACK7DRQ7
+5V
MASTERGround
Ground
D0
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Ground
SBHELA23
LA22
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LA17
MEMRMEMWSD8
SD9
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Key
J1: PC/104 8-bit bus connector
IOCHCHKSD7
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SD0
IOCHRDY
AEN
SA19
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Ground
A1
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Ground
RESET
+5V
IRQ9
-5V
DRQ2
-12V
0WS+12V
Key
SMEMWSMEMRIOWIORDACK3DRQ3
DACK1DRQ1
RefreshSYSCLK
IRQ7
IRQ6
IRQ5
IRQ4
IRQ3
DACK2TC
BALE
+5V
OSC
Ground
Ground
Figure 1 | The simplicity of the ISA bus removes PCB layout concerns.
dots” and can be completed in a matter
of hours by even a novice PCB designer.
PCB fabrication issues are nonexistent.
Even the lowest cost quick turn twolayer board can successfully produce
a reliable ISA bus design (this fact was
instrumental in the rapid rise of the
PC/104 industry). The number of boards
supported is limited only by the CPU
board’s signal drive capability; systems
with more than four I/O boards are
common and proven to be reliable.
There are few, if any, software issues
to overcome when using the ISA bus.
Boards have fixed addresses, and simple
I/O functions available in any programming language can be used to interface
with an ISA bus circuit.
For these reasons, applications that
require custom I/O but do not require
high bandwidth have found no benefit in
taking on the extra overhead and complexity of PCIe, and continued to use
the simple, tried and true ISA bus. This
is true not just for board merchants, but
also for customers who design their own
I/O boards because they have special
requirements that are not available offthe-shelf yet lack the time or expertise
to use more complex PCI technology.
ISA bus implementation
Several methods exist for provisioning
the ISA bus in a Single Board Computer
(SBC) today. Some low-cost processors,
such as the Vortex series from DMP, have
ISA buses integrated into the chip. No
design effort is required other than to
PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide
y
Summer 2013
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THE BIG YET SMALL PICTURE
connect your circuit directly to the pins
on the processor.
Most other processors contain either the
LPC bus, PCI bus, or one or more PCIe
lanes, enabling low-cost bridge chips to
provide the ISA bus. For LPC interfaces
the Fintek F85226 is one popular solution, while for PCI the ITE ITE8888 chip
does the job. If the processor contains
only PCIe and no PCI or LPC, then a
double-bridge design may be required:
first a bridge converts PCIe to PCI, then
the ITE8888 converts the PCI to ISA
(Figure 2).
Another economical and space-saving
method of obtaining the ISA bus is to
use a custom core in an FPGA. Many I/O
boards today use FPGAs that connect to
the LPC bus and contain their own logic
to generate the ISA bus. Although this
method does require a one-time design
effort, the design can be used over and
over in future products, as FPGA code is
easily portable across different devices.
For embedded system engineers not
seeking to design their own SBCs,
PC/104 offers a reliable physical implementation of ISA that not only provides an easy way to attach custom I/O
boards to an SBC, but also offers access
to a huge variety of off-the-shelf I/O
modules from a worldwide assortment
of vendors. The PC/104 bus is implemented with a pair of “stackthrough”
connectors that provide male pins on
the bottom and female sockets on the
top. This enables boards to stack on top
of each other and create a compact and
rugged system.
Manufacturing considerations
The use of a through-hole connector with
long gold-plated pins presents some
manufacturing challenges, although
these have been addressed with several proven methods. One way is to use
PC/104 connectors with solder-bearing
leads – these connectors contain pads
made of solder on their bottom side
(Figure 3). Some connectors are installed
during the Surface Mount Technology
(SMT) phase of manufacturing, and
these solder pads then melt during the
reflow process and fill in the PCB holes.
Other connectors are installed after SMT
and/or wave soldering processes are
22 y
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Figure 2 | Multiple methods exist for bridging the ISA bus to modern processors.
Figure 3 | PC/104 connectors with solder-bearing leads are one method of reducing
the manufacturing challenges of through-hole connectors.
Figure 4 | Press-fit connector technology provides a fitted, gas-tight contact without
causing any damage to the PCB. Cross section image courtesy of ept, inc.
complete, and a special fixture directs
hot air to the pins to melt the solder.
Another way is to use press-fit technology. Press-fit has become commonplace in the high-performance
backplane market, and most contract
electronics manufacturers already have
presses in their factories. A special
PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide
fixture supports the bottom side of the
PCB and enables the connectors to be
pressed in from the top side without
causing any stress or damage to the PCB
(Figure 4). The resulting contact is gastight and extremely reliable.
For low-volume or lowest cost applications, the old method of hand soldering
... a significant share, if not the majority,
of industrial I/O applications do not require data
rates in excess of what ISA can offer.
also works. Although, because the full
set of PC/104 connectors consists of
four adjacent rows, the inner rows are
less accessible and require care when
soldering to avoid contaminating the
gold-plated pins with solder.
As much bus as you need
Clearly the ISA bus, with its 8 MHz-plus
clock rates and 16-bit data bus width,
cannot match the performance of 32-bit
32 MHz PCI or multi-lane 1.25 GHz PCIe.
However, a significant share, if not the
majority, of industrial I/O applications
do not require data rates in excess of
what ISA can offer. A huge selection of
off-the-shelf PC/104 I/O modules from
dozens of companies around the world
offer a wide array of I/O, including:
❚❚ Digital-to-Analog Converters (DACs)
with 16-bit resolution and output
rates up to 100 KHz
❚❚ Serial ports with data rates
up to 460 Kbps and up to 8 ports
per board
❚❚ Digital I/O up to 96 points
❚❚ Counters/timers and Pulse-Width
Modulation (PWM) circuits
❚❚ FPGA modules for custom
I/O development
❚❚ Opto-isolated I/O
❚❚ Relays
❚❚ Motion control
❚❚ 10 Mbps Ethernet
❚❚ MIL-STD-1553 and ARINC 429
❚❚ CAN bus
❚❚ GPS
❚❚ Wireless modems
❚❚ Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs)
with 16-bit resolution and sample
rates up to 250 KHz
This expansive array of I/O provides
evidence of the ongoing usefulness
of ISA bus in embedded applications
Figure 5 | The PC/104 ecosystem
of available I/O boards, such as the
DMM-32DX-AT, will extend the ISA
bus well into the future.
for years to come. PC/104 offers an
ideal means for utilizing the ISA bus to
design a simple, effective, and long-life
embedded system (Figure 5).
Jonathan Miller
is Founder and
President of
Diamond Systems
Corporation.
OpenSystems Media works with industry leaders to develop and publish
content that educates our readers.
Tackling Thermal Design Challenges of Smaller,
Lighter, and More Efficient Avionics
By Mentor Graphics Corporation
Thermal transient testing and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
can help balance Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) and reliability
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that safety-critical devices work within their
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High-end Graphics Performance for Low-power
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By Kontron
OEMs are challenged with implementing state-of-the-art
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work, cost, and time to market. One approach that enables this is
to make use of a hardware vendor’s migration services.
Check out our white papers.
http://whitepapers.opensystemsmedia.com/
PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide
y
Summer 2013
y 23
Atom™ Powered SBCs
High-Performance,
Small and Fanless
For your next design, select rugged
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powered with single- or dual-core Intel®
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Four Serial Ports
SATA and CompactFlash Interface
Digital I/O with Event Sense
--40º C to +85º C Operation
Outstanding Technical Support
Industry Standard Platforms
• PC/104 – 3.6 x 3.8 inches
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• SUMIT-ISM™ – 3.6 x 3.8 inches
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Software Support:
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PC/104
EPIC
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