Kontron debuted nine new board-level products at the Embedded Systems Conference this week, covering a broad landscape of embedded computing form-factors, old and new. Among these, “MOPS-PM” is claimed to be the first Pentium M processor board to comply with the PC/104-Plus standard's real estate boundaries.

(Click here for larger view of the MOPS-PM)

Kontron's new, “legal” Pentium M-based PC/104-Plus SBC (single-board computer) was joined in its debut by other new embedded-oriented Kontron processor boards in PISA, EPIC, ATX, mini-ITX, and CompactPCI formats.

Regarding the MOPS-PM, a company spokesperson boasted, “This [is] the world's smallest Intel Pentium M processor design currently in use. While other PC/104-Plus designs with Intel Pentium M processors have violated the traditional physical form factor, the Kontron MOPS-PM meets the PC/104 Consortium specifications entirely.”

“The classic PC/104 footprint of 90 mm x 96 mm could only be achieved by choosing cutting-edge, highly integrated electronic components such as the latest and smallest Super IO controllers and PCI-ISA bridges,” the spokesman explained.

The MOPS-PM is equipped with an Intel 855/852 GME/ICH4 chipset and comes with a choice of three processors:

• 1.4 GHz Intel Pentium M 738 with 2MB L2 cache
• 1 GHz Intel Celeron M 373 with 512KB L2 cache
• 600 MHz Intel Mobile Celeron processor with 512KB L2 cache

An on-board SODIMM socket accommodates up to 1 GB of DDR SDRAM. The module's graphics subsystem is powered by Intel's Extreme Graphics 2 engine 2x with 32MB of UMA VRAM, which is capable of driving CRT monitors and LCD flat panels in parallel “even with different screen content,” according to Kontron. A JILI30-compatible data interface enables “extremely low cost” LVDS TFT panel adaptation.

Additional I/O interface ports include 10/100-BaseT Ethernet, an EIDE drive interface, two USB 2.0 ports, a pair of RS232 serial ports, a printer port, and keyboard and mouse ports.

Operating systems supported include Linux, VxWorks, Windows XP Embedded, and Windows CE, the company said.

Availability

The MOPS-PM is available now in small quantities, with full production expected to begin in Q2 2007. Pricing has not yet been set.

In an analogous announcement, Ampro at ESC debuted what it called the first 1 GHz processor module that doesn't exceed the defined physical limits for a PCI-104 format board.

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.