Industrial automation specialist Moxa will ship in September a low-power, fanless, XScale-based industrial controller featuring eight lines each of digital input and output. The UC-7408 comes with embedded Linux pre-installed, and targets industrial automation and manufacturing applications integrating serial… communication and digital I/O signal control.

(Click for larger view of Moxa UC-7408)

According to Moxa, the UC-7408's eight digital inputs (DIs) and eight digital outputs (DOs) allow it to monitor and control devices with digital interfaces. The device also has eight RS-232/422/485 serial ports, and can provide protocol conversion, allowing devices with digital interfaces to be monitored and controlled over serial lines.

The compact, low power UC-7408 is based on an Intel XScale IXP-422 clocked at 266 MHz. It has 32MB of Flash, and 128MB of DRAM. Additional I/O includes dual 10/100 Ethernet ports, a CardBus PCMCIA slot, and a CompactFlash slot. The device draws 8 Watts of 12-48 VDC power, and operates from 14 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 to 60 degrees Celsius). It measures 7.8 x 4.9 x 1.7 inches (197 x 125 x 44 mm).

The UC-7408 comes pre-configured with a RedBoot bootloader, Linux OS with optimized drivers for onboard peripherals, a variety of standard embedded applications, and a cross-compiling GNU toolchain. “Linux's open software architecture is good for developing application software,” the company says.

Moxa also offers a line of serial-to-Ethernet devices based on embedded Linux.

 
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