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TOOLS BVM’s experience can help speed your time to market Changing role Call us today on 01489 780144 Tel: 01489 780144 Web: www.bvm-store.com Email: [email protected] Hardware Development Partner of engineers 26 Small Form Factor Boards Tough choices s technology progresses, the require- being focussed on are aircraft survivability George ment for higher performance com- and combat mission effectiveness. In many Aputational systems, that combine cases going to smaller and lighter electron- Los multiple functions in a smaller footprint, ics can increase the survivability and intel- becomes a need rather than a desire. Also, ligence of a platform without any decrease explains as time goes on, there are new capabili- in combat mission effectiveness. More than ties introduced that could save time and ever, this increases the need for even smaller some increase efficiency onboard many aircraft if systems onboard, or combining many effectively added. functions in a smaller box. Additionally, of the All the while, new capabilities are upgrades take place on many platforms to constantly being added to platforms with reduce the size, weight and cost of legacy the intent of decreasing the time it takes systems when obsolescence issues appear. options for those to perform a function or increasing the Many times it is possible to combine the functionality and capability of an aircraft. functionality of multiple embedded systems looking to use small Yet when new systems are proposed there into one small form factor footprint. This is always a trade-off between the added allows for increased space, fuel efficiency form factor boards in weight of the system and a potential drop in and carrying capacity, and typically is lower carrying weight. in cost. rugged applications The two parameters that are constantly Integrated electronic components and > Visit us at Stand 7-593 November 2012 • Micro Technology Europe 28 Small Form Factor Boards 29 Fig. 1: MIL1553 PC/104- as PC/104-Plus cards without all the indi- Plus card vidual interconnects required to get the IO out of the box since it is a slot based design with a small chassis. Vita-74 based boards while keeping the IO are also very small in size, a bit smaller than on separate mezzanine PC/104-Plus and use a high speed PCIe boards to reduce rede- back-end interface. They are specifically sign cost. engineered for harsh, rugged conduction- cooled environments. All three provide a PC/104-Plus standard mechanical format for standardi- There are many types sation of switched serial interconnects for of small form factor small form-factor applications, with specific boards on the market concern taken to allow deployment in rug- today with advances in gedised environments. technology allowing for even smaller footprints Q Seven in the future. The first Another standard that has been released small form factor was in the past two years is Q Seven. The Q the PC/104-Plus series of Seven specification is hosted by the inde- boards (see Fig. 1). These pendent Q Seven Consortium. It is freely form factors are small and com- available at the consortium’s web site. Q small form pact designs that are well suited for small Seven is a computer-on-module small form factors are all new embedded applications. factor board that can be used much like an ways to decrease the footprint of electron- In the case of PC/104-Plus, the IO board integrated circuit component. It is smaller Who’s got the ics such that the overall systems become is the same footprint as the processor card. than other computer-on-module standards smaller. The concept of segmenting the pro- The cards are small square boards that have such as Com Express, ETX or XTX and is ® cessor board and IO portion of the system an ecosystem of processors, power supplies, limited to very low power consuming CPUs. most COM Express into two different board assemblies also video cards and many different types of The idea here is that processor boards and makes a lot of sense to make things smaller IO cards such as MIL1553 and Arinc-429 IO boards would slide into a backplane via and achieve a longer life cycle. avionics data buses. The cards are stacked edge connectors. This is a smaller footprint experience? Many commercially available processor together to build a tower of boards that can than the traditional 3U cPCI. boards have end of life issues after just a go into a rugged, sealed fanless system. Ask Kontron! few years in the market, while avionics IO There are also several standards groups SFF-Sig such as MIL1553, Arinc-429, Arinc-717, working on reducing board size while The Small Form Factor Special Interest AFDX and others have a longer service increasing system functionality. The Vita Group (SFF-Sig) is another independent NEW: Intel® QM77 history. In many cases design cycles of 15 standards organisation is an incorporated, group that develops, promotes and supports chipset for up to to 20 years or more are very common when non-profit organisation of vendors and small form factor circuit board, IO and three displays the time to design the systems and plat- users having a common market interest storage specifications. The group embraces » forms and production life cycles are taken in real-time, rugged embedded computing the latest technologies, but also has a phi- COMe-bIP# into account. systems. The community has realised that losophy of maintaining legacy compatibility 1 2 5 × 9 5 m m This reality leads many system manu- there is a driving need for electronic systems and enabling smooth transitions to next- factures to have small mezzanine boards to get smaller and lighter. generation interfaces. SFF-Sig is focussed on for the IO that plug into a main computer There are three new competing standards: trying various approaches to suit the min- board. This allows one part of the system Vita-73, Vita-74 iaturisation of board-level electronics. The to be upgraded and Vita-75. These stackable USB camp, for its part, is focussed standards are on using USB to replace ISA, PCI or PCIe targeted towards as the board-to-board interconnects in rug- having small form ged stacked systems. A new group has also factor boards for formed around a new specification called rugged systems. Feature Pak, to address small modules. COM Express® basic Vita-73 is based COMsistent: The new Quad Core module for up to three on the VPX (Vita USB independent displays 46/48) electrical USB is a popular approach in rugged standards in a much embedded systems as well as laptops and COMe-bIP# with 3rd generation smaller footprint. tablets. The desire to use USB as a back- Intel® Core™ i-CPUs with QM77 Chipset, This specification is end interface exists simply because USB 16 GB DDR3, SATA 3, USB 3.0, DirectX® 11 about the same size ports are everywhere. A small board with a and new digital graphics interfaces. USB interface allows the USB board to be COM Express® basic form factor with mounted anywhere inside the system and Pin-out Type 2 or Type 6. For maximum flexibility! Fig. 2: MIL1553 small does not require anything more than just form factor USB Learn more about 15 years COM expertise at a USB header on the computer board. An COM Express® is a trademark of PICMG. board www.kontron.com/mysafechoice example of a small form factor MIL1553 board is shown in Fig. 2. Following the USB trend, an indepen- dent consortium was started to promote The pulse of innovation stackable USB. Stackable USB combines > November 2012 • Micro Technology Europe Micro Technology Europe • November 2012 19_eu_92x278_MTE.indd 1 09.10.2012 16:01:2 30 Play it Safe! Your essential the architecture of PC/104 Plus with a USB back-end interface instead of a PCI inter- face.