Kontron Launches Three New High-Performance speedMOPS SBCs for PC/104 I/O Boards

Intel® Pentium® M & Co. for PC/104plus Including ISA Bus

Deggendorf, 22 November 2005: Kontron has been rated as the worldwide market leader in PC/104 CPU boards by the market research institute VDC for several years and now introduces three new speedMOPS single-board computers (SBCs) for use with the wide range of PC/104 expansion modules on the market. On these PC/104plus-compliant SBCs, the processor is located on the outside of the “sandwich” footprint of the PC/104 form factor, which facilitates optimal cooling of the high-performance CPUs. All existing and upcoming PC/104 I/O expansion boards meet the PC/104 spec fully, including ISA bus.

The three new speedMOPS for PC/104-compliant expansion modules are equipped with the new Intel® Pentium® M Class processors. Variants have:

• passively cooled, cacheless 800 MHz Intel® processor,
• passively cooled 1 GHz Intel® Celeron® M 373 or
• actively cooled 1.8 GHz Intel® Pentium® M 745.

Every speedMOPSlcdPM is equipped with the 855 GME/ICH4 chipset. In cost terms, the cacheless design fits into or under the price band of the VIA Eden, thanks to Intel’s progressive pricing policy. The special cacheless 800MHz version offers numerous features, including dual screen and USB 2.0, and underscores the increasingly close collaboration between Kontron and Intel and the customer benefits that are flowing from it. Prototypes of the new speedMOPSlcdPM variants will be available soon. The start of mass production is planned for Q1 2006.

The speedMOPS CPU boards fit into low-cost standard 3.5” housings. They guarantee OEMs and users optimally cooled high performance (> Intel® Pentium® 4) for PC/104 expansion modules as well as the long-term validity of the PC/104 I/O specification including the ISA bus. Kontron is also negotiating for an extension of the PC/104 specification for PC/104 CPU boards because speedMOPS has a slightly larger form factor that benefits only high-performance PC/104 designs.


Unique Selling Points of speed(MOPS) PC/104 CPU Boards
3.5” and 5.25” PICMG, ePCI, PCI-X, ISA and PISA SBC cards that support the newest high-performance processors do not have PC/104 ISA extension sockets and so are not compatible with the numerous PC/104 ISA extension boards currently available speedMOPS boards however are compatible. A further advantage is that all cables used with MOPS PC/104 boards are fully compatible with speedMOPS modules and complete cable reuse is possible. The new speedMOPS is the most powerful member of Kontron’s MOPS PC/104 product family.

The (speed)MOPS PC/104 Product Family
With 29 CPU boards currently available, the (speed)MOPS PC/104 product family is the world’s largest demand-oriented, scalable product line in the embedded PC/104 world. It includes processors ranging from 386 right up to the mobile Intel® Pentium® M. (speed)MOPS PC/104 is the “proven PC platform for Instant Solutions”: The (speed)MOPS modules are characterized by having a common pinout for keyboard, COM1 and COM2 as well as 44-pin IDE, LPT, and LAN1. These standard features simplify upgrading within the Kontron (speed)MOPS PC/104 product family. Connecting displays to the boards is straightforward thanks to the JILI or JIPA interface, which automatically recognizes the attached display and then sets video parameters accordingly. All (speed)MOPS PC/104 boards are therefore Plug&Work-compatible, which considerably reduces the time to market.

The Certified I/O Partner Program
Introduced at the beginning of 2002, the Kontron Certified I/O Partner Program for manufacturers of PC/104 I/O modules is designed to help OEM customers reduce their time to market. The goal of the program and the quality seal for PC/104 is functional certification of PC/104 I/O modules for (speed)MOPS PC/104 CPU boards.

Certified I/O program partners currently include companies such as RadiSys, Diamond Systems, Applicom International, nbn, Plug-In, Vitec Multimedia, Servo Halbeck and DResearch Digital Media Systems GmbH. Digital and analog I/O, serial interfaces, industrial Ethernet, diverse field busses and frame grabber cards among others are also available as PC/104 expansion cards. All multivendor bundles have had their Plug&Work functionality tested. This significantly reduces both the development burden and the time to market. Further manufacturers of PC/104 I/O modules are invited to participate in the Certified I/O Partner Program.