PC/104 and Small Form Factors Summer 2013

The New

HERCULES III Ruggedized SBC for mobile and

harsh environment applications!

High quality, rugged performance, affordable price.

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

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

♦ 2 24-bit counter/timers

♦ 40 digital I/O lines

♦ 4 PWM outputs

♦ Supported by Universal Driver 7.0 for Windows 7 and Linux

© 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.

w w w.diamondsystems.com

Additional Features

♦ +7-40V VDC power supply

♦ PCIe MiniCard socket

♦ mSATA socket for up to 64GB SLC SSD

♦ GPS socket

♦ PC/104-Plus (ISA + PCI) expansion

♦ -40°C to +85°C operating temp

♦ 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

AS9100 and ISO 9001 Certified GSA Contract Holderwww.rtd.com [email protected]

Design, Engineering, Manufacturing & Tech SupportPCIe, PCI, and ISA Experts

Bus Structure Part Number Speed SDRAMSSD Max

SATA Ports

PCIe x1

GigEUSB 2.0

Serial aDIO™ SVGA DP++ HD Audio Power

PCIe/104 CMX34GSS615 615 MHz 2 GB 32 GB 4 6 2 9 4 14 1 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

AMD Fusion G-Series Single-Core & Dual-Core SBCs –40 to +85°C Operation

PCBs fabricated to IPC 6012 Class 3 Standards. Visit www.rtd.com/gseries for full datasheets.

Power

COM 2 & 4

COM 1 & 3

VGA

Gigabit Ethernet Solid State Disk 2 USB 2.0

Stackable PCI Express Connector

CMX32GSS1000

2 USB 2.0

Gigabit Ethernet

DisplayPort (DP++)

Advanced Digital I/O

Utility Port 2.0 1 USB 2.0 Speaker Battery Reset Power

PCIe/104 & PCI/104-Express cpuModulesAMD Fusion G-Series

High-End Performance Meets Low-PowerRTD Embedded Technologies, Inc.

Stackable, rugged enclosures are available for RTD’s complete line of products.

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4 y Summer 2013 y PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide

Published by:

www.smallformfactors.comwww.pc104online.com

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.

White PaPers

Tackling Thermal Design Challenges of Smaller, Lighter and More Efficient AvionicsBy Mentor Graphics Corporationwww.mil-embedded.com/articles/id/?6030

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e-casts

Embedded Edge Intelligence and Rapid Application Development Tools Transform M2M Solution DeliveryJuly 23, 2013Presented by: Eurotech, Thingworxecast.opensystemsmedia.com/406

Understanding the Internet of Things Protocols: DDS, MQTT, & AMQPJuly 31, 2013Presented by: RTIecast.opensystemsmedia.com/407

PC/104 and Small Form Factorswww.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1854269

2013 OpenSystems Media® © 2013 PC/104 and Small Form FactorsAll registered brands and trademarks used in PC/104 andSmall Form Factors are property of their respective owners.ISSN: Print 1096-9764, ISSN Online 1550-0373

columns

Small matters 7SFFs and the scope of medical demandsBy Brandon Lewis

SFF-SIG 8Medical and industrial I/O gets Pico-sizedBy Alexander Lochinger, SFF-SIG President

Editor’s Choice Products 9By Brandon Lewis

Volume 17 • Number 2

Features

IT'S A SMALL (FORM FACTOR) WORLDMedical systems

Qseven COMs take healthcare mobile

By Brandon Lewis

PC/104 stacks up against COMs for next-gen medical

applicationsInterview with

J.C. Ramirez and George Ruano, ADL Embedded Solutions Inc.

THE BIG YET SMALL PICTURELow power

ISA bus: still going strong in PC/104 By Jonathan Miller,

Diamond Systems Corporation

10

16

20

20

10

@sff_mag

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Page Advertiser/Ad title

14 ACCES I/O Products, Inc. – USB embedded I/O solutions rugged, industrial strength USB

5 AMD – World’s first x86 quad-core SoC

2 Diamond Systems Corporation – So advanced, it’s out of this world

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18 Parvus Corporation – Qualified to perform

3 RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc. – High-end performance meets low-power

12-13 RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc. – PCI Express, PCI, and ISA experts

6 Technologic Systems – TS-4710 high end CPU module

17 WDL Systems – The power inside tomorrow’s technology

24 WinSystems, Inc. – Atom powered SBCs high-performance, small and fabless

15 X-ES – Rugged, powerful COM Express

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small MATTERS By Brandon Lewis

www.smallformfactors.com

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 com-puting 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

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 rea-sons 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 long-term 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 applica-tions 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 perspec-tives on PC/104 and an examination of developments in Qseven Computers-On-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, enter tain- ing. Good luck in your design choices and product selections, and feel free to drop me a line.

Brandon Lewis Associate Editor [email protected]

SFFs and the scope of medical demands

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.

PC/104 and Small Form Factors Resource Guide y Summer 2013 y 7

mailto:[email protected]

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 genera-tions 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 stackable 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 stack-able 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-sizedSmaller 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 environ-ments. 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

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 busHigh-speed I/O cannot marry up to a low-speed bus. Low-speed 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 avail-able 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 | [email protected]

Small Form Factor SIG

Medical and industrial I/O gets Pico-sized

By Alexander Lochinger, SFF-SIG President

www.sff-sig.org

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.


http://www.sff-sig.org

mailto:[email protected]

EDITOR’S CHOICEEditor’s Choice

LynxOS 7.0 adds real-time security to the world of connected devicesAs 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

4th generation Intel Core COM Express module advances performance and displays for medical, retail appsEngineers 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 quad-core 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

Freescale MCU and transceiver chipset put radar and autonomy on wheelsWith 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


http://www.lynuxworks.com

http://www.smallformfactors.com/p9913012

http://www.portwell.com


http://www.freescale.com


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.

Qseven COMs take healthcare mobileBy Brandon Lewis

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 tele-health strategies are poised to revolu-tionize 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

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, Market- ing Manager at congatec AG head-quartered in Deggendorf, Germany (www.congatec.com). “Medical systems typically require special functionalities such as ultrasonic control or high levels

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 car rier board that takes all specific func-tionalities and complete it with a stan-dard COM. Once this combination is certified, it is quite easy to upgrade or scale to other CPUs while the certifica-tion 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 inter-faces,” Eder continues. “The maximum power consumption for Qseven is

IT'S A SMALL (FORM FACTOR) WORLD

IT'S A SMALL (FORM FACTOR) WORLD Medical systems


http://www.congatec.com

defined at 12 W – the first definition for COM Express defined a 188 W max-imum – 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 battery-run applications. Recent updates to the specification also introduced a reduced form factor module and extended sup-port for mobile processors, increasing the specification’s viability for low-power, 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 scalabilityThe 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 stan-dard offers the possibility to use the same baseboard with different proces-sors 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 applica-tions. 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 con-tinues. “The best hardware is useless if there is no BSP, or if the supported soft-ware is outdated. Writing the BSP on

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.

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www.rtd.com • [email protected] RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc.Copyright © 2013 RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective companies.

PCI Express, PCI, and ISA Experts The products above are just a sampling of RTD’s board-level and ruggedized packaging solutions. From low-power to high performance, RTD can tailor a system for your mission-critical application. Visit www.rtd.com to see our complete product list.

RTD Designs and Manufactures a Complete Line of High-Reliability Embedded Products & AccessoriesAS9100 and ISO9001 Certified

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Power Supplies• High-EfficiencyPowerSupplies• UninterruptiblePowerSupplies

Peripheral Modules • MassStorage• MotionControl• Synchro/Resolver• VideoControl• FireWire• USB3.0&USB2.0• CANBus• CANSpider• GigabitEthernet• GPS• GSM/GPRS/EDGEModem• WirelessTelematics

Bus Structures • PCIe/104• PCI/104-Express• PCI-104• PC/104-Plus• PC/104

www.rtd.com • [email protected] RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc.Copyright © 2013 RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective companies.

PCI Express, PCI, and ISA Experts The products above are just a sampling of RTD’s board-level and ruggedized packaging solutions. From low-power to high performance, RTD can tailor a system for your mission-critical application. Visit www.rtd.com to see our complete product list.

RTD Designs and Manufactures a Complete Line of High-Reliability Embedded Products & AccessoriesAS9100 and ISO9001 Certified

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Single Board Computers• IntelCore2Duo,PentiumM,CeleronM• AMDFusionG-Series,GeodeLX• Rugged,Surface-MountSolderedRAM• OnboardIndustrialFlashDisk• -40to+85˚COperation

Specialty Modules• 5-PortEthernetSwitch• Delta-SigmaAnalogI/O• Hot-SwappableRemovableSATA• User-ConfigurableMiniPCIe• DigitalSignalProcessors

Data Collection Modules • Auto-CalibratingAnalogI/O• AdvancedDigitalI/O• SimultaneousSampling• High-SpeedMcBSP• PulseWidthModulation• IncrementalEncoding• Opto-IsolatedMOSFET• Virtex-5andSpartan-6FPGA

Power Supplies• High-EfficiencyPowerSupplies• UninterruptiblePowerSupplies

Peripheral Modules • MassStorage• MotionControl• Synchro/Resolver• VideoControl• FireWire• USB3.0&USB2.0• CANBus• CANSpider• GigabitEthernet• GPS• GSM/GPRS/EDGEModem• WirelessTelematics

Bus Structures • PCIe/104• PCI/104-Express• PCI-104• PC/104-Plus• PC/104

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 well-tested interfaces not just from a hard-ware 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

make that happen. You cannot really do that in other spaces. Bringing up a stable platform is very important, and just having that modular architec-ture 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 sustainsRemoving legacy I/O and tracking advances in mobile technology have positioned Qseven to provide the long lifecycle support that telehealth sys-tems 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 Man- ager 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 solu-tions or processor architectures based on their long-term needs. With the Qseven form factor we have a lot of potential.”

Figure 2 | The IFC6400 is a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro-based Qseven module that supports Android and Linux OSs.



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http://www.inforcecomputing.com

http://www.seco.com

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PC/104 stacks up against COMs for next-gen medical applications

Interview with J.C. Ramirez and George Ruano, ADL Embedded Solutions Inc.

Q &

A

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 labo-ratory 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 ana-lyzing – that type of heavy-duty applica-tion. 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 back-ground, 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

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 appli-cation together with a pretty big eco-system 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 men-tion architecturally is that we do not see a whole lot of difference between

PC/104 and COM Express. It is really a matter of perspective. If you look at the average PC/104 board, Intel Atom-wise 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


IT'S A SMALL (FORM FACTOR) WORLD Medical systems


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.

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 port-folio 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 five-stack 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 periph-erals 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 port-folio 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

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2 PCIe x8 +1 PCI or 1 PCIe x16 +1 PCI expansion

Supports 3 independent displays

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

Ultra low power 32-bit ARM processor

Built-in Linux OS with GNU C/C++ compiler

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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.


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 con-sumes 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 appli-cations that lend themselves very well to some of the current Cedarview offer-ings and future low-power Intel proces-sors (Figure 2).

The 4th Generation Intel Core quad-core 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 specifica-tions are keeping up with the processor technology as well. You saw PC/104 release their PCI Express Gen3 speci-fication earlier this year, and for all we know that will continue.

SFF: Which of the PC/104 specifi- cations 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 Administra- tion (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

Figure 2 | The ADLN2000PC is a PCIe/104 Type 2 module with a maximum TDP of 3.5 W.



next-generation platforms, in the case of a lab system – it would consist of the higher performance CPUs that we have performed well in.

SFF: What consideration does ADL take in terms of FDA-certification?

RUANO: To support that particular effort by the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) we target our roadmap develop-ment 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.

RAMIREZ: For companies like ADL, we have a long tradition of doing mili-tary 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 prod-ucts 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 future-looking types of applications ourselves. For example, there is a company in Carlsbad, CA, that is working on robotics applications in healthcare using a quad-core, 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 tech-nologies 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 seg-ment 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

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.

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 low-power, 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.

J.C. Ramirez is Product Marketing Manager at ADL Embedded Solutions Inc.

George Ruano is National Sales Manager at ADL Embedded Solutions Inc.


With 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 tech-nologies 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 ampli-fiers (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

offers tremendous speed and space saving advantages, yet its implementa-tion requires extremely careful consider-ations 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

characteristics are provided on the PCB layers dedicated to the PCIe signals. An error here can result in unreliable perfor-mance, requiring an expensive redesign that also causes schedule delays. Even when done properly, the implementa-tion 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

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.

ISA bus: still going strong in PC/104

By Jonathan Miller

THE BIG YET SMALL PICTURE Low power


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 space-consuming 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 technolo-gies 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 ISANone 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 for-giving. Trace length matching and other PCB layout concerns are completely eliminated (Figure 1). In addition, ISA is an asynchronous bus in which all opera-tions are driven by the edge of a com-mand 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

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 two-layer 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 program-ming 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 com-plexity 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 off-the-shelf yet lack the time or expertise to use more complex PCI technology.

ISA bus implementationSeveral 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

Figure 1 | The simplicity of the ISA bus removes PCB layout concerns.

View from Top of Board

J2: PC/104 16-bit bus connector J1: PC/104 8-bit bus connector

Ground D0 C0 Ground IOCHCHK- A1 B1 Ground MEMCS16- D1 C1 SBHE- SD7 A2 B2 RESET

IOCS16- D2 C2 LA23 SD6 A3 B3 +5V IRQ10 D3 C3 LA22 SD5 A4 B4 IRQ9 IRQ11 D4 C4 LA21 SD4 A5 B5 -5V IRQ12 D5 C5 LA20 SD3 A6 B6 DRQ2 IRQ15 D6 C6 LA19 SD2 A7 B7 -12V IRQ14 D7 C7 LA18 SD1 A8 B8 0WS-

DACK0- D8 C8 LA17 SD0 A9 B9 +12V DRQ0 D9 C9 MEMR- IOCHRDY A10 B10 Key

DACK5- D10 C10 MEMW- AEN A11 B11 SMEMW- DRQ5 D11 C11 SD8 SA19 A12 B12 SMEMR-

DACK6- D12 C12 SD9 SA18 A13 B13 IOW- DRQ6 D13 C13 SD10 SA17 A14 B14 IOR-

DACK7- D14 C14 SD11 SA16 A15 B15 DACK3- DRQ7 D15 C15 SD12 SA15 A16 B16 DRQ3

+5V D16 C16 SD13 SA14 A17 B17 DACK1- MASTER- D17 C17 SD14 SA13 A18 B18 DRQ1

Ground D18 C18 SD15 SA12 A19 B19 Refresh- Ground D19 C19 Key SA11 A20 B20 SYSCLK

SA10 A21 B21 IRQ7 SA9 A22 B22 IRQ6 SA8 A23 B23 IRQ5 SA7 A24 B24 IRQ4 SA6 A25 B25 IRQ3 SA5 A26 B26 DACK2- SA4 A27 B27 TC SA3 A28 B28 BALE SA2 A29 B29 +5V SA1 A30 B30 OSC SA0 A31 B31 Ground Ground A32 B32 Ground


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 solu-tion, 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 imple-mentation of ISA that not only pro-vides 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 imple-mented 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 considerationsThe use of a through-hole connector with long gold-plated pins presents some manufacturing challenges, although these have been addressed with sev-eral 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

complete, and a special fixture directs hot air to the pins to melt the solder.

Another way is to use press-fit tech-nology. Press-fit has become com-monplace in the high-performance backplane market, and most contract electronics manufacturers already have presses in their factories. A special

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 gas-tight and extremely reliable.

For low-volume or lowest cost applica-tions, the old method of hand soldering

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.

THE BIG YET SMALL PICTURE

Figure 2 | Multiple methods exist for bridging the ISA bus to modern processors.


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 needClearly 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:

❚ Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs) with 16-bit resolution and sample rates up to 250 KHz

❚ 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

This expansive array of I/O provides evidence of the ongoing usefulness of ISA bus in embedded applications

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.

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.

... a significant share, if not the majority,

of industrial I/O applications do not require data

rates in excess of what ISA can offer.


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PC/104 and Small Form Factors Summer 2013