iPhone-sized SBC defines portable power
ProductJuly 26, 2010
Alice Moss
Military Embedded Systems
Chris A. Ciufo
General Micro Systems, Inc.
Weighing a mere 1/3 pound and sized similarly to an iPhone, the Atom XPC40x by General Micro Systems is the company's latest rugged mil/aero all-in-one SBC.
Weighing a mere 1/3 pound and sized similarly to an iPhone, the Atom XPC40x by General Micro Systems is the company’s latest rugged mil/aero all-in-one SBC. Sporting a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom with 512 KB of cache, the 3.5" x 2.5" x 0.5" module comes in air- (“XP”) and conduction-cooled (“XPC”) flavors ready to operate over -40 °C to +85 °C. The SBC portion is pretty standard stuff: expandable 533 MHz DDR-2 SDRAM with 3D accelerated graphics, but there are five USB ports.
Not only that, the packaged version (shown) has support for two Express Mini Cards, so a user (or GMS) can add Wi-Fi, GPS, CANBus, or myriad other I/O functions. The packaged version also offers additional security for storage, since the entire computer contains the storage and can be moved from location to location. Finally, there’s the portability factor. The Atom CPU runs on 3 W (typ) and 10 W (peak). The whole XPC40x, depending upon I/O and peripherals, is ideal for battery-operated applications such as UAVs, remote sensing, or handheld/manpack equipment.
