Kontron 3.5 inch SBC supports PC/104-plus I/O boards

With the new JRexplus series of single board computers (SBCs), Kontron has offered a 3.5-inch SBC with a standardised PC/104-plus expansion slot and PCI bus performance. The Kontron JRexplus family of 3.5-inch single board computers can now be used with most of the currently available PC/104-plus expansion cards.

Users benefit from uniform connectors that are located in the same place on all standard JRexplus products. In terms of size, the JRexplus impresses with a footprint of only 102-by-147 mm. Additionally, this widely accepted 3.5-inch format can easily be integrated into the already existing wide variety of standard enclosures.

The first member of the JRexplus series is the 3.5-inch Kontron JRexplus-LX single board computer. It is equipped with the fanless AMD Geode LX800 CPU for a high performance⁄watt (only 7 watts) ratio. Low power consumption in connection with lower heat dissipation is becoming increasingly important for industrial automation.

For hard drives and other storage media, the JRexplus single board computer family offers 2 x SATA and 1 x PATA interfaces. A Gbit Ethernet interface is also available for the first time for extremely fast network data exchange. The Kontron JRexplus-LX SBC also comes with 4x USB 2.0 and 2x RS232 interfaces as well as 1x LPT, Floppy and PS/2 Mouse. 4 x GPIO and a CF card on the back side round off the list of interfaces. Additional I/O devices are implemented via the wireless PC/104-plus slot with PCI performance. The SO-DIMM slot supports up to 1GB DDR RAM.

In addition to classic CRT output, LCD flat panels with resolutions up to UXGA (1600 x 1200) are controlled directly and with minimum cost via the JILI30 LVDS interface for which there are already a large number of cables for different types of displays. TTL flat panels are connected via an LVDS to TTL adapter. Power supply is via a 5V single supply.

Like all other JRex products, the Kontron JRexplus-LX offers long term availability and is delivered "plug-and-work" in order to reduce customers' design-in periods. The new Kontron JRexplus-LX SBC is available in Q1 2008.