Ampro lowers the cost of rugged single board computers.Ampro Computers, Inc., the inventor and leading supplier of PC/104, EBX EBX Electronic Book Exchange (XML standard) EBX Embedded Board Expandable (PC/104) EBX Electronic Branch Exchange EBX Enterprise Business eXtension (Orchestra Networks) and EPIC single board computers (SBCs), today unveiled the rugged LittleBoard 550 SBC. This EBX-compatible embedded PC allows manufacturers and integrators to design systems that have both ruggedness and low cost. Ampro offers a choice of 300MHz Via Eden ESP (1) (Enhanced Service Provider) An organization that adds value to basic telephone service by offering such features as call-forwarding, call-detailing and protocol conversion. 3000, 533MHz Eden ESP 5000, or 1GHz Eden ESP 10000 processors with popular embedded features such as two Ethernet ports, four RS-232/422/485 ports, onboard CompactFlash socket, PC/104-Plus expansion, and Ampro embedded BIOS extensions. In addition to high reliability and resistance to shock and vibration, Ampro rugged products feature a standard operating temperature of 0 to +70 degrees C and extended operation from -40 to +85 degrees C. "Ampro's latest addition to its 20-year-old product line, the LittleBoard 550, sets a new standard for ruggedness, affordability, and scalable performance up to 1GHz," said Joanne Mumola Williams, president and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Ampro. "Designers of military, transportation, industrial, and medical systems can afford to add ruggedness and high performance to more products than ever before." The LittleBoard 550 leverages most of the design of the successful LittleBoard 700 SBC, including dual RJ45 Ethernet connectors, AGP 4x graphics, onboard CompactFlash socket, and full PC/104-Plus expansion (PCI (1) (Payment Card Industry) See PCI DSS. (2) (Peripheral Component Interconnect) The most widely used I/O bus (peripheral bus). and ISA buses), but uses low cost Via Eden processors instead of Intel Pentium III and Celeron processors. Unlike the Via C3 processors that are rated well above 7 Watts TDP (Thermal Design Power The Thermal Design Power (TDP) (sometimes called Thermal Design Point) represents the maximum amount of power the cooling system in a computer is required to dissipate. ) and require a cooling fan, all Eden ESP processors are rated for less than 7 Watts, making them a much better choice for high reliability applications. In particular, with extended temperature operation and low power Eden CPUs, thermal design is simplified for applications that operate in harsh environments and require a sealed, airtight enclosure. Long lifecycle support from Via is attractive to embedded system manufacturers and integrators who have long design, qualification, field trial, and/or government certification phases. The LittleBoard 550 mechanical design (form factor, mounting holes, connector locations and connector pin definitions) is identical to both the LittleBoard 700 and the recently announced LittleBoard 800 with Pentium M and Celeron M processors. This updated product line provides a seamless upgrade path through nine price / performance stages from 300MHz Via Eden to 1.4GHz Pentium M 738. Design re-use means that Ampro's embedded BIOS extensions and Ampro's Board Support Packages (BSPs) for leading embedded operating systems and are available immediately at production release of the LittleBoard 550. Embedded enhancements added by Ampro include watchdog timer, battery-free boot (in case the battery for CMOS settings fails or is not installed for harsh environments), serial console, and BIOS recovery. Optional LAN (Local Area Network) A communications network that serves users within a confined geographical area. The "clients" are the user's workstations typically running Windows, although Mac and Linux clients are also used. Boot supports loading the operating system over either Ethernet port using protocols such as PXE or DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) Software that automatically assigns temporary IP addresses to client stations logging into an IP network. It eliminates having to manually assign permanent "static" IP addresses. DHCP software runs in servers and routers. . LittleBoard 550 QuickStart Kits include cables, documentation, a complete GPL Linux distribution, and BSPs for QNX 6.2.1, VxWorks 5.5, and Windows CE 4.2. PC/ 104-Plus expansion allows simple integration of any of the more than one thousand commercial and custom PC/104 and PC/104-Plus modules, including data acquisition, MIL-STD-1553, Wi-Fi, industrial I/O, high-speed USB USB in full Universal Serial Bus Type of serial bus that allows peripheral devices (disks, modems, printers, digitizers, data gloves, etc.) to be easily connected to a computer. 2.0, IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New York, www.ieee.org) A membership organization that includes engineers, scientists and students in electronics and allied fields. 1394 "Firewire". |
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