Aitech Couples Intel Core 2 Duo Processor With Onboard 8GB Flash Disk

Aitech Defense Systems, Inc., an independent manufacturer of open architecture electronic boards and subsystem level products for harsh, environmentally-demanding defense and aerospace applications, has released a new rugged 3U single-slot CompactPCI single board computer (SBC) that offers up to 8 GB of onboard SATA flash disk storage. This reduces the need for external flash-based or mechanical disk drives making the system’s PMC site available to add user specific I/O.

The C800 combines the latest low-power Intel Core 2 Duo technology featuring data processing capabilities of 1.67 GHz or 2.20 GHz and Intel’s Speedstep dynamic frequency switching that provides multiple lower power and cooling options with highly integrated on-chip L1 and L2 caches as well as the Intel GM965 Express Graphic Chipset. The fully-featured 1.67 GHz version draws as little as 30 W.

The SBC’s advanced Pentium architecture, rugged configuration and advanced power management, coupled with industry-standard real time operating systems or Linux, make the board ideal for embedded and harsh environment applications. These applications include deeply embedded, stand-alone, real time, rugged controller subsystems, Smart Grid power management and intelligent vehicle power distribution as well as networked compute-node clusters with optional man-machine (display/keyboard/mouse) interfaces.

In addition to the 32 kB data and 32 kB on-die instruction L1 caches as well as the 4 MB L2 cache, the new SBC features extensive DDR and Flash memory arrays to provide large volatile and non-volatile memory resources to support the processor and meet the needs of specific application functions. These arrays include up to 2 GB of fast DDR2 SDRAM operating at 667 MHz and up to 2 MB of flash BIOS.

The onboard, high speed 8 GB SATA Flash disk (SSD) controlled directly from an ICH8M I/O Controller Hub, hosts the operating system and application. Additional virtual SATA SSDs can be added via the onboard PMC/SATA site or via the external USB ports.

The C800’s extensive I/O capabilities include automatic system/peripheral detection, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, two serial communication ports, two USB 2.0 interfaces, one SATA II interface, a high definition stereo audio output and up to eight single-ended general purpose discrete I/O channels that are independently configurable as input or output. An industry-standard PMC slot further extends the board’s I/O functions.

The C800 SBC is available in five 100% software compatible versions including a commercial air-cooled version for lab development, two extended temperature air-cooled formats (per PICMG 2.0 Rev. 3.0) and two extended temperature, rugged conduction formats(per ANSI/VITA 30.1-2002). The conduction-cooled versions utilize a metal thermal management frame coupled with a custom heat sink for optimal heat dissipation and higher reliability. Two temperature sensors monitor the board and provide data to the user application software.

Supported operating systems include Windows Embedded and XP Professional, Linux, WindRiver VxWorks and Green Hills INTEGRITY.

OEM quantity pricing for the C800 SBC starts at $4,985. Delivery is from stock to 6-8 weeks ARO.