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All Aboard the Small Form Factor Express

COM Express

Big is beautiful – or so we are told. But now it looks like small and petit is well and truly back in fashion.

SWAP – Size Weight And Power is the driving force behind many embedded applications today and low power, and often small footprint, processors such as those made by UK based ARM and Intel’s ATOM enable designs to shrink to very small proportions.

COM Express was ratified by PICMG in 2005, but now 6 years later the COM Express Mini / Ultra (or Nano ETX Express as Kontron would have us call it) is here and its tiny!

This new form factor is about the size of a credit card, specifically 55mm x 84mm and can have one of 2 connector configurations defined by the COM Express standard; both using a 220 pin connector.

• Type 1: Single connector (220 pin), 6 PCI Express lanes, no PEG, no PCI, no IDE, 4 SATA, 1 LAN
• Type 10: Single connector (220 pin), 4 PCI Express lanes, no PEG, no PCI, no IDE, 2 SATA, 1 LAN, single channel LVDS only, DDI, no VGA, 2 Serial COM

As you can see the focus is high speed PCI Express and Type 1 has 6 PCI Express lanes. But the more popular Type 10 maximises the variety and has a lower 4 PCI Express Lanes but adds Serial COMS, DDI (digital display interface) and LVDS.

A custom carrier board will need to be designed by the OEM to host the COM Express module but this can easily remain in the small footprint allowing the form factor to be used in ultra small, mobile and hand held applications. This enables new application opportunities that were previously inhibited by size, weight or power restrictions.

Applications – robotics, UAV, communications, computing, EPOS, handheld terminals and small rugged computers.

XPand6001 - Extreme Engineering

Sarsen Technology Limited is currently reviewing a range of COM Express modules for the UK market; if you have a project requirement or would like to know more about small form factor boards and chassis please get in touch via the website.

Links/References:
ARM – http://www.arm.com
ATOM – http://www.intel.com/…
Extreme Engineering – http://www.x-es.com
Image Credit – www.kontron.com