Electronics Weekly Electronics Design & Components Tech News
Congatec is aiming at high-end industrial workstations and desktop clients with a Micro ATX-compliant carrier board with a COM-HPC interface – avoiding committing to a specific BGA or LGA processor.
“As it is processor socket and vendor independent, the board can be equipped with any computer-on-module available in COM-HPC Client Size A, B or C,” according to the company, which added: “The board is designed for embedded long-term availability of at least seven years.”
It is called conga-HPC/uATX and Contatec is promoting it for use with its COM-HPC modules for Intel’s 12th generation Intel Core i9, i7, i5 and i3 desktop processors (Alder Lake-S) – it has modules ranging from size C with a 16-core Core i9, to a size A with a Celeron 7305E.
Some of thee processors have dedicated AI engines supporting Windows ML, Intel’s distribution of OpenVINO toolkit and Chrome Cross ML. “The built-in Intel Deep Learning boost technology leverages different cores via vector neural network instructions, and the integrated graphics supports AI accelerated DP4a GPU instructions that can be scaled to dedicated GPUs,” said Congatec.
However, “you are not limited to 12th Gen Intel Core, but can also leverage AMD processors when such modules will be available or any next-gen intel processor technology”, a company spokesman tols Electronics Weekly.
Carrier board interfaces include PCIe Gen4 and USB 4.
“The industrial-grade carrier board ports all benefits of computer-on-modules to the high-end industrial and semi-industrial motherboard market,” said Congatec product director Martin Danzer. “Being able to switch the processor performance to any future option without the need to re-build the entire system is a huge advantage for many industries.”
As well as the carrier board and COM-HPC modules, the company also sells cooling solutions and has board support packages for real-time operating systems, and the real-time hypervisor from Real-Time Systems.
| conga-HPC/cALS.. | Cores (P + E) |
P-core GHz |
E-cores GHz |
GPU units |
CPU base power |
| ..-i9-12900E | 16 (8+8) | 2.3 / 5.0 | 1.7 / 3.8 | 32 | 65W |
| ..-i7-12700E | 12 (8+4) | 2.1 / 4.8 | 1.6 / 3.6 | 32 | 65 |
| ..-i5-12500E | 6 (6+0) | 2.9 / 4.5 | – | 32 | 65 |
| ..-i3-12100E | 4 (4+0) | 3.2 / 4.2 | – | 24 | 60 |
Carrier board schematics are available to adapt the design to OEM needs. “Engineers who want to learn how to design carrier boards with COM-HPC modules are welcome to participate in training offered by Congatec,” according to the company.
Applications are foreseen supporting multiple displays in industrial and medical human-machine interfaces, as well as real-time edge controllers, industrial PCs, control room systems, infotainment and digital signage.
