EPIC/PM: Kontron's Second EPIC Board for Standard PC/104 I/O Assemblies

Kontron Speeds Up: EPIC Now with 1.8 GHz Intel® Pentium® M and ISA-Bus

SAN JOSE, Calif., 2007 – Today during the Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley Kontron introduced with the EPIC/PM the second in its series of EPIC standard boards recognized by the PC/104 Consortium. The Kontron EPIC/PM is based on the 90nm Intel® Pentium® M 745 processor and offers complete PC/104-Plus functionality with both PCI and ISA expansion. As with other Kontron products, the EPIC family of boards maintains the same internal and external I/O connector locations for easy scalability without changing the enclosure design.

Besides all this, the Kontron EPIC/PM boasts an Intel® Pentium® M 745 processor with 1.8 GHz and 2 MB L2 cache for excellent performance. For cost sensitive applications or fanless operation, the Kontron EPIC/PM is also available in ULV Celeron M 373 with 1 GHz (512 KB L2) or Intel processor Celeron 800 MHz (0KB L2) Versions.

The Kontron EPIC/PM offers an unrivalled number of front mounted I/O connections for reduced cabling and ease of accessibility. It includes four high-speed USB 2.0 interfaces, two 10/100 BaseT LAN ports, PS/2 keyboard & mouse, VGA, 5.1 Sound, LPT, and a serial interfaces. This range of functions, similar to that found in a desktop PC motherboard, are inexpensively equipped in one compact package. For solid state operation, a compact flash socket is provided on the front. Additional on-board interfaces include two USB 2.0 interfaces, three COM ports, an 8 pin GPIO interface, EIDE, floppy, and a CompactFlash socket. System memory of up to 2GB is possible with two DDR SODIMM sockets.

VGA and 18 bit LVDS support is handled by Intel’s Extreme Graphics 2 engine which is integrated into the chipset and allows up to 2x 32 MB of UMA graphics memory and dual independent display support. DVO is also supported on board. The LVDS interface is supported by JILI, a universally functional interface from Kontron that is available for all standard panels. This allows OEMs to choose a display that best fits the application without concern for panel interface compatibility.

A watchdog timer, real-time clock, LANBoot and DarkBoot round out the feature set. These features are part of the software tool-suite EVA, which is included with every Kontron EPIC product. EVA (Embedded Value Add) facilitates the use of the product in assembly, maintenance and operation.

Series shipments of the EPIC/PM will start in the 2nd quarter of 2007.

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EPIC – the golden mean
The EPIC form factor, officially recognized by the PC/104 consortium, sits between the PC/104 and EBX form factors. This is because the newest processors can no longer accept PC/104 size constraints and 5.25“ EBX and Mini-ITX designs are too large for many applications. Thanks to the PC/104 interface, all past and future PC/104 expansion assemblies can be accommodated with state-of-the-art processor performance.. At the same time, additional room is available on the motherboard. This is also useful for the latest technologies like PCI-Express, so that EPIC is an ideal concept for scalability while maintaining legacy support. This new form factor is widely accepted and currently supported by a variety of companies. Information in German is available as of November exclusively at www.kontron.com/epic.

About Kontron
Kontron designs and manufactures standard-based and custom embedded and mobile rugged solutions for OEMs, systems integrators, and application providers in a variety of markets. Kontron engineering and manufacturing facilities, located throughout Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific, work together with streamlined global sales and support services to help customers reduce their time-to-market and gain a competitive advantage. Kontron’s diverse product portfolio includes: Computer-on-Modules, SBCs/blades, open-modular platforms and systems, HMIs, mobile rugged workstations, and custom capabilities. Kontron is a Premier member of the Intel® Communications Alliance and was awarded 2006 Intel Member of the Year. The company is a recent three-time VDC Platinum vendor for Embedded Computer Boards. Kontron is listed on the German TecDAX stock exchange under the symbol "KBC". For more information, please visit: www.kontron.com.

For further information:
Editor Contact
Richard Pugnier
Manager, Marketing Communications
Kontron
858.623.3006
richard.pugnier@us.kontron.com

Product and Technical Contact
Christine Van De Graaf
Product Marketing Manager, Embedded Modules Division
Kontron
510.438.7250
christine.vandegraaf@us.kontron.com