Kontron asserts presence in server board market

Introducing the Kontron KTC5520-EATX server board with latest Intel® microarchitecture quad core processor technology

Poway, CA/Eching, Germany - March 30, 2009 - Kontron today introduced the Kontron KTC5520-EATX, its first foray into the server board market segment, thereby adding a server class category to its already extensive portfolio of embedded and basic motherboard products.

Designed with an extensive feature-set and two new Intel® Xeon® 5518 45nm quad-core processors, this cost-effective Kontron KTC5520-EATX SSI EEB-compliant server board is expected to far surpass what is available on the market today. Its extreme performance, high I/O bandwidth and exceptional reliability - backed by a up to 7-year life-cycle support program - ensures that this Kontron server board will be widely coveted by OEMs designing a multitude of applications found in the medical imaging, simulation, storage and multimedia telecom and data center markets.

“We are extremely excited to introduce this server board,” said Benoit Robert, executive director, product management at Kontron. “For five years, Kontron has been rapidly expanding its embedded motherboard business and, with its long design experience with server class, embedded Intel® processors such as in our AdvancedTCA® and CompactPCI® bladed products, the business case was there to parley that experience into our motherboard portfolio. Thanks in large part to the design-in of the new Intel® Xeon® microarchitecture, early reaction from clients have been strong and immediate.”


Unique remote management - anytime, anywhere
As an attractive selling point for network managers is the server board's built-in ability to be fully managed remotely. Kontron uses an Integrated Management Processor (IMP) that integrates VGA/2D, BMC, and KVM/VM over IP to support real-time access with full control by keyboard, video monitor and mouse (KVM) and virtual media (VM) by a single local computer from anywhere, at any time. Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) 2.0 compliant using IPMI over LAN, the server board provides the OS-independent and cross-platform interface for monitoring the server system's temperature, voltage, and fan status, among other items, and permits out-of-band management even when the main processors are not powered-in.

KVM and VM over IP allow administrators to install software from a remote drive (floppy, CD/DVD-ROM, flash device, HDD) to target servers for convenient installation. At the same time, the KVM/VM function enables faster troubleshooting by fixing server problems from anywhere, while IPMI proactively sends alarms about environmental issues that could threaten the server's services, therefore reducing system downtime and operation costs.

Dual Intel® Xeon® quad-core processors - new mircoarchitecture innovation
The Intel® Xeon® 5500 processors represent the innovation 'tock' of Intel's very successful 'tick-tock' model to deliver the next-generation of silicon technology as well as new processor microarchitecture year after year. New features in this particular silicon are an integrated memory controller with 3 DDR channels which eliminates the memory bottleneck, a greater instruction per clock with improved caches for faster processing per core, and a dynamic optimization of cache and bandwidth resource usage and power levels for specific workload needs. Moreover, there are up to 8 cores or 16 threads for simultaneous multi-threading, which makes this Intel® quad-core processor ideally built for virtualization configurations.

Kontron KTC5520-EATX - quality Kontron design expertise and diverse feature-set
Kontron's unique approach to servicing the OEM marketplace provides customers several advantages when compared to traditional ODMs, Contract Manufactures (CM), or in-house design approaches. First, Kontron leverages technology developed in its standard products to create a market-tested and validated solution to each customer's requirements. Second, Kontron assumes responsibilities for product life-cycle management, again leveraging the rest of its product portfolio, and allowing our customers to focus their resources on their core intellectual property. Third, Kontron provides technical support to its customer through the project life-cycle, ensuring its customers have all the technical help required to get the product going in the target application, deliver to the end customers, and maintain the product.

Among an incredible feature-set, the Kontron KTC5520-EATX server board provides one dual port GbE controller for external connectivity, support for iSCSI storage technology and boot-up via iSCSI, and expansions via two USB headers (flash drive compatible), one TPM 1.2 header, one PCI 32 bits/33 MHz slot, one PCI-Express x4 Gen1 slot and four x8 PCI-Express Gen2 slots. It also features six SATA II connectors, four USB 2.0 ports, seven fan headers, VGA, legacy PS/2 keyboard/mouse and HD audio interfaces.

The Kontron KTC5520-EATX server board uses the Intel® IOH 36D (I/OAT, VT-d) and Intel® ICH10R chipset that offer significant new enhancements to accelerate I/O traffic and lower CPU utilization in both native and virtualized environments. Memory options feature support for up to 48GB DDR3 800/1066/1333 MHz on three channels of two DIMM sockets per CPU, for a total of 12 DDR3 ECC Registered DIMMs. Software support includes Windows Server 2008 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 5.2 or later (64 bits) operating systems.

Product Pricing and Availability
Kontron KTC5520-EATX Quad-Core Server Board - RoHS compliant
Pricing: OEM pricing upon request
Availability: Now.

For more information on the Kontron KTC5520-EATX server board, please visit
http://www.kontron.com/products/boards+and+mezzanines/server+board/ktc5520eatx.html

For more information on Kontron server boards, please visit
http://www.kontron.com/products/boards+and+mezzanines/server+board/