May 2016
6
C
over
S
tory
Small form factor trend conquers
high-end industrial computing
By Christian Eder,
congatec
The small form factor trend has
conquered the high-end industrial
computing market. Intel Xeon
processors are now available as
highly integrated and rugged
BGA versions. This opens the door
for a new category of
embedded computing platforms:
Server-on-Modules. Utilizing the COM
Express specification for this
new module class makes
a lot of sense.
The 6th generation of Intel Core processors,
formerly codenamed Broadwell and Skylake,
now Intel Xeon, are manufactured in 14nm
process and integrate the CPU and GPU on
a small form factor, rugged BGA multi-chip
module. While the Intel Core processors are
well suited for any standard high-end appli-
cations ranging from industrial automation to
medical, retail and gaming, the Intel Xeon pro-
cessors aim for embedded, industrial and IoT
server platforms. Areas of application include,
for example, servers for medical image pro-
cessing in stationary CRT, MRT and 4D ultra-
sound devices, as well as carrier-grade edge
servers and industrial cloud servers with high
packing density and/or minimum footprint.
The high graphics performance of the inte-
grated Intel Iris Pro technology – useful in
carrier-grade applications for content delivery
platforms with real-time video transcoding
of multiple streams and network functions
virtualization (NFV) – will also work well in
industrial applications to fulfil important situ-
ational awareness tasks, for example in auton-
omous vehicles or in vision-based industrial
safety barriers. GPGPU-based applications
can also be found in parallel deep packet
inspection, content encryption and decryp-
tion and big data analytics. For server-based
applications, the graphics engine delivers dis-
tributed clients a rich and responsive 3D per-
formance for CAD, 3D modelling and video
rendering.
Some of these applications are fit for 19-inch
industrial server designs that were built on
the basis of standard industrial motherboards
such as ATX and its derivates. But most of the
new embedded server applications are more
space-constrained, demand a highly custom-
ized feature set and an extended longevity. So
the time has come to define a server class of
computer modules to be able to perform the
required customization with limited effort.
A big advantage at this stage is the availability
of the open standard COM Express Comput-
er-on-Module specification which is hosted by
the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers
Group (PICMG). This specification delivers
everything that is required to design high-end
industrial embedded servers. The layer design
of the boards is built for high levels of EMC
compliance in harsh industrial environments.
The two double-row SMD connectors are
robust and offer 440 pins for numerous high-
speed interfaces. In addition, COM Express
is optimized for the high performance inter-
faces of standard computer technologies, and
meets the highest ruggedization demands
thanks to a stable connection to the applica-
tion-specific carrier board. In many cases, it is
specifically the high-end designs that rely on
COM Express, especially when the standard
feature set of the motherboards does not meet
the design requirements or space is limited in
the application.
So the only question is whether these new
SOC server processors fit on the form factor.
And yes, they do: the 125mm x 95mm sized
COMExpress Basic form factor fits for the new
Intel Xeon generations as long as engineers
don’t want to have 4 banks of DDR4 RAM
which cannot be designed onto the modules.
But everything that can be sufficiently served
today with up to 32GB RAM is perfectly served
with COM Express. That is a great advantage
because embedded server designers can now
utilize the entire eco system that has been built
around this form factor.
Some people might raise the objection that
they cannot use the entire I/O feature set of
the new Intel Xeon processors. And yes, that
is true. But on the other hand, standards are
not built to fulfil everybody’s needs. They are
better built in accordance with the Pareto
principle to suit 80% of applications, because
it reduces costs not to fulfil the needs of the
last 20%. The 440 pins of the COM Express
Type 6 specification offer a huge set of inter-
faces for that 80% of applications. In most
cases, they will by far exceed the demands of
high-end embedded, industrial and IoT edge
