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are closely coupled to the single-board design.
Fixed size: space-constrained applications
may struggle to use SBC as the size may not be
ideal. Currently, low-cost SBCs such as Rasp-
berry Pi and Beagle Bone are really popular
in the embedded market. These open-source
and community-backed platforms can also be
used to develop IoT products. These SBCs are
ideal for DIY and academic projects. How-
ever, they are not appropriate for commercial
development of embedded products because
they are not industrial hardware (tempera-
ture range, vibration), have no committed or
dedicated support in terms of software and
hardware, product lifecycle is not guaranteed,
and no product change notification policy is
available.
An embedded platform can be represented as
follows:
The application-agnostic part consists of
essential design commodities, including
the processing and memory requirements.
This part may not differ much whether the
end-product is a medical device or retail PoS
device, assuming the processing and mem-
ory requirements are somewhat similar. This
application-specific part constitutes both the
hardware and software, depending on the
application and OEMs requirements. OEMs
can differentiate their products from those of
their competitors by adding value to this part.
A computer-on-module (COM) or sys-
tem-on-module (SOM) is a cost-effective, reli-
able and ready-to-use computing solution that
consists of the application-agnostic hardware
and software. System developers can focus on
the application-specific part by using an off-
the-shelf COM, and thus accelerate time-to-
market without compromising on product
development cost and risk. The combination
of an application-agnostic COM and applica-
tion-specific carrier board along with display
and peripherals offers a complete platform
for developing any end-products. The carrier
board houses all I/Os needed for the specific
end-application. The COM can be inserted
into the carrier board through some stan-
dard connector such as SODIMM connector.
Many COM suppliers also offer off-the-shelf
compatible carrier boards. The revamped
embedded platform can be represented as
follows:
Usually, off-the-shelf carrier boards may not
fulfil packaging, I/O configuration, func-
tional and size requirements, so OEMs pre-
fer to develop and design their own carrier
board. Development of customized carrier
boards can be really made easy in case the lay-
out and schematics files of compatible carrier
boards are shared by the COM suppliers. The
revamped embedded platform can be repre-
sented as shown in figure 2.
Usually, OEMs prefer chip-based devel-
opment; however, as mentioned, there are
many constraints in this approach. A COM
addresses these constraints effectively. It
reduces development cost. COM vendors
procure silicon components such as SoC,
memory, etc in high volume, thus pay less
than OEMs for their low-volume procure-
ment. By using an off-the-shelf COM, OEMs
can leverage economies of scale to bring
down input cost. Further, OEMs can only
focus on developing the application-specific
part of their product, and thus reduce NRE
cost. COMs accelerate time-to-market. As the
COM offers an application-ready platform
OEMs can accelerate the time-to-market for
their products and reduce development risk.
COMs are extensively tested by the suppli-
ers and other customers, so OEMs can sig-
nificantly reduce their product development
risk. Some COM suppliers such as Toradex
offer pin-compatible COMs with a variety of
performance, price, and I/O. OEMs can eas-
ily scale up their platforms to accommodate
future market demands and latest technolo-
gies. COMs offer access to latest technology.
Usually, market leaders of silicon components
such as SoC and flash memory do not engage
with low-volume customers, so OEMs may
struggle to get access to latest technological
advances. COMs vendors ensure the adoption
of such technologies in the embedded devices
by engaging in large-volume business with
market leaders of silicon components.
It can be summed up that COM/SOM offers
an ideal platform for developing embedded
devices including IoT products. IoT is still
in the nascent stage and many discussions
around it create more questions than answers.
Growth of the IoT is restricted by many issues
such as lack of uniform communication stan-
dard, ambiguous revenue model, questionable
utility, security threat, etc. We can expect the
IoT products will evolve gradually to allevi-
ate these issues. So the embedded platform,
which is the foundation of IoT, should be scal-
able and flexible to adapt as per future needs.
With advances in semiconductor technology,
we can expect advanced security features that
will make the silicon components more ideal
for IoT. Migration to the latest technology is
easily possible in an embedded platform using
COM, as the processing and memory section
is isolated from the I/O section.
Toradex is well placed to meet the demands of
the IoT market. It offers ARM-based COMs
at a variety of price, performance, and power
to match the diverse needs of the market. Fur-
ther, the availability of connectivity interfaces
such as Gigabit Ethernet, PCIe, SATA, CAN,
and many more industrial standards, makes
these COMs suitable for a wide range of IoT
applications. The COMs are pin-compatible,
thus upgrading the platform, based on future
needs and technology is feasible without any
redesign effort. It also offers standardized car-
rier boards that are compatible with the COMs.
Customized carrier board development is also
easy as the carrier board schematic and layout
files are freely downloadable. Customers can
easily use these files as reference for designing
their customized carrier boards.
n
Figure 3. Pin-compatible COMs with different performance levels
