Kontron ETXexpress-CD

Introduction

Time is a commodity that no one has enough of. 'Short time-to-market' is a nightmare every company suffers from. New concepts promise a lot of advantages, but how do you use them in a non existent time span? Especially embedded boards which are not always easy connectable, have tangling cables and often have non standard interfaces requiring additional/expensive adapters. Kontron recognised this problem and developed the ETX eval, a platform for ETX boards. Its main benefit is the ATX (Advanced Technology eXtended) form and function. To build an ATX based PC, just plug the ETX-P1 (Embedded Technology eXtended) onto the ETX eval, mount it into a PC chassis and you're set. Now system design and application development gets a great boost forward. Others still look for adapters while your project already started.

The board is in the standard ATX form factor and has onboard headers for ps/2 keyboard, ps/2 mouse, twin usb, twin serial, parallel, Ethernet and sound in/out jack sockets. The board has standard 0.1" pitch floppy and twin IDE interfaces. Power is supplied via either an ATX power connector or by an AT power connector. Additional headers bring out signals such as IrDA, LVDS LCD, VGA (same as on 15 way DSUB), sound (same as 3.5" jack sockets).

Kontron have recently updated the ETX-EVAL to version 2.0 to include extra functionality designed to aid development work with an ETX module. Additional functions include port80 post counter, additional connectors (such as serial, parallel etc from I/O controller on ETX-EVAL card) & extra USB connector (using signals from ETX CPU card). Schematics are available below for both models which give designers a base reference for designing custom baseboards.

This next Generation COM takes you .... always a Jump ahead!

Heatspreader Concept

The heat-spreader is a 2mm thick aluminium plate. It provides a thermal interface surface for heat removal from the ETXexpress module. The heat-spreader is thermally coupled to the CPU die or package surface, and it may also be coupled to other heat generating devices on the module (e.g. chipset, vga chip). The heat spreader is not intended as a heat sink, although it may be suitable for this purpose on low power modules operating under benign conditions. Higher power modules or higher temperature conditions will probably require heat removal devices (e.g. heat sink with fan, heat pipe, larger heatsink etc.) to be attached to the heatspreader, or it may need to be thermally coupled to a chassis.