Men Mikro DC1

Introduction

The display computer DC1 is a rugged, fanless and maintenance-free panel PC for harsh, mobile and mission-critical applications in transportation, avionics, medical engineering and industrial automation. Its robust stainless enclosure is protected against violent impacts and designed for a safeguarded use in direct contact with humans, e.g. for infotainment purposes in trains, public buses or airplanes.

The DC1 is controlled by the Intel® Atom Z530 running at 1.6 GHz with a performance comparable to a Celeron® M 1 GHz and higher. It comes with 1 GB of DDR2 SDRAM and 4 GB of USB-driven Flash disk. The standard interfaces comprise 2 Fast Ethernet and 2 USB ports as well as five binary inputs. The two Ethernet interfaces have repeater functionality to provide Ethernet connection also to subsequent intelligent displays. A temperature sensor monitors and controls the display.

All I/O signals are concentrated at the bottom side of the DC1. The whole unit can be directly mounted to any type of device or side-by-side or back-to-back with a second display.

The standard version of the DC1 complies with the EN 50155, class Tx railway standard (prepared for coating). It is thus for example equipped with a 9V to 36V wide-range power supply and able to operate in a -40 to +70°C (+85°C for 15 minutes) environment.

The DC1 is the first member of a whole family of display computers based on a flexible modular configuration concept. The control electronics is directly attached to the back of the screen, supporting 19, 17, 15, 12 and optionally even smaller display and housing sizes. The computer unit itself builds on the brand new Intel® ultra-mobile low-power processor family starting with the Intel® Atom Z530 at 1.1 GHz or Z510 at 1.6 GHz. On request a UART interface can be added and the USB interfaces can be individually configured up to a maximum of 5 ports, one of which a client port (alternatively UARTs). A connection for a secondary display (on-board via LVDS or external via DVI-D) can be made accessible, with then two displays able to provide different and equal content at the same time. Additional I/O may optionally comprise HD audio or field bus functions like IBIS or CAN bus. A MiniPCI Express® card slot in combination with an external antenna can be used to incorporate wireless functions like WIFI, WIMAX, GSM/GPRS, UMTS etc.

The concept also allows to use different input voltage ranges of the PSUs, for example 18 to 72V or 36 to 140V up to 154V for railway applications. With a typical power consumption of only 20 Watts for the total system the design is always realized without fans, using conductive cooling between the electronics and the display to spread the dissipated heat to the outside of the housing. All electronic components are soldered to withstand shock and vibration and prepared for conformal coating. The housing can be delivered vandal-proof. This display computer series can be qualified according to the applicable quality and security standards of the different markets it has been designed for.