Industrial Motherboards & Embedded Computers
Introduction
Whilst much of the commercial PC market is served by well known motherboard manufacturers, there exists a class of products designed specifically for the industrial market with high reliability, fanless and extended connectivity features such as serial, network and USB ports. These industrial motherboards are designed for OEM designers of equipment and find life in EPOS, Process control, automation and many other applications. Embedded computers tend to be physically smaller than industrial motherboards and use very low power processors such as ARM devices and run cut down operating systems based on Linux. Both industrial motherboards and embedded computers may also be know as single boards computers (SBC).
Applications of Industrial Motherboards
Industrial motherboards are to be found hidden away in many applications such as data aquisition, process control, factory automation, touchscreen panels and many more.
OEM Motherboard Sizes
Popular industrial motherboard sizes are 3.5" (146mm x 104mm), 5.25" (203mm x 146mm) and Mini-Itx (170mm x 170mm and typically less than 35mm high).
Industrial Motherboard Features
Some of the typical features of industrial motherboards and embedded computers include:
Low profile and low power processors
High reliability
Often fanless designs
Small form factor
Many USB and Gb ethernet ports
Serial communications - RS232, RS422 and RS485
Audio
Graphics - but lower performance compared with commercial PCs
Some have single voltage input - e.g. 12V
Ability to drive LCDs directly using LVDS
Digital IO connector
Embedded SBC Suppliers
Find a maufacturers and suppliers of industrial motherboards here - SBC Manufacturers