Kontron has announced the launch of three additional embedded motherboards in the ATX and flex-ATX form factors with the 2nd generation intel core i3/i5/i7 desktop and mobile processors.

They complete Kontron’s family of embedded motherboards based on the intel 67 express chipset, that are now scalable from the compact mini-ITX up to the fully fledged ATX form factor with more extension slots. These rugged boards offer best-in-class quad core processors with increased performance and double the graphics performance of previous generations. The new Kontron motherboards outperform conventional motherboards, which were developed for the consumer market, thanks to their seven-year long-term availability and a generous selection of graphics, communication and extension interfaces.

All three embedded motherboards are equipped with a highly flexible and configurable feature connector. This means the adaptation of the Kontron ATX and flex-ATX embedded motherboards to individual I/O requirements can be carried out extremely simply and efficiently via the onboard embedded microcontroller. Up to 160 GPIO are supported, including analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analogue converter (DAC).

In addition, the three new embedded motherboards offer the cross-platform Kontron embedded application programming interface (KEAPI) middleware, which speeds up application development and reduces time-to-market and total cost of ownership.

With the integrated intel turbo boost technology 2.0 and intel advanced vector extensions (intel AVX), customer applications benefit from faster floating point operations and vectorial calculations with reduced power consumption – ideal for image processing in industrial automation, medical and military applications.

Also, for the first time, with the integrated intel HD graphics, the new motherboards offer 2D and 3D graphics performance with directX10.1 and openGL 3.0 support on-board at the level of dedicated graphics cards which saves space and costs and ensures a stable long-term availability ensured by the intel embedded roadmap. Additionally, with 2x displayport, 1x DVI or VGA and LVDS, the new embedded motherboards support all industry-relevant monitor standards without additional adapters or cost.

Features in detail

The embedded motherboards Kontron KTQM/67FLEX and KTQM/67ATXP which are based on the mobile intel QM67 express chipset are designed to achieve the highest energy efficiency. They are scalable up to the intel core i7-2710QE with a TDP of only 45W.

The well balanced performance per watt ratio makes these boards the ideal solution for applications where high performance, combined with low heat dissipation, is a critical design issue, such as in medical imaging systems or digital signage installations.

Video connections include 2x displayport and 1x DVI. To accommodate expansion cards they feature 1x PCI express x16, 1 PCI express x1 and up to six PCI slots. The ATX embedded motherboard Kontron KTQ67/ATXE with the intel Q67 controller hub is scalable up to the intel core i7-2600 processor with up to 3.8GHz turbo frequency (95W TDP) and a maximum of 32GB DDR3 RAM. With these benchmarks it is the ideal choice for performance oriented embedded applications that require leading-edge computing power and expansion ports. It executes 2x displayport as well as 1x VGA and LVDS (optional). Expansion slots include 1x PCI express x4 and five PCI slots.

Common to all boards are 14x USB 2.0 and 3x GbE-LAN with intel AMT 7.0 support which allow extensive peripheral and networking options. In addition, with Intel AMT 7.0 the embedded motherboards simplify maintenance, achieving higher system availability and lower overall costs. Numerous storage media can be connected via the 6x SATA interfaces (4x SATA150/300 and 2x SATA600) with RAID 0/1/5/10 functionality and the mSATA (mini-SATA) socket for state-of-the-art on-board SSD. HD audio and a trusted platform module 1.2 for safety-related applications top off the feature set of the new motherboards.

The Kontron flex-ATX embedded motherboard KTQM67/Flex and the Kontron ATX embedded motherboards KTQM67/ATX and KTQ67/ATX are available now. The boards are supplied with comprehensive board support packages for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Embedded Standard 7, VxWorks, as well as Linux distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise, Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise, Red Flag Linux and Wind River Linux.