Kontron has introduced two rugged 6U CompactPCI PICMG 2.16 compliant processor boards with 2nd generation Intel Core i7 processor technology.

The boards are available in two ruggedisation levels, the rugged air-cooled Kontron CP6003-RA for installations that require versatile and comprehensive I/O capabilities and the rugged conduction cooled Kontron CP6003-RC, for deployment in extremely harsh environments.

By offering two ruggedisation levels, Kontron enables designers to choose the ideal solution for their application. Designed to bring leading-edge performance with low power consumption and low heat dissipation to a broad range of rugged applications, the Kontron 6U CompactPCI processor boards CP6003-RA/RC are an ideal fit for military and aerospace systems.

Equipped with multicore CPU’s, including the 2.10GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7-2715QE processor, the Kontron CP6003-RA/RC boards not only speed up vector operations required for imaging and floating-point applications via Advanced Vector Extension (Intel AVX), but also process single-threaded tasks through Intel Turbo Boost technology 2.0. This allows for a clock speed of up to 3.0GHz without the need to oversize the entire system for peak loads. Compared to platforms with the previous dual core Intel Core i7 processor and comparable core speed, benchmarks show a performance gain of more than 200 percent for the quad core CPU (Dhrystone Alu MIPS). Furthermore, CPU boards based on 2nd generation Intel Core i5/i7 processors offer a 50 percent performance / watt ratio improvement on average, compared to designs with the previous Intel Core processor architecture. This enables OEMs and system integrators to pack more performance into their systems at the same level of heat dissipation, enabling more powerful applications in the same thermal envelope.

Up to 16GB of soldered DDR3 1333 ECC memory ensures data accuracy for demanding and safety-critical applications like radar or sonar systems. A rugged NAND Flash with up to 32GB can be integrated via a SATA interface to host complete operating systems or application code, which substantially increases overall system speed and availability.

The Kontron 6U CompactPCI processor boards CP6003-RA/RC support 64-bit / 66MHz PCI or PCI-X on the hot swap CompactPCI interface. Safety and security features via an optional trusted platform module (TPM) 1.2, two redundant firmware hubs (failover) and intelligent platform management interface (IPMI) are supported as well. The XMC (via PCI Express x8) or PMC socket for mezzanine cards ensure plenty of room for application specific expansions, like the dual 10 Gigabit Ethernet network interface card Kontron XMC401. The RoHS compliant and lead-free CP6003-RA/RC can be used in both, a system or peripheral slot.