Introduction

• Embedded systems may be custom-built, but this is expensive
• There are many single-board computer systems available

Motherboard

• Most PCs are built using a standard motherboard produced in bulk
• The standard motherboard size is 30.5 x 25.5 cm (12 x 9.6 inches)
• A PC motherboard in 2003 usually costs about A$200 and contains
  • CPU
  • PCI slots
  • memory slots
  • VGA driver
  • audio card
  • Ethernet 10/100Mbps card

Compact motherboard

• Compact motherboards are about 270 x 206 mm (10.6 x 8.1 inches)
• They have a smaller number of e.g. PCI slots

PC/104 modules

• PC/104 modules are single board modules that can be stacked vertically
• The modules are linked by a 40 pin PCI/104 expansion interface
• Each board is 96 x 90mm (3.8 x 3.5 inches)
• A typical CPU module is the Advantech PCM-3346 for A$800 module with
  • 486 DX-66 CPU
  • 2Mb VGA card
  • keyboard/mouse/PS2 connector
  • 64M system memory
  • 10/100BASE-T ethernet
  • Flash memory
  • 2 x RS232 serial ports
  • IrDA
• Other modules include
  • PCMCIA
  • CardBus
  • Sound card

Biscuit SBCs

• Advantech CPC-2245N-1600 A$638
• 68 x 100mm (2.7 x 3.9 inches)
• 486 66Mhz CPU
• 16M RAM
• CompactFlash socket
• 10/100Mbps
• VGA 16M RAM

System on chip

• Advantech EVA-X1610C
• 16-bit, 75 MHz RISC microprocessor
• Fast Ethernet MAC with MII interface
• Dual FIFO UART serial channels
• Up to 18 programmable I/O pins
• 128-Pin PQFP

Smart Dust

• A research project at Berkeley hopes to build a wireless computer in one cubic millimetre http://robotics.EECS.Berkeley.EDU/~pister/SmartDust/
• A prototype device measuring 58 x 32 x 7mm is available commercially from www.xbow.com
• www.smartdust.com is building them into networks
• It can run over one year on 2 AA batteries