Kishan Jainandunsing
(March 2006)

In this column we highlight monthly in a series of articles the value propositions of the COM Express standard. This month’s article is about how COM Express may bring about a rebirth of the SBC industry.

The COM Express Renaissance of the Single Board Computer Industry

Summary

The traditional single board computer (SBC) approach has several shortcomings that limit product lifecycles and opportunities for SBC manufacturers to improve on otherwise razor thin margins in a commodity market. COM Express provides SBC manufacturers with a way out of this dilemma.

Dilemmas of SBC Manufacturers

The traditional SBC product consists of a computer motherboard with headers, sockets and/or connectors for I/O breakout and functionality expansion. The motherboard also includes the chipset, which supports a particular generation of CPUs. The figure below illustrates the architecture of a traditional SBC.

Figure 1. Traditional SBC Architecture

The chipset typically does not support CPUs across multiple generations, but mostly across a single generation only. This limits the product lifecycle of a traditional SBC.

Furthermore, manufacturers of SBC products tend to focus on rather generic specifications for their products, as a more application specific approach is too expensive to develop and maintain in a market where aggregate volumes may be large, but individual applications command volumes that are not large enough by themselves to offset product lifecycle costs.

In those cases where the SBC supplier is willing to develop a custom product, he may not charge the customer the full NRE costs, just to hold on to the business. This, on top of the already low margins that characterize the SBC market. The low margins are caused by the fact that traditional SBC products generally do not incorporate value-added features that sets one manufacturer's products significantly apart from another's. The combination of low margins and the high cost of developing application-specific SBC products with application-specific value-added features, in turn has left SBC manufacturers with little room to innovate.

The COM Express Solution

The PICMG COM Express standard for computer-on-modules has the potential to provide SBC manufacturers with a solution to their dilemmas of limited product lifecycles and low margins. Indeed, since COM Express modules isolate a carrier board from chipset obsolescence, SBC products based on COM Express modules and carrier boards have a longer product lifecycle. Figure 2 illustrates the architecture of a generic COM Express SBC product.

Figure 2. COM Express-based SBC architecture

The relatively low development costs for COM Express carrier boards make it economically feasible to create more application specific, higher margin SBC products - including for instance digital signal processors and field programmable gate arrays - and for a wider range of form factors - including handhelds and tablets.

Application-Specific COM Express-based SBCs

Some examples of application-specific carrier boards or COM Express-based SBCs are presented below. These are chosen in two extreme categories - floor installed and hand held - to illustrate the versatility of the COM Express approach.

A kiosk application-specific COM Express-based SBC. This SBC may have interfaces for one or more touch panels, one or more LVDS& DVI panels, flash card readers for various flash card formats (Secure Card, CompactFlash Card, Sony Memory Stick, etc.), Wi-Fi network communication, a printer, high-definition audio, a finger print sensor, a credit card reader, a USB or IEEE1394 camera.

Figure 3. Kiosk application-specific COM Express-based SBC

An industrial tablet computer application-specific COM Express-based SBC. Intended for a wide range of industrial uses with different operational modes, such as statically mounted, mobile mounted (forklift, etc.), handheld, etc. This carrier board may have interfaces for a touch panel, an LVDS LCD panel, DVI-I flat panel and CRT display, PC Cards or ExpressCards, Wi-Fi network communication, high-definition audio, a finger print sensor, a USB or IEEE1394 camera.

Figure 4. Industrial tablet PC application-specific COM Express-based SBC

Conclusions

The COM Express standard provides SBC manufacturers for the first time with the true potential to innovate and differentiate in a highly homogenized industry with relatively low margins. The standard makes it economical to bring to market application specific SBC products and at the same time it isolates a SBC from chipset obsolescence.

End of Part III