What is a Customized SBC?
SBCs are off-the-shelf products that can be
used to develop end-products or applications for a variety of
industries. SBCs come along with integrated software and hardware, which
includes SoC, memory, power requirements and real world multimedia and
connectivity interfaces such as USB, UART, CAN, HDMI, Ethernet, SDIO,
MMC, Analog Audio, display etc. The SBC approach helps system developers
to focus on the application specific parts. An extensive range of SBCs
based on variety of microprocessor, memory size, supported interfaces
and operating system support are available in the embedded market. This
offers flexibility to the users to choose the appropriate Single Board Computer based on
their cost, features and performance requirements. Low cost SBCs are
widely used in academic research projects and in feature specific
end-products.
However, the SBC approach suffers inherently
from various drawbacks. First of all, SBC approach ensures high
switching cost to migrate to future technologies. As SBCs comes in
standard sizes and real world interfaces, so it is difficult to
accommodate future improvements in technology and thus the OEMs need to
switch to an entirely new SBC solution. Secondly, customizing a SBC is
cumbersome as the processor chipset and surrounding I/O are closely
coupled due to the single-board design. Finally, space constrained
applications may also struggle to use the standardized SBC available in
the market.
The Computer On Module
(COM) or System On Module (SOM) coupled along with a baseboard offers
an equivalent solution as that of the SBCs. The COM approach separates
the complex microprocessor part from the relatively simple I/O part and
thus offers flexibility to customize the baseboard part based on the
feature and size requirements of the end-product. Further,
pin-compatible modules ensures convenient and cost effective way to
migrate to future technology.
A Customized SBC is an off-the-shelf embedded solution that is a combination of a COM/ SOM and a carrier board. This combination provides a desirable alternative to SBCs in developing any embedded end-products as the former offers the flexibility and scalability inherent to the COM approach and yet, is a ready-to-use complete embedded solution, one of the main benefits of the SBC approach.
A Customized SBC is an off-the-shelf embedded solution that is a combination of a COM/ SOM and a carrier board. This combination provides a desirable alternative to SBCs in developing any embedded end-products as the former offers the flexibility and scalability inherent to the COM approach and yet, is a ready-to-use complete embedded solution, one of the main benefits of the SBC approach.
Our Offerings
Toradex offers a variety of Customized SBCs
with different performance levels, features and price points. Customers
can create their own Customized SBCs by combining any module along with a
supported carrier board from our pin-compatible modules of respective
Apalis & Colibri ARM family and carrier boards. Below we present the
ultra-low cost Customized SBC -
Toradex introduces Viola, a new open source
concept for ultra-low cost customized single-board computers. When
combined with Colibri VF50 COM, a Freescale® Vybrid™-based
Computer-on-Module, a Viola based single-board computer starts at a
price € 39 for 1K units
(€ 49 for single unit price) and offers a very interesting set of
functions for numerous embedded applications. Viola carrier board can
also be combined with any other pin-compatible modules from the Colibri
ARM family to offer variety of Customized SBCs.
Viola Carrier Board
The 4-layer Open Source Viola carrier board measuring just 74mm x 74mm
is compatible with the entire Colibri family of COMs. The long product
lifecycle of 10+ years, complemented with the availability of key
communication interfaces – including USB 2.0 host and 100 Mbit Ethernet –
and a host of industrial interfaces – such as I2C, SPI, UART and GPIO –
makes the Viola carrier board perfectly suited for industrial and
embedded applications. The Viola carrier board is ideal for low
cost volume production of embedded devices. This carrier board is not
intended for evaluation purpose as offering debug and development
interfaces will increase the BOM(Bill of Materials) cost. For
development and evaluation projects on Colibri modules, it is advisable
to use Colibri Evaluation board or Iris carrier board. The
schematics, layout, libraries and BOM are all available free of charge
in electronic format, thereby enabling a full custom design, if
required.
Colibri VF50 COM
Colibri VF50 is a miniaturized module that offers unparalled cost-performance trade-off and consumes very low power . This module is powered by Freescale Vybrid VF5xx SoC based on ARM Cortex A5 clocking up to 400 MHz. The Vybrid VF5xx family is a single-core (ARM Cortex-A5) solution with 1.5 MB on-chip SRAM, DDR3 memory interface, dual high-speed USB with PHY, dual Ethernet with an L2 switch, and a digital video camera interface. The Colibri VF50 is suited for applications including simple HMI in appliances and industrial machines, secure control of infrastructure and manufacturing equipment, automotive infotainment and panel cluster, ruggedized wired and wireless connectivity, and control of mobile battery-operated systems such as robots and industrial vehicles.
