Freescale i.MX 6 Computer on Module - Apalis iMX6

The Apalis iMX6 is the second product in the new Apalis module family by Toradex. Complementing the existing Colibri module family, Apalis comes with a wide range of new and exciting features, ensuring customers can develop the most advanced, robust products with minimum overhead and risk. Apalis supports a huge variety of industry standard interfaces, while at the same time providing advanced multimedia and high speed connectivity making it suitable for an almost unlimited number of applications.

Based on the valuable input of our customers and our engineers‘ in-depth industry expertise, Apalis brings to market many new technologies. Direct Breakout™ considerably simplifies routing of high speed signals on the baseboard. MXM SnapLock™ provides a unique connector mechanism for module fixation. Apalis also comes with support for ready-made passive cooling solutions for the most demanding applications. The module comes with a pre-installed operating system including a Windows Embedded Compact 2013 NR Runtime License. The available operating system is Linux. Windows Embedded Compact 7 and 2013 will follow later this year.


The Apalis standard white paper summarizes the many benefits of the new, independent computer module architecture.

Apalis standard white paper

The following document is a design guide for Apalis carrier boards, but also applies to any high speed hardware designs.

Apalis carrier board design guide


Apalis Evaluation Board

The Apalis Evaluation Board is a flexible development environment with which you can explore and evaluate the functionality and performance of the Apalis product family. Apalis interfaces can be easily accessed by means of physical connectors and standard pitch headers. The breakout area allows for convenient probing of the large number of Apalis interfaces as well as easy breaking and jumpering of signals.

The Apalis Evaluation Board PCB is comprised of four layers, of which only one is used for high speed signal routing. This demonstrates how the Direct Breakout technology makes it incredibly easy to implement leading edge interfaces with minimal risk and effort. CAE data for the board, including schematics, layout and IPC-7351 compliant component libraries, are freely downloadable from our developer website. To find out more about the Apalis Evaluation Board, Click on the Carrier Boards tab above.

NVIDIA Tegra 3 Computer on Module - Apalis T30

The Apalis T30 is the first product in the new Apalis module family by Toradex. Complementing the existing Colibri Computer modules family, Apalis comes with a wide range of new and exciting features, ensuring customers can develop the most advanced, robust products with minimum overhead and risk. Apalis supports a huge variety of industry standard interfaces, while at the same time providing advanced multimedia and high speed connectivity making it suitable for an almost unlimited number of applications.

Based on the valuable input of our customers and our engineers‘ in-depth industry expertise, Apalis brings to market many new technologies. Direct Breakout™ considerably simplifies routing of high speed signals on the baseboard. MXM SnapLock™ provides a unique connector mechanism for module fixation. Apalis also comes with support for ready-made passive cooling solutions for the most demanding applications. This Computer module comes with a pre-installed operating system including a Windows Embedded Compact 2013 NR Runtime License. The available operating systems are: Windows Embedded Compact 7, Linux, and Android.

The Apalis standard white paper summarizes the many benefits of the new, independent computer module architecture. 

Download here: Apalis standard white paper

The following document is a design guide for Apalis carrier boards, but also applies to any high speed hardware design

Download here: Apalis carrier board design guide

Computer on Modules Capturing the Embedded Market

Today's development engineers of industrial products are facing many challenges, for which they have to come up with innovative solutions.

The microprocessor is at the heart of any modern embedded system. With an average innovation cycle of six to twelve months for Application Processors (AP) and System on Chips (SoCs), this is much shorter than the required five to ten year lifecycle for the embedded market, making the deployment of such technologies in embedded systems problematic if not impossible.

Consumer technology drives customer expectations; embedded systems that interact with people need to provide equivalent features and interfaces.

Devices must be intuitive; people no longer want to read user guides or manuals. 3D acceleration and multi touch support are mandatory for the Graphical User Interface (GUI). High speed connectivity using PCI-Express, SATA and Gigabit Ethernet coupled with multimedia interfaces such as HDMI are all necessary to ensure products live up to customer expectations.

Designing complex computing platforms to meet the demands of today’s end customers takes many man years and requires highly specific expertise. To solve these challenges, development engineers have started to deploy off-the-shelf COMs. By purchasing the embedded computing platform as a complete, standardised subsystem, the development team can concentrate on the application, reducing development costs, risks and time to market.

Hardware and software maintenance of the Computer on Module is managed by the vendor, so the customer no longer has to worry about the lifecycle of individual components, massively reducing redesign risks and product maintenance overhead.

Another major advantage of choosing a computer module from a pin and functional compatible module family is the scalability of the end user product. By selecting the module that meets the requirements of specific application, customers can deploy product variants which are performance and price optimised for slightly different markets and segments.

For low to medium volume products, quite often a Embedded Computer on Module is the only cost effective solution, achievable due to the economy of scale leveraged by a large customer base deploying the same module. The cost benefit of using COMs in an application can often be realised well into volumes of several tens of thousands per year.