Special Feature
maintaining cooling requirements. Another important performance component is upgradeability. With the adoption of COTS-based products driving the implementation of the latest technologies, modularity and upgradeability become crucial for product longevity. The PC/104 standard was created prior to several recent advancements in integrated chipsets, I/O, processors and graphics capabilities, and support for these solutions is not native. This can make upgrades a challenge, and the complexity of the stack and corresponding I/O can be extremely prohibitive. As a macro-component, COM Express enables technology insertions without a large time or monetary investment, and supports easy upgrades through multiple product lifetimes.
Video Processing and Display Capabilities With recent improvements in video support and chipset graphics, integrated video support has become a mandatory requirement for UAVs and other military
systems. The PC/104 standard was designed before long-life video support was common, and consequently does not have the native support necessary for today’s graphic applications. Many of today’s high-performance integrated chipsets and I/O capabilities require higher bandwidth connectors and more pins in a smaller space than was used for PC/104. To use a chipset’s integrated graphics, a PC/104 computing board must commit valuable space to one or more video connectors, since the video signals cannot be transmitted to another board. Dedicating space for adding graphics capabilities can potentially take away more space from the chipset, processor and memory, and could limit processor selection. In comparison, COM Express planned for the expansion of video and display capabilities, and provides standard connector access for a variety of high-speed interfaces. The COM Express connector supports multiple video interfaces including DisplayPort, VGA, SDVO, HDMI or DVI. This allows designers to
take advantage of the latest graphics capabilities without having to worry about affecting performance. Figure 3 shows an example COM Express module.
Increasing Network Requirements The transition to Network-Centric Warfare (NCW) means that the success of today’s combat missions depends on the rapid transfer of actionable information between UAVs, mission command and control centers, troops in the field and other military systems. The type of information being transferred has changed as well; whether it’s high-bandwidth radar streams or high-definition video images, powerful multicore CPUs and high-speed interfaces are required to process and transmit the information back to base. This creates an enormous need for I/O capabilities. PC/104 does not have native support for the new and high-performing interfaces required for today’s missions. PC/104 provides PCI Express, PCI and 2 USB ports for I/O expansion, but additional support requires adding more
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