What are the characteristics of ARM industrial motherboards?
ARM industrial motherboards feature high performance, low cost, and low power consumption. They are widely used in industrial automation, HMI, robotics, retail terminals, media playback, charging stations, and other fields.
The characteristics of ARM industrial motherboards are as follows:
1. High reliability and stability
In industrial control applications, stable and reliable performance is a fundamental requirement where ARM industrial motherboards hold distinct advantages. Firstly, as a single-chip system, ARM industrial motherboards require only a few peripheral circuits to function smoothly. Secondly, with low thermal output, they eliminate the need for fans and mitigate concerns about temperature affecting performance. They can operate continuously for years. Finally, the CPU and memory are onboard, meeting stringent environmental requirements such as wide temperature ranges and vibration resistance.
2. Robust Functionality
Compared to microcontrollers, ARM industrial motherboards easily achieve expansion via buses. When compared to X86 industrial motherboards, ARM boards increasingly match their capabilities-such as supporting multiple COM ports, USB ports, and displays. In video multimedia and data communication, they are essentially on par with X86 industrial motherboards.
ARM Industrial Motherboards
3. High Processing Speed
ARM processors are RISC microprocessors offering superior data and instruction processing efficiency, meeting most industrial control and smart terminal device requirements on the motherboard. Additionally, data on ARM industrial motherboards is typically stored in Flash memory, which uses binary format. External data cannot be directly copied from internal data, ensuring robust data security.
4. Short Development Cycle and High Flexibility
The hardware development cycle for ARM-based industrial motherboards is generally within 3 months, significantly reducing R&D costs and accelerating customer product development. Furthermore, ARM industrial motherboards offer flexible configuration options tailored to user needs, such as memory size, system driver reduction, peripheral chip reduction, and system software loading. This substantially lowers customer costs while enhancing overall system maintenance efficiency and performance.
Differences Between Industrial Motherboards and Commercial Motherboards
Based on their intended use, motherboards can be categorized into industrial motherboards and commercial motherboards. Commercial motherboards are primarily used in home and office computers, while industrial motherboards are mainly deployed in industrial settings. Consequently, industrial and commercial motherboards exhibit significant design differences.
1. Different Lifecycles
According to Moore's Law, commercial motherboards are typically updated after 2 to 3 years of use. The commercial motherboard market prioritizes the following target values: high speed, superior graphics and gaming performance, and low cost.
Compared to commercial computers, industrial computers operate in vastly different usage scenarios and serve distinct purposes. In industrial applications, each device typically has fixed operational tasks and applications. Once the application is defined, the required speed and graphics processing capabilities of the industrial computer can be determined without the need for constant upgrades. Compared to speed and price, industrial customers place greater emphasis on long-term stable operation. Industrial motherboards generally have a lifespan of 5 to 8 years.
2. Differences in Electronic Component Materials
Motherboards are printed circuit boards (PCBs), and the core of PCBs consists of various electronic components. The differing service cycles of industrial and commercial motherboards lead to stark contrasts in electronic component selection.
Compared to industrial motherboards, commercial motherboards have lower requirements for product stability and operating environments. They typically use commercial-grade materials for time-sensitive components. For instance, common electrolytic capacitors are widely used in commercial motherboards. This serves two purposes: catering to the commercial market and reducing motherboard costs.
Components in industrial motherboards must withstand a wide temperature range (-40°C to 80°C) to ensure reliable operation in demanding environments (prolonged continuous operation, vibration, dust, radiation, etc.). Additionally, industrial motherboard components must withstand high temperatures and humidity. To meet application demands, industrial motherboards employ high-quality chip electrolytic capacitors, tantalum capacitors, and ceramic capacitors. This is one reason industrial motherboards cost more than commercial ones.
3. PCB Differences
Commercial motherboards use a four-layer PCB design. Typically, PCB circuit boards are divided into four layers. The top and bottom layers serve as signal layers, while the middle two layers function as ground and power planes. The ground and power planes are positioned centrally. Industrial motherboards employ PCB designs with six or more layers, specifically engineered to enhance the board's resistance to electromagnetic interference (EMI) and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), thereby improving overall stability.
4. CPU Differences
(1) Power Consumption
Industrial motherboards typically utilize low-power CPUs to withstand the harsh environments common in industrial control applications.
(2) Circuit Design
Industrial motherboards must accommodate wide temperature and voltage ranges in industrial applications, featuring broader voltage tolerance than commercial boards-typically operating between 9-36V. This demands more precise circuit layout and design for the CPU.
(3) Differing EMI Resistance
Commercial motherboards undergo only commercial EMC testing, resulting in lower EMI resistance. Industrial motherboards demand high EMI resistance and must pass EMI, EMC, and other tests and certifications.
5. Production Scheduling and Testing Processes
Industrial motherboards are often developed for specific applications and may only be suitable for certain uses. Consequently, their application scope is limited, whereas commercial motherboards target nationwide markets and can be produced in very large batches. Due to volume considerations, the cost allocation for production scheduling of industrial motherboards is significantly higher than for commercial ones. This represents another factor contributing to the price disparity between industrial and commercial motherboards.
Commercial motherboards primarily undergo three inspection processes: ICT, FUTION, and MANU. Before industrial motherboards enter production, they must pass multiple rigorous testing procedures, typically ranging from T5 to T7. Beyond ICT, FUTION, and MANU, additional testing for temperature, vibration, safety, and other parameters is required to ensure the quality of each industrial motherboard.
6. Other Considerations
(1) Industrial Motherboards Support More Interfaces
They can simultaneously support PCI, PCIe, Mini PCIe, multiple COM ports, multiple USB ports, embedded GPIO buses, dual display capabilities, HDMI, DVI, VGA, and LPT interfaces. Full-length cards can be paired with backplanes to support multiple ISA, PCI, and PCIe expansions.
(2) Industrial Motherboards Feature Protective Functions
Through specialized design, industrial motherboards enable automatic watchdog restart and surge protection during abnormal conditions like system shutdowns. This fully ensures high stability requirements in harsh environments.