Munich, electronica, November 9, 2010 * * * congatec AG, a leading manufacturer of embedded computer modules, announces UEFI support for the new conga-QA6 small form factor module. UEFI stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface.
The traditional BIOS, which is required to initialize the hardware before starting up the operating system, is now superseded by the more modern UEFI boot software. Due to its progressive software design, UEFI considerably simplifies the configuration of embedded computers.
The original BIOS no longer meets the demands of modern hardware and operating systems. In particular, it is unsuitable for 64-bit architectures and can not handle hard disks which are larger than 2 terabytes.
"Under UEFI the congatec Embedded BIOS features will continue to be supported and expanded," said Christian Riesinger, who heads the Technical Solution Center’s FAE team at congatec. "For our customers, these features have been a significant improvement, which will increase further with additional UEFI functionality. By adding UEFI support we are able to offer our customers a truly market-leading firmware solution. The graphic user interface and the programming interface of UEFI have been aligned with the previous BIOS to ensure a familiar user interface for our customers."
The new pre-boot application makes it possible to integrate large applications, such as embedded diagnostic tools, network-based service programs or system recovery utilities that can be deployed regardless of the operating system.
As is the case on conga-QA6 with the Intel® Atom™ Processor E600 series, UEFI will be implemented not only into new high-performance COMs but also into low-cost ultra mobile solutions that are based on x86 architecture.
The conga-QA6 is equipped with the Intel® Platform Controller Hub EG20T and optimized for the industrial temperature range. All design components are specified for an ambient temperature range of -40 to 85° C.
The new module provides fast, differential interfaces such as PCI Express and SATA while doing away with old "legacy" interfaces such as EIDE and PCI.
