Deggendorf, Germany, February 4, 2009 * * * congatec AG presents the conga-BA945, its fourth embedded computer module based on the Intel® Atom™ processor family.
The conga-BA945 is a COM Express module with type 2 pinout and conforms to the specified COM Express basic size of 95x125 mm².
The Intel® Atom™ processor N270 has a clock speed of 1.60 GHz, as well as 512 KB cache and a 533 MHz frontside bus speed. Despite the high processing power, the processor gets by with a maximum power dissipation of 2.5W. Thanks to the sophisticated power management provided by the congatec embedded BIOS the actual values reached during practical use remain well below this maximum level.
The congatec conga-BA945 supports Intel® Hyper Threading Technology, which means with the appropriate software it has the capability of running two operating systems in parallel and completely independent of one another.
In contrast to the recently announced conga-CA945, which is an even lower priced and more compact COM Express compatible module featuring an Intel Atom processor, the conga-BA945 makes use of the more powerful Intel® 945GME chip set versus the Intel® 945GSE used on the conga-CA945. The Intel® 945GME chip set facilitates the parallel use of two memory modules, which allows the memory to be expanded to a maximum of 4GB and makes dual channel memory access possible. In terms of graphics performance alone, the performance increase thereby achieved is more than 50%. The Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 graphics controller integrated in the chip set can access up to 224 MB of video memory with a 10.6 GB/s bandwidth. Output for the two independent graphics channels can be via 2x24 bit LVDS, SDVO, TV-Out or analogue VGA. The conga-BA945 uses the EPI graphics standard and the VESA DisplayID definition for automatic recognition and configuration of flat panel displays.
In order to allow rapid system expansion, five PCI Express lanes, a PCI Express graphics slot (PEG 1x16), eight USB 2.0 ports, two serial ATA ports and the signals for two ExpressCards are provided. The range of functions is rounded off by a fan controller, the LPC bus for slow extensions and an HDA interface that can provide powerful digital audio.
Despite its highly respectable processing power, the maximum power dissipation of the conga-BA945 during practical operation is considerably less than 10W and it is therefore ideally suited for all mobile and fanless applications with high demands on graphics performance.
The conga-BA945 is available now.
