INDUSTRIAL MOTHERBOARDS

How to choose a motherboard for industrial PCs

Industrial PC motherboards are designed for harsh environments, typical of industry and technical laboratories: higher temperature ranges, resistance to vibrations and electrical noise, component stability and power, specific form factors, customized power and cooling systems.

Among the main features for choosing a motherboard for industrial use, we find:

• Form Factor: size of the motherboard, or form factor. The standard ranges from ATX boards (305×244 mm) to micro ATX (244×244 mm), up to the most recent mini ITX (170×170 mm);

• Socket: component that identifies the compatibility of the motherboard with the CPU processor to be installed (for example from the Intel Core i3, i5, i7 or i9 series);

• Chipset: set of circuits that defines the functioning and connections of the components integrated on the motherboard, coordinating the passage of data between CPU, RAM, disk and peripherals;

• DIMM or SODIMM modules: slot for managing the RAM memory modules of the industrial PC;

• On-board peripherals, expansion buses and connection ports: modules integrated into the motherboard, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi; bus for connecting internal and external components, such as PCI and PCI Express slots; and connection ports such as USB, Ethernet, audio and video inputs.

Digimax motherboard for industrial use

Thanks to the experience developed, Digimax is able to offer a wide choice of industrial motherboards divided according to the numerous characteristics typically requested by the market:

• The number of serial ports;

• The fanless structure;

• The predisposition for the use of watchdog timers;

• LVDS video technology, GPIO peripherals, I2C bus expansion...

Furthermore, thanks to the technical staff and the Digimax laboratory, it is possible to benefit from specific assistance and consultancy during the installation and configuration of customized industrial motherboards, within industrial rack cases or industrial embedded PC systems.