ARM Wall of Boards, EW2016: Industrious Systems

February 19, 2016

This is the first in a four part series on the ARM® Wall of Boards at Embedded World 2016. Today, I’ll introduce the ready-to-deploy Industrial System on Modules (SoMs) and Single Board Computers (SBCs) that we’re featuring on the booth at Embedded World 2016.

SoM and SBC devices are critical for enabling embedded computing throughout numerous application spaces. Standard packaging, robust temperature and environmental performance, long product lifetimes and availability are all elements you’ll find here, on top of solid compute performance from ARM’s silicon partners.

I asked Will Tu (willtu), Director of Embedded Segment Marketing at ARM, a few questions about these industrial boards.

Eric: How would you define an SBC or SoM ?

Will:

SBC – stands for single board computier, a widely used term for what is more or less an industrialized PC. SBC largely describe a group of boards that have standard form factors (eg. Qseven, Pico-ITX) or standard bus / connectors (eg. PCI-Express) and often leverage Windows Operating systems.

SoM – system-on-module, or also known as CoM, computer-on-module is also a type of SBC, but one that has leveraged the ever increasing density and compute power of modern System-on-Chips. One prevalent architecture is the “carrier” board concept, where the inputs, outputs and other essential peripherals needed for the application are on a board with a standardized interface for the CoM with the actual compute module to plug into. However, in many cases, the integration into the SoC is so great that the chip and supporting components can be placed in a very small module that essentially is the compute board and carrier board all in one. This is the SoM. Typically the OS in this case is Linux.

Eric: Is the landscape changing in this space? What are the big trends?

Will: I’d pick out three:

Open Source is largely being embraced. Linux distributions are increasingly the OS of choice.
Integration and differentiation of design. More semi- or full- customization, giving rise to a large service component to many of the companies that make SoM/CoM. SBC are more about scaleable volumes that arise from standards that are created, whereas SoMs are increasingly about being highly integrated and more specialized.
Wireless communications vs Ethernet only.

Eric: Have low-cost hobbiest boards like the Raspberry Pi had an impact in this space?

Will: Raspberry Pi and other boards like Beagle Bone etc have given rise to a growing makers movement that is not constrained by compute. Previously small, cheap evaluation boards were largely MCU oriented, but now we can have the unbridled compute and the plug and play aspect offered by Linux and open source trends.

The majority of the industrial boards we have at the booth this year are SoMs. This is but a tiny flavor of this huge and diverse market, but you’ll find many more ARM powered industrial boards on the show floor of Embedded World, and we encourage you to take advantage of this if you’re there.

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