New Mini-ITX board targets intelligent industrial devices

I am straining to remember the last time VIA launched a new Mini-ITX board. It might even have been last year. There's been Em-ITX and Pico-ITX but it's been a while since there's been a new Mini-ITX. It's still the most popular embedded system platform.

The new EPIA-M840 "ticks all the boxes" for industrial and factory management applications.

"The VIA EPIA-M840 packs the latest 64-bit VIA Nano E-Series processor, dual Gigabit LAN, eight COM ports and support for two dual channel 24-bit LVDS displays, creating the ideal backbone for a range of embedded applications including intelligent industrial automation applications that integrate remote network access, network management and other advanced application management scenarios."

These industrial systems required quite a kick and the EPIA M840 delivers, with 1.2GHz and 1.6GHz options, DirectX9 capable graphics, HD audio, dual gigabit networking, 3GB DDR2 RAM support, 8 COM ports, four USB and 2 dual channel 24-bit LVDS support.

VIA ARTiGO A110: A DIY delight

The US site, Maximum PC, has reviewed the relatively new VIA ARTiGO A110 barebone PC. Like all of these embedded computing products, it's fantastic if you understand what it's good for and use it for that; dissapointing if you don't bother to understand its design point and try and do something silly like play a game on it. Productivity center - yep. Media center - nope. Media streamer - yep. Gaming PC - nope.

VIA Nano to be found in Lenovo home theatre PC

Lenovo have used the VIA Nano processor before in a laptop design. The IdeaPad S12 did quite well last year against an Atom version of the same model. Lenovo have now taken all of those good qualities of the Nano and designed a home theatre PC that's very small "the size of a small paperback". "It's capable of processing 1080p high-definition video using Via's VX900 chipset and has an HDMI port that can connect to a television."

The IdeaCentre Narue 2, according to an anonymous VIA source quoted on PC World, will be out in Q3.

Dual core Nano spotted at Computex

Aptly described as "a bit of a unicorn" the VIA Nano in dual core form was never the less on display in a desktop system at Computex last week. Engadget had this to say:

"The device utilized a VN1000 Digital Media Chipset and fully supported dual-channel DDR3 memory. A Chrome 520 GPU was helping to push out a 720p movie trailer on the demo system, and the innate compatibility with HDMI and DisplayPort should keep home cinema owners happy. The 65nm chip was clocked at 1.6GHz, and we were told that it wouldn't be venturing into mobile machines in its current form."

A dual core Nano could form the basis of a low cost desktop PC that would suit most people's computing needs ... and it would also give a boost to the computing power afforded to embedded devices, if it makes its way to EPIA boards.

Em-ITX gets thinner?

VIA have launched a new Em-ITX board which upgrades from the EITX 3000's VX800 chip to the VX855 and takes off one gigabit Ethernet port. The EITX 3001 is claimed to be "a slim-line Em-ITX form factor board" in the Press Release but there's no mention about that on the product specification page, nor any measurements to show a reduction in width, or any other measurement, over the only other Em-ITX board, the EITX 3000. They are both slim boards really, so the comment must have been just a general one about the Em-ITX form factor.

The EITX 3001 offers HD video support. Although HDMI output is supported, there's no HDMI port on the board so you must have to add in the EMIO-3110 board for that.

"The VIA EITX-3001 includes an onboard DC-to-DC converter that has both AT and ATX power modes, supporting a wide range of power input voltage from DC 7V to DC 36V, configurable through an onboard switch. An on board built-in 5-wire/4-wire USB Touch interface makes the EITX-3001 ideally suited for high-end interactive touch screen multimedia applications.

Dual I/O coastlines allow for a wealth of I/O ports including a HMDI port, VGA port, Gigabit Ethernet, dual COM ports, four USB ports, a USB device port, audio jacks and power and HDD activity LEDs. LVDS is supported through on board pin headers allowing for a range of multi-display options including CRT/LVDS, CRT/HDMI and LVDS/HDMI configurations.

The VIA EITX-3001 supports all 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems including the latest Windows Embedded Standard 7."