The new noax "all-in-one" board, N7, permits the multi-functional use of small, completely sealed and fully-fledged industrial PCs in extreme production environments.

Ebersberg - Automation has brought many benefits. No matter what the production environment: These days, goods are produced faster, in larger volumes and cheaper than ever. Within the framework of various automation processes, industrial PCs are therefore playing an increasingly more important role. Apart from the basic prerequiste, industrial capability the demands on IPCs vary greatly, depending on application ranges.

Besides high CPU performance and storage capacity, one requirement is the integration of various peripheral devices via serial onboard interfaces and expansion slots. However, as production environments become more extreme, it is becoming more difficult for IPCs to meet these demands. This is because most industrial PCs have to run with greatly reduced power due to their special protection requirements such as a completely sealed construction, the omission of failure-prone external fans, or their resistance to shocks and vibration.

With the new N7 "all-In-one" board, noax Technologies AG, the specialist for rugged and reliable industrial PCs, have created a platform that allows the use of small, completely sealed industrial PCs with high performance and variability in very diverse extreme environments. The N7 board has thus become the platform for, e.g. the noax 8 inch IPC, Compact C8.

The noax "all-in-one" board, N7, is a versatile and powerful board with extremely compact dimensions. Even taking into account its limitations due to the compact, space-saving enclosure design and the limited cooling power this entails, this noax board is at present one of the most powerful "all-in-one" platforms for both mobile and stationary use for IPC below 10 inches. The complete board unit consists of a double-sided motherboard and a single-sided add-onboard. This combination is at present almost the maximum equipment for this compact board design measuring only 135x180x35 mm (lxwxh).

The N7 has an Intel Celeron processor with a clock speed of 400MHz plus an Intel 815E chip set. It can be upgraded to allow for the growing demands on hardware:: The RAM can be expanded with PC100 modules up to 512MB. Standard on board equipment includes an integrated Intel Extreme Graphics controller with both 3D and DVD support. Customary 2.5 inch Industrial hard disks are connected via an ATA100 interface. The pre-finished board is equipped ex factory with both touch panel controller and micro controller unit, and sound is available as an option, too. In addition, the compact N7 is fitted with many serial on-board interfaces such as 2xRS232, 2xUSB, Intel Ethernet network controller (RJ45), and PS2.

The combination of motherboard and add-on board results in an enormous expandability of the N7, despite its compact design. There are LowProfile PCI, PC/104+ and Min PCI available, with a need to choose between eitherLowProfile PCI oder PC104+. The widely used LowProfile PCI cards make it possible to upgrade additional serial interfaces, such as RS422/485 , or opto-decoupled interfaces, PC card slots, or Digital I/O, quickly and simply, without much effort. Another low-cost memory solution are Compact Flash cards which can be mounted directly on the board.

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