At the embedded world, Congatec will be presenting the first modules that conform to the COM-HPC Mini specification, which is still preliminary.So far, the terms compact and powerful have been in opposition to each other.COM-HPC Mini unties the Gordian knot and brings high performance in a mini format.With the digital transformation, technology and machines are moving even closer to people.Be it collaborative robots, autonomous vehicles, AI-supported medical devices or fast 5G communication.In order to remain at the forefront in the constantly accelerating markets, OEMs must constantly review, optimize and expand their product portfolio.A leap in performance towards COM-HPC is essential for many new applications, because the technical requirements are increasing rapidly: Situational awareness with video analytics based on artificial intelligence (AI) requires immensely high bandwidths with increasingly high camera resolutions.Voice controls must be latency-free.To this end, data streams with ever-increasing amounts of data must be processed using AI in ever shorter periods of time.Graphics in combination with augmented reality are also becoming more and more demanding.Parallel processing of data in collaborative Industry 4.0 processes also requires minimal latencies for real-time with increasing data throughput.Last but not least, cybersecurity requires more computing power.In addition, system developers want to optimize their platforms with the latest connectivity technology such as Thunderbolt 4.The COM-HPC standard was developed to meet these increasing requirements.Now the range of applications opens up even further: COM-HPC mini-modules with Intel Core processors of the 13th generation (codename Raptor Lake) are available.This means that developers will soon have the complete ecosystem for the third generation of modular high-end embedded and edge computing at their disposal.It ranges from server-on-modules to space-saving client-on-modules that are hardly larger than a credit card.Even very space-saving COM Express Compact and Mini applications can open up new performance classes and a higher number of new high-speed interfaces with COM-HPC Mini.Entire product families can use this to migrate to the new PICMG standard.The whole thing without having to adapt the system design with regard to the housing due to the larger module and thus also carrier board dimensions.With the specification of COM-HPC Size A, this situation was not yet established.Because at 95 mm x 120 mm (11,400 mm2), the smallest footprint of the COM-HPC standard to date is still almost 32 percent larger than COM Express Compact, which measures 95 mm x 95 mm (9,025 mm2).In relation to the width of the module, this is 25 mm, which is too much to migrate existing COM Express designs to COM-HPC Client based on the footprint alone.Because COM Express Compact is the most widespread COM Express form factor and generally only the high-end still uses the larger COM Express Basic form factor, many developers failed just when dimensioning the system.However, smaller is always possible.For this reason, COM-HPC Mini with its 95 mm x 60 mm is a liberation, especially for the many system designs in a compact design, which opens up completely new perspectives.In terms of the number of pins, 400 pins are available, 40 fewer than COM Express Type 6 (440).Nevertheless, developers benefit from gains in bandwidth and a greater variety of interfaces.This puts the nominal decrease in PCIe lanes from 24 with COM Express Type 6 to 16 lanes with COM-HPC Mini into perspective.Most system designs with a compact design have hardly ever exhausted the interface package anyway.Available interfaces at COM-HPC Mini include:➔ PCIe up to Gen 5 and expected PCIe Gen 6 ➔ Quadruple USB 4.0 ➔ Dual 10 Gbit/s Ethernet (can be expanded to four ports via two SerDes lanes) ➔ Up to four display interfaces ➔ Dual MIPI-CSI for cameras ➔ CAN Bus ➔ dual UARTFunctional safety support has also been added as a new feature.This means that very compact applications such as autonomous mobile robots and vehicles can be achieved in the future, which, in addition to other tasks, are intended to consolidate safety-critical real-time tasks on one system.Many application developers also appreciate the newly gained design security, since the COM-HPC connector is specified for significantly higher data throughput than the COM Express connector.With the COM Express 3.1 specification launched at the end of 2022, support for PCIe 4.0 with up to 16 Gbit/s was created.However, the end of the road for further performance increases is in sight: The current launch of the 13th core processor generation shows that the gap is widening, since COM-HPC offers more performance.Some variants already support PCIe 5.0, which enables twice the data throughput.However, developers don't have to be nervous if they can still live with the bandwidths of COM Express, because this successful Computer-on-Module (CoM) standard will be around for many more years to come.This is guaranteed, among other things, with the unbridled support of the embedded manufacturers and careful upgrades within what is technically feasible.This is good news, especially for cost-sensitive and/or low-power designs, for which COM-HPC is oversized.However, if developers want to align their high-performance design with the current state of the art, for example with Thunderbolt 4, they can now migrate existing designs.Thunderbolt 4 ports implement maximum configurations for power delivery, bi-directional data transfer up to USB 3.2 Gen 2, as well as 4K video displays and 10 Gbit Ethernet via a single USB-C cable.However, a bandwidth of up to 40 Gbit/s must be provided for this, which cannot be implemented with the COM Express connector in specification 3.1.Numerous factors therefore speak in favor of the COM-HPC standard.The launch of the 13th generation Intel Core processors acts like an accelerator.Congatec expects a rapid and massive increase in series production of OEM designs based on the new modules.Among other things, because the new long-term available processors improve many features and are still fully hardware-compatible with their predecessors - which speeds up and simplifies implementation.With Thunderbolt and PCIe support up to Gen 5, the modules open up new horizons for developers in terms of data throughput, I/O bandwidth and power density.The new COM Express 3.1-compliant modules, on the other hand, primarily secure investments in existing designs for many more years - including upgrade options for more data throughput with PCIe Gen4 support.Compared to Intel's 12th generation core processors, the new COM-HPC and COM Express CoMs with soldered 13th generation processors offer various advantages: Firstly, they make Intel's hybrid architecture robust designs in the industrial temperature range of -40 to +85 °C for the first time C ready.Secondly, according to Intel, they offer up to eight percent more single-thread and up to five percent more multi-thread performance.The increase goes hand in hand with the improved manufacturing process in connection with higher energy efficiency.Also new in the performance class (15 to 45 W base power) is the support of DDR5 memory and PCIe Gen5 connectivity for selected CPU versions.Both contribute to even better multithread performance and higher data throughput.With up to 96 execution units (EU) and fast encoding and decoding capabilities, the integrated Iris-Xe graphics architecture is ideal for high graphics requirements - for example in applications with video streaming and/or video data-based situation detection.All of the features improve many embedded and edge computing applications—which are increasingly implementing machine learning capabilities and workload consolidation.If you imagine the new processors on COM-HPC Mini and add features such as soldered RAM and support for the industrial temperature range, you can see how universally the new modules can be used in high-performance systems - which cannot be achieved with COM Express.The question remains: How complex is it to migrate systems from COM Express to COM-HPC?Basically, only the carrier board is affected, but its dimensions and interface placement can remain the same.Of course, the routing and components have to be adapted to the new performance, and it is also not possible to simply replace the module.On the hardware side, however, there is »only« the adaptation of existing design practice to the new requirements of faster interfaces.The high-speed signaling is particularly challenging here.This is where manufacturers like Congatec support developers with their own training academy.It offers training programs for carrier board design and aims to provide developers with knowledge for system design.The aim is to give developers a quick, easy and efficient insight into the design rules of the new PICMG standard.For example, the courses guide developers through all mandatory and recommended design fundamentals and best practice schematics for CoMs and enable them to start their own carrier board design projects.Starting in April 2023, the carrier board design training program will introduce engineers to the world of high-end embedded and edge computing - from PCB layout principles to power management rules and signal integrity requirements to component selection.Congatec offers the design-in service to developers who want to use COM-HPC but do not have the resources to integrate the modules themselves.Carrier board designs, optimized cooling solutions and system integration are possible.With this, Congatec is creating a comprehensive COM-HPC ecosystem.New designs and design sprints for migrating from COM Express to COM-HPC Mini are no longer challenging.In addition to Computer-on-Modules, COM-HPC also serves edge server applications.In this performance class, Congatec recently expanded its Server-on-Modules portfolio with five COM-HPC Server Size D modules with an Intel Xeon D 2700 processor measuring 160 mm x 160 mm.The launch underscores industry demand for edge server performance in a small, rugged, and outdoor-ready form factor.In addition, Intel's CPUs with their up to 20 cores penetrate even further into the area of ​​demanding mixed-critical real-time applications.Compared to the larger COM-HPC-Server-Size-E modules already available (200 mm x 160 mm), the number of supported DRAM modules has been halved from eight to four.Nevertheless, 512 GB of DDR4 RAM with 2,933 MT/s are available.The advantage of the limited main memory is that the modules require less space, which reduces the footprint by 20 percent compared to Size E.Target applications of the new COM-HPC modules are deeply embedded, space-constrained edge server applications with high data throughput but less memory-intensive workloads.They can be found in IIoT networked real-time environments, such as in smart factories and critical infrastructures.__________________________________________________________________________Christian Eder is Marketing Director at Congatec.With his great commitment in the committees of the SGeT and PICMG, he promotes the standardization of computer modules.He shaped the embedded computing industry for decades and was involved in the implementation of COM Express, Qseven and SMARC, among other things.He is currently Chairman for COM-HPC at PICMG and Vice Chairman of SGeT.Spectra GmbH & Co. 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