GE's Modular Single Board Computer Family First to Enable Optimum
Price/Performance, Extend Product Life Through Easily Upgraded
Technology
Scalable solutions enable organizations to keep pace with
increasing performance demands of today’s connected world
Modular SBC family
helps maximize long term value of assets and equipment
New platforms take
advantage of GE’s experience in SBCs and COM Express technology to deliver high
performance, flexibility, easy upgradability,
cost-effectiveness
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. —GE Intelligent Platforms (NYSE:
GE) today announced a further development in its strategy to deliver high
performance solutions for the connected world with the launch of the industry’s
first family of modular single board computers (SBCs) designed specifically to
deliver high performance over the long term with minimal expense and low total
cost of ownership (TCO).
Single board computers can play a critical role
in processing the significant amounts of data that characterize the connected
world, and in ensuring that data is directed to where it is required in the
shortest possible time. They are at the heart of many of the world’s most
complex, most sophisticated, most demanding data-driven networks. The modularity
that is at the heart of GE’s new family of SBCs will allow them to deliver the
highest levels of functionality and performance over longer periods of
deployment and at lower cost than is possible with current monolithic single
board computer designs.
“GE’s vision for the advanced industrial and
commercial networks of today’s connected world sees powerful, intelligent
embedded computing subsystems interconnected to provide high performance, high
speed nodes that can help transform business operations, ” said Vibhoosh Gupta,
Product Management Leader, GE Intelligent Platforms. “Single board computers
have long been favored in these environments – but this new family of solutions
from GE will make them an even more compelling choice. ”
The new family
of scalable, modular, single board computers takes advantage of GE’s decades of
experience in engineering SBCs for critical infrastructure applications,
affording organizations the opportunity for regular technology refreshes – but
without the time-intensive and expensive requalification that would otherwise be
involved. It also takes advantage of GE’s expertise in COM Express
technology.
A wide range of applications is served by the new family –
finance, medical, manufacturing, automation, communications, transportation,
security and so on – where the requirement is to embed a powerful computing
capability within a system or subsystem that is functioning in the highly
connected world that is typical of today’s business operations.
“In order
to remain competitive and to grow the profitability of their business,
organizations need to continually refresh the computing framework of critical
infrastructure applications, ensuring that the highest performance is maintained
throughout their extended lifespan, ” continued Gupta. “The problem is that this
can involve significant time, effort and expense as new technologies are
qualified for deployment. This new family of modular SBCs addresses that
problem: critical systems can more easily be updated with less effort and at
lower cost. ”
The new family of modular GE SBCs achieve this by
separating the computing core (processor, chipset and memory) on a COM Express
module – from the carrier card (which typically contains system I/O ) on which
the core is deployed. This allows the computing core to be simply and
inexpensively upgraded to keep pace with increasing performance demands. It also
minimizes the risk to the critical infrastructure from obsolescence issues, and
reduces the cost to re-qualify the complete assembly.
“The rapid
introduction of new generations of processor technology provide a significant
opportunity to continuously maintain the highest levels of computing performance
– and these new modular SBCs allow that opportunity to be leveraged more easily
and at lower cost, ” continued Gupta.
The first product in the new VM601
family is the VM601P1 modular dual slot 6U VME64 SBC which features the QoriQ™
P1022 processor. Other family members will offer a choice of VIA Nano or Intel®
Core™ i7 processors. They are designed to offer customers maximum flexibility
and cost-effectiveness, with the ability to choose precisely the right
combination of processor performance, power dissipation and cost. Additional SBC
form factors will be added to the modular SBC family over time.
GE also
offers a broad and flexible range of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) programs
designed to mitigate the effects of obsolescence and make a significant
contribution to lower total lifetime cost of ownership.
