Industrial Platforms

The Need OF industrial Platforms

Since the evolution of computers they have become essential part of every business. Now the concern is what computer platform is to be decided for a particular business. Not only the cost and requirements are major issues but the standards in selecting a computer platform is also a big concern.

Standards for Industrial Platforms

With so much advancement around now the industry standard single board PCs are available in the market. These industrial SBCs allow high performance on account of relatively low cost. There are number of industrial SBCs standards. These include PCI, CompactPCI, and STD supported slot and bus. These standards are defined by the size and I / O expansion. These standards are applicable in embedded industry but not as feasible as PC/104 and EBX. The two standard perfectly fit industrial computer market.

Single Board Computer Platform for Industrial PCs

PC/104 and EBX standards support embedded industry. However EBX has size of CD/DVD drive and is not suitable for small space applications. But they provide high processing speed along with more Inputs and outputs. PC / 104 on the other hand has size of floppy disk and are quite suitable in extremely small space requirements. On the other hand they have lesser inputs and outputs and processing power. But still both are expandable standards and suitable for single board computers.

EPIC (embedded platform for industrial computers)

In the year 2004 the designers came up with another standard named as EPIC, the embedded platform for industrial PCs. EPIC has assize of 29. 3 square inches, which lies in between the size of PC/104 and EBX. All the three platforms with PC/104, EBX and now EPIC provide complete functionality for embedded industrial applications. The selection is done on the basis of size and requirements.

Industrial Platform Selection

PC/104 standard is the smallest of three consuming lesser area. It allows limited number of Inputs and outputs. Integration results in power consumption and cooling issues. Well EBX standard is quite large than PC/104 and it can support more inputs / outputs and even Pentium 4 processor. EBX provides lots of features including support for USB, networking, audio / videos, digital I/Os, storage and serial / parallel ports. But they are not suitable for small space requirements. They also get costly when some of the applications are not required.

EPIC on the other hand being a relatively medium in size is quite suitable for all sorts of embedded industrial applications. EPIC standard supports advanced processors, complex Inputs and Outputs, networking, audio/video, telecommunication, and supports for power supply and motion control, and special functionalities. Moreover EPIC standard is compatible with PC/104 and PC/104 plus compliant expansion modules. While it is speculating that it will be compatible with the future technologies such as PCI express in its future phases.