7 New High Power and Passively Cooled CoMs from congatec

June 28, 2022

News

The BGA-solderable processor variants, which use the new Intel hybrid architecture with its mix of performance cores (P-cores) and efficient cores (E cores), consume only 15 to 28 W base power, allowing engineers to use them in fully passively cooled embedded and edge computing platforms. This eliminates the need for expensive cooling options while also increasing the ruggedness and MTBF of system designs.

The lower energy consumption is achieved primarily by reducing the number of P-cores while maintaining the number of E-cores. In the Intel Core i7 processor performance range, for example, heterogeneous workloads benefit from 8 efficient cores in all available variants and can scale down from 6 P-cores (12800HE/45 W base power) to either 4 (1270PE/28 W base power) or 2 (1265UE/15 W base power). Another way to save energy is to use fewer PCIe lanes (20 instead of 28).

These congatec Computer-on-Modules are ideal candidates for consolidating a variety of different heterogeneous workloads, including AI and/or immersive GUIs, on a single passively cooled edge computing platform because selected processors are also suitable for hard real-time applications, support virtual machines, and include Intel TCC and TSN support.

The Computer-on-Module (C-Module) is aimed at industrial markets. Intel Core i7/5/3 and Celeron processor modules can be found wherever passively cooled computing systems require increased performance. Edge computers and IoT gateways with multiple virtual machines for smart factories and process automation, AI-based quality inspection and industrial vision, real-time collaborative robotics, and autonomous logistics vehicles for warehousing and shipping are examples of this. Outdoor applications that require AI-supported packet inspection include autonomous vehicles and mobile machines, video security and gateway applications in transportation and smart cities, as well as 5G cloudlets and edge devices.

congatec's Computer-on-Modules with PCIe Gen 4 supporting Intel hybrid architecture, which support DDR5 memory in all core combination variants, accelerate multithreaded applications and make background task execution more efficient. The graphics performance of the integrated Intel Iris Xe GPU with up to 96 execution units is also impressive.

Apart from increased bandwidth and overall performance, the new flagship COM HPC Client and COM Express Type 6 modules stand out with dedicated AI engines that support Windows ML, the Intel OpenVINO toolkit, and Chrome Cross ML. To process even the most compute-intensive edge AI tasks, the various AI workloads can be seamlessly delegated to the P-cores, E-cores, and GPU execution units. The built-in Intel Deep Learning boost technology makes use of multiple cores via Vector Neural Network Instructions (VNNI), and the integrated graphics supports AI-accelerated DP4a GPU instructions that can even be scaled to dedicated GPUs.

Intel's built-in AI accelerator with the lowest power consumption, the Intel Gaussian & Neural Accelerator 3.0 (Intel GNA 3.0), enables dynamic noise suppression and speech recognition and can even run while the processor is in low power states for wake-up voice commands.

These features, combined with support for Real-Time Systems' hypervisor technology and OS support for Real-Time Linux and Wind River VxWorks, make these modules a truly comprehensive ecosystem package for facilitating and accelerating the development of edge computing applications.

The feature set in detail

The new conga-HPC/cALP COM-HPC Client Size A modules (95x120mm) and conga-TC670 COM Express Compact Type 6 modules (95x95mm) are available with six energy-efficient 12th Generation Intel Core processors and a cost-optimized Celeron processor. Both module families support up to 64 GB of 4,800 MT/s ultra-fast DDR5 SO-DIMM memory.

Extraordinary graphics support for up to 4 independent displays and up to 8k resolution is provided by the integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics with the Intel Core i7 and i5 processors, and by the Intel UHD graphics with Intel Core i3 and Intel Celeron. To connect peripherals with massive bandwidth, the COM-HPC modules support up to 16 PCIe Gen 4 and 8 PCIe Gen 3 lanes, and additionally boast up to 2x Thunderbolt. The COM Express variants feature up to 8 PCIe Gen 4 and 8 PCIe Gen 3 lanes.

Both models support an optional, ultra-fast NVMe SSD. Additional storage media can be connected via two SATA Gen 3 ports. The COM-HPC module provides 2x 2.5 GbE networking, while the COM Express module provides 1x 2.5 GbE networking, with both supporting TSN. In the COM-HPC version, sound is provided via SoundWire, HDO or I2S, and HDA on the COM Express modules. Comprehensive board support packages are provided for all leading Real-Time Operating Systems, as well as hypervisor support from Real-Time Systems, Linux, Windows, and Android.

The entire range of 12th Gen Intel Core processor-based conga-TC670 COM Express Type 6 Compact modules (95x95mm) and the conga-HPC/cALP COM-HPC Client Size A modules (95x120mm) comprises the following 10 different configurations:

Processor

Cores/ (P + E)

P-cores Freq. [GHz]

E-cores Freq. [GHz]

Threads

GPU Compute Units

CPU Base Power [W]

Intel Core i7 12800HE

14 (6+8)

2.4 / 4.6

1.8 / 3.5

20

96

45

Intel Core i7 1270PE (new)

12 (4+8)

1.8 / 4.5

1.2 / 3.3

16

96

28

Intel Core i7 1265UE (new)

10 (2+8)

1.7 / 4.7

1.2 / 3.5

12

96

15

Intel Core i5 12600HE

12 (4+8)

2.5 / 4.5

1.8 / 3.3

16

80

45

Intel Core i5 1250PE (new)

12 (4+8)

1.7 / 4.4

1.2 / 3.2

16

80

28

Intel Core i5 1245UE (new)

10 (2+8)

1.5 / 4.4

1.1 / 3.3

12

80

15

Intel Core i3 12300HE

8 (4+4)

1.9 / 4.3

1.5 / 3.3

12

48

45

Intel Core i3 1220PE (new)

8 (4+4)

1.5 / 4.2

1.1 / 3.1

12

48

28

Intel Core i3 1215UE (new)

6 (2+4)

1.2 / 4.4

0.9 / 3.3

8

64

15

Intel Celeron 7305E (new)

5 (1+4)

1.0 / N/A

0.9 / 0.9

5

48

15

(Image Credit: congatec)

For more information, visit congatec.com.