[Gb-ccb] Single board computers with USB 2.0.

[John Ford]

Martin Shepherd writes:
 > 
 > Since the teleconference yesterday, I have been searching for a
 > single-board computer (SBC) with a USB 2.0 interface. It turns out
 > that my belief that USB 2.0 is currently very rare in SBCs, was
 > correct. I haven't been able to find any PC104 or PC104+ form-factor
 > boards with USB 2.0. Those PC104+ boards that do have USB interfaces
 > at all, have USB 1.1.
 > 
 > The only thing close that I found was a sole EBX form-factor board
 > with USB 2.0, as shown at:
 > 
 >  http://www.commell.com.tw/Product/SBC/LE-362.HTM
 > 
 >   SIZE: 146mm x 101mm  (5.75" x 4.0")
 >   CPU:  VIA Eden 667MHz or 800MHz CPU
 >   PSU:  5V (current not specified)
 >   I/O:  2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 parallel port, 1 RS-232, 2 IDE etc...
 >   RAM:  Up to 512MB.
 >   ETH:  10/100 Base Tx.
 > 
 >   A downside of this board, is that it doesn't have standard connectors
 >   for the I/O ports. Instead it uses headers that would have to be wired
 >   up to our own standard connectors. This would, in turn, require us
 >   to provide something to mount these connectors to.

This is not really a problem, as we have to use RFI connectors on
there anyway.

http://www.mycomp.com.tw/Products/embedded/EB5-240.htm is another
one.  It has 4 usb 4.0 ports, 4 serial ports, Ethernet, etc.  It also
has the VIA low-power cpu.

Advantech, 
http://www.advantech.com/products/Model.asp?Category_ID=1-D6LBQ&bu=
has several 5.25" form factor PC's with USB 2.0

Here's another with 4 USB 2.0 ports:
http://www.icp-australia.com.au/PDF-Data/nova8890.pdf

Here's maybe my favorite:
http://www.emacinc.com/sbc_pc_compatible/pcm_9577.htm

(I suppose if we had 4 separate usb ports, we would not need USB 2.0, no?)

 > 
 > I also found a small number of ETX form-factor SBCs with USB 2.0. At
 > first sight, these appear to have small form factors, but it turns out
 > that they are designed to be mounted on ATX size daughter boards, and
 > thus, again, don't have any of the standard external connectors.
 > 
 > Other than the above SBC from Commel, the only suitable candidate
 > boards that I found were a couple of Mini-ITX style boards. These are
 > really designed for small standalone computers, rather than embedded
 > computers, but are also being used by hobbyists for all kinds of
 > embedded projects. They include all of the standard connectors on the
 > board, so they would be more convenient than the EBX board mentioned
 > above, despite being a bit bigger.
 > 
 > The first one is the Thunderbird from Lippert (a German company).
 > 
 >  http://www.lippert-at.com/index.php?id=21
 > 
 >   SIZE: 170mm x 170mm  (6.7" x 6.7")
 >   CPU:  Intel Pentium M (900MHz to 1.6GHz)
 >   PSU:  5V (24.5W at 1.6GHz, 7.0W at 900MHz)
 >   I/O:  6 USB 2.0 ports, 1 EPP parallel port, 2 RS-232, 2 IDE etc...
 >   RAM:  Up to 1GB.
 >   ETH:  100/10 BaseT, 1000 BaseT.
 > 
 >  Note that since this board has 6 USB 2.0 ports (4 of which have
 >  board-mounted standard USB sockets), we wouldn't need an external USB
 >  hub.

This one is very cool.

 > 
 > The other suitable Mini-ITX board that I found was the Envader III
 > from EEPD (another German company).
 > 
 >   SIZE: 170mm x 170mm  (6.7" x 6.7")
 >   CPU:  Intel Pentium M (1.1GHz to 1.6GHz)
 >   PSU:  5V (typical power consumption 17-30W)
 >   I/O:  4 USB 2.0 ports, 1 EPP parallel port (shared with floppy),
 >         2 RS-232, 2 IDE, Firewire etc...
 >   RAM:  Up to 1GB.
 >   ETH:  10/100 BaseT

This one too.

 > In summary, there aren't many options, but if we do go with the
 > requirement for USB 2.0, my preference would be to get the Lippert
 > Thunderbird mini-ITX board.

Sounds fine.  It may come down to price.  We'll need 3 or 4 of them.
Do any of these companies provide a Linux port?  emac does, and
possibly ampro

John