3.5-inch Apollo Lake SBC supports industrial temperatures
May 24, 2018 — by Eric Brown 440 viewsIbase’s Linux-compatible, 3.5-inch “IB818” SBC provides a dual- or quad-core Apollo Lake SoC, plus 2x GbE, 4x USB 3.0, 2x SATA, 2x mini-PCIe, triple display support, wide-range power, and -40 to 85°C support.
Ibase doesn’t make a lot of SBCs, but it does offer some 3.5-inch models including the Intel Bay Trail Atom based IB897 and IB898. Now it has followed up with an IB818 model that advances to the recent Apollo Lake generation. Like these Bay Trail models, the IB818 supports an industrial -40 to 85°C range.
The IB818 is more like the IB897 in that it has dual GbE ports and dual mini-PCIe slots while the IB898 instead offers 1x GbE and 3x mini-PCIe. The product page download page shows only Windows 10 drivers, but the manual says the board also supports Ubuntu.


IB818, front and back
(click images to enlarge)
The 147 x 102mm IB818 joins a long list of Apollo Lake based 3.5-inch SBCs, but it’s the first one we’ve seen with -40 to 85°C support. Axiomtek’s CAPA312 offers up to -20 to 70°C support.
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At first, we thought the QC and DC prefixes appended to the names of the supported Atom QC x7/ E3950, Pentium QC N4200, and Celeron DC N3350 SoCs referred to the industrial temperature versions. However, only the E3950 model, which is listed with “i-Temp support,” can run at -40 to 85°C. The Pentium and Celeron top out at 0 to 60°C.
The IB818 is intended for indoor or outdoor IoT, factory automation, self-service kiosk, and POS systems. The board offers a wide-range 12-24V DC input and operates at a typical +12V/1.09A.
The IB818 accommodates up to 8GB of RAM and offers dual SATA III interfaces and mSATA support via a full-size mini-PCIe slot. There’s also a half-size mini-PCIe for wireless and dual PCIe-based
GbE ports.


IB818 with optional heatsink (left) and detail views
(click images to enlarge)
Unlike the earlier Bay Trail based 3.5-inchers, the new model has 2x LVDS interfaces instead of one. There’s also a 4K-ready HDMI 1.4b port, which can run simultaneously with the pair of LVDS connections for triple displays. Other coastline ports include 4x USB 3.0 ports and a COM port. Additional USB and serial interfaces are available along with DIO, Realtek based audio, and a watchdog.
Specifications for the IB818 include:
- Processor — Intel “Apollo Lake” with Intel Gen9 (18 EU) graphics:
- Atom QC x7/E3950 (4x cores @ 1.6/2.0GHz. 12W TDP)
- Pentium QC N4200 (4x cores @ 1.1/2.5GHz, 6W TDP)
- Celeron DC N3350 (2x cores @ 1.1/2.4GHz, 6W TDP)
- Memory — Up to 8GB DDR3L via 1x SODIMM
- Storage — 2x SATA III (6Gbps); mSATA (via mini-PCIe)
- Display:
- HDMI 1.4b port
- 2x 18/24-bit single/dual-channel LVDS
- Networking — 2x Gigabit Ethernet ports
- Other I/O:
- 4x USB 3.0 ports
- 2x USB 2.0
- RS232/422/485 port (DB9)
- 3x RS-232
- Realtek ALC283 audio with speaker amp
- DIO
- Expansion — 2x mini-PCIe slots (1x half-size, 1x full-size with mSATA)
- Other features — Watchdog; hardware monitoring; heatspreader; optional heatsink and cables
- Power — 12-24V DC input; 12V/1.09A consumption (EuP/ErP certified)
- Operating temperatures — -40 to 85°C (Atom x7-E3950); 0 to 60°C (Pentium and Celeron)
- Dimensions — 147 x 102mm (“3.5-inch form factor”)
- Operating system — Windows 10 (with drivers) and 10 IoT Core; Ubuntu Linux
Further information
No pricing or availability information was provided for the IB818 SBC. More information may be found on Ibase’s IB818 product page.
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