Congatec’s Linux-ready “Conga-TS175” COM Express Basic Type 6 module supports 7th Gen Intel Core E/EQ and Xeon CPUs, Intel Optane SSDs, and up to 32GB DDR4.

Congatec followed upon its earlier announcement of a Conga-TC175 COM Express Compact Type 6 module with a larger, 125 x 95mm Basic Type 6 module called the Conga-TS175. Both COMs support Intel’s latest 7th Generation “Kaby Lake” line of 14nm processors.

Conga-TS175
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Other COM Express Basic entries include Advantech’s SOM-5898 and MSC’s MSC C6B-KLH. Like these competitors, the Conga-TS175 is designed for quad- and dual-core EQ and E Series Kaby Lake Core and Xeon E3 SoCs. These are faster, but less power efficient than the dual-core Intel Core U models that made up the bulk of the supported CPUs on the Compact sized Conga TC175.

The high-end Core chip here is the Core i7-7820EQ, a quad-core 3.0/3.7GHz CPU with 8MB cache and a 45/35W TDP. Congatec similarly supports the ability to configure the TDP of selected EQ and Xeon chips. (For the full list of chip options, click on either the Advantech or MSC links above.)

As with the Conga-TC175, but unlike the SOM-5898 and MSC C6B-KLH modules, the Conga-TS175 is said to support Intel Optane memory on carrier boards via PCIe 3.0. This faster, RAM-like alternative to NAND solid state drives uses 3D XPoint technology to offer low 10µs latency, or about a thousand times lower than that of standard HDDs, while handling the same sized data packets. Intel Optane won’t be available for several months, however.

As you might expect, the larger Conga-TS175 has a similar, but slightly more extensive feature set compared to the Conga-TC175. Like the vast majority of Kaby Lake products we’ve seen, the Conga-TS175 supports up to 32GB of speedy DDR4 (2400 MT/s) delivered via a dual channel memory controller. There’s an onboard Intel i219-LM GbE Controller with AMT 11.6 support, as well as 8x PCIe Gen 3 lanes and 4x SATA 3.0 interfaces. Unlike the Conga-TC175, there’s also a PEG x16 Gen 3 expansion interface.

Conga-TS175 block diagram
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Triple displays are enabled with the dual DDI/TMDS interfaces (DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4a), as well as eDP 1.3 and dual-channel, 24-bit LVDS. Options include a VGA port and a Conga-LDVI daughter-board that converts LVDS to DVI-D.

The Conga-TS175 supports 4x USB 3.0 and 8x USB 2.0 ports, all with XHCI (eXtensible Host Controller Interface) technology. Additional I/O includes LPC and I2C buses, 2x UARTs, and HD audio.

The Congatec Board Controller provides features like a watchdog and power loss controls. There’s also ACPI 4.0 power management with battery support, as well as optional TPM security. This commercial temperature (0 to 60°C) module is available with optional passive, active, and heatspreader cooling solutions.

The Conga-TS175 runs Fedora 24, Ubuntu, SUSE, RHEL, and Yocto Project 2.2 Linux distributions, as well as Chromium 2. There is also support for VxWorks and 64-bit Windows 10 and Windows 10 IoT Enterprise. Congatec’s existing Conga-TEVAL carrier board is available as an option.

 
Further information

No pricing or availability information was provided for the Conga-TS175. More information may be found in Congatec’s Conga-TS175 announcement and product page.