Kontron’s Linux-friendly, COM Express Mini Type 10 form-factor “COMe-m4AL10” and “COMe-m4AL10 (E2)” modules are built around Apollo Lake SoCs and offer up to 16GB DDR4 and 64GB eMMC with up to -40 to 85°C (E2) support.

Kontron announced two 84 x 55mm, Intel Apollo Lake based compute modules with 16GB DDR4. The Atom-powered, -40 to 85°C ready COMe-m4AL10 (E2) and Pentium and Celeron equipped, 0 to 60°C COMe-m4AL10 both support up to twice the RAM of the previous (circa-2017) industrial temp COMe-mAL10 (E2) and commercial COMe-mAL10 modules, which use DDR3L RAM.

COMe-m4AL10 (E2) at left and earlier COMe-mAL10 (E2)

All four of these COM Express Mini Type 10 modules share the same product page and support Linux, VxWorks, and Windows 10 IoT and Enterprise. Applications include industrial, medical imaging, autonomous vehicle, surveillance, and security. The COMe-m4AL10 (E2) is also said to be suitable for transportation and defense applications.

Kontron’s only other Type 10 module is the Apollo Lake based COMe-mBT10 with 4GB DDR3L. It was originally announced in 2013 with a choice of Intel Bay Trail chips.

The two new DDR4-2400 equipped COMe-m4AL10 modules are almost identically configured as the DDR3L-1866 equipped COMe-mAL10 modules. Kontron is still offering the COMe-mAL10 in part because its industrial-temp (E2) model is the only one of the four that supports optional ECC memory. All these Type 10 modules use soldered RAM for greater reliability.

COMe-m4AL10 (E2) and block diagram
(click images to enlarge)

The commercial-temp COMe-m4AL10 supports the quad-core, up to 2.5GHz Pentium N4200 and dual-core, up to 2.4GHz Celeron N3350, both with 6W TDPs. The COMe-m4AL10 (E2) can be fitted with a quad-core, up to 2.0GHz Atom x7-E3950 with 12W TDP, a quad-core Atom x5-E3940 at up to 1.8GHz with 9.5W, or the dual-core, up to 1.8GHz Atom x5-E3930 with 6.5W TDP.

In addition to shipping with up to 16GB DDR4-2400, the new modules provide optional 64GB eMMC SLC or up to 128GB MLC as a special request build option. The modules are equipped with Intel I211AT or I210IT (E2) Gigabit Ethernet controllers.

The COMe-m4AL10 and COMe-m4AL10 (E2) support dual simultaneous displays with DP++ (DP/HDMI/DVI) at up to 4096 x 2160 @ 60Hz and single-channel LVDS. The LVDS can be swapped out for 3840 x 2160 @ 30Hz eDP on request. There’s also an Intel HD Audio interface.

I/O includes 4x PCIe x1 Gen 2.0, 2x USB 3.0, 6x USB 2.0, and 2x serial RX/TX. The product page and datasheet list 2x SATA III at 6Gbps while the announcement mentions 2x SATA II at 300Mbps.

Other features include LPC, SMB, Fast I2C, and either boot SPI or optional general-purpose SPI. You also get a staged watchdog, RTC, and GPIO/SDIO switch, as well as an optional USB client interface.

The modules provide a wide-range, 4.75-20V input with ACPI 4.0 power management plus IEC 60068-2-78 compliant humidity resistance. A TPM 2.0 security module is standard and the Kontron Approtect security service with an Wibu-Systems CodeMeter chip is optional.

 
Further information

No pricing or availability information was provided for the COMe-m4AL10 and COMe-m4AL10 (E2). More information may be found in Kontron’s announcement and product page.