Product Overview

A main criteria for choosing a board is the processor power. The processor power has to be high enough to control the connected display and to perform the desired functions (MPEG decoding, silverlight, JAVA,...). Furthermore are interfaces like Ethernet, USB, CAN, RS232, I²C, SPI,...required in industrial and technical devices. If during development phase  or a later ReDesign the requirement for higher processor power or more interfaces comes up, this can lead to serious problems. But this is not valid for boards by F&S Elektronik. Every board family by F&S Elektronik offers at least four or more pin and software compatible boards. More boards are introduced annually and are added to the board family or replace faced out boards (not before 5 years).
With this board strategy by F&S Elektronik, the customer has to take no risks.

Depending on the customer's requirements, one of the three board families can be employed, every board family meets different conditions.

PicoMOD

has a size of 50x80mm (credit card sized), a reliable 140pol SMD connecter, 3.3V single supply, only a (simple) base board is necessary additionally. On the base board only driver components (RS232, RS458, CAN, Ethernet transformer) and bushes are necessary. The current product range goes from ARM9-400MHz up to CortexA8-800MHz (CoretxA9 is in planning stage). All PicoMOD boards are pin compatible and therefore easy to exchange/ scale.

PicoCOM

has a size of 40x50mm, is extremely compact and low-priced and has a reliable 80pol SMD connecter, a 3.3V single supply and only a simple base board is necessary additionally. On the base board only driver components (RS232, RS485, CAN, Ethernet transformer) and bushes are necessary. The product range goes from ARM9-240MHz up to ARM11-533MHz. All PicoCOM boards are pin compatible and therefore easy to exchange/ scale.

NetDCU

has a size of 80x100mm, including easy and robust 2.54mm connecters, 5V single supply, only a very simple base board is necessary additionally. Even driver components for RS232, buffer for display signals and the transformer for Ethernet are already available. The product range goes from ARM9-300MHz up to XScale-530MHz, including a graphic processor. All NetDCUs are pin compatible and therefore easy to exchange / scale.

armStoneA8

armStoneA8 is based on a Cortex™A8 CPU with 1GHz. For solutions with Computer on Module (COM), which need a base board, a Single Board Computer (SBC) in an established form factor offers an alternative. This PicoITX form factor is perfectly suited for developing small, but high-performance applications.

QBlissA8

F&S Elektronik was one of the first board manufacturers introducing a Qseven form factor board with RISC-CPU and CortexA8-667/800MHz.

Difference to QSeven with ATOM:
short booting time (5-8s)
low input power (3W)
low license fees (for WCE/WEC7).

F&S supports the operating systems Windows Embedded Compact (WCE/WEC7) and Linux. For every F&S board, bootloader, kernel, interface drivers and SDK (e.g. BSP) are available. For Windows CE the development is proceeded with VS.NET (C++, C#, VB.NET). As an alternative, Linux with current kernel, uboot, interface drivers, buildroot support (QT, Gstreamer, JAVA VM,...) is available.
For a quick start at developing, F&S offers a starterkit with standard bushes and useful accessories (cables, memory media,...). A 4-hour workshop, as well as support via phone, e-mail and via a forum on the F&S homepage, with more then 2000 reigstered customers, complement F&S' good support offer.