GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms Announces Extended Availability for Key Small Form Factor Platforms
New sATX-Q35-ER ATX single board computer, COM Express bCOM2-L1000, first to benefit
o Reduced total cost of ownership
o Assurance of up to five year availability
o Customers provided with version control
o Future products will carry same assurance
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA - February 19, 2008 - Demonstrating once again the company's unparalleled understanding of the real concerns of customers, GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms today announced that, in future, key products in its range of small form factor embedded computing solutions designed for a range of industrial applications will carry the assurance of extended availability. Selected platforms - including the recently announced bCOM2-L1000 Type 2 Com Express module, and the sATX-Q35-ER ATX single board computer (announced today) - will optionally be obtainable for up to five years under the terms of the long term availability program. This, together with a version control program, will mean that customers will not need to re-qualify these platforms as a result of changes in the underlying hardware and firmware, thus substantially reducing the total cost of ownership.
The sATX-Q35-ER and bCOM2-L1000 will be demonstrated on the GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms stand (Hall 9, Stand 283) at Embedded World (Nurnberg, Germany - February 26-28).
"The accelerating rate of introduction of new small form factor platforms for industrial applications, and the continuous refreshing of existing platforms, is starting to create real problems for customers," said Adrian Bernhard, General Manager, Commercial Products at GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms. "What customers need is an assurance of stability - and we're now able to provide that with the bCOM2-L1000 COM Express platform and the new sATX-Q35-ER ATX single board computer."
The assurance of continuing availability is made possible by the careful selection of components and subsystems that have a high degree of likelihood of remaining in production over the long term. Where changes are unavoidable, customers will have the option of being advised - and having the opportunity to veto - any modifications ahead of time.
sATX-Q35-ER
The sATX-Q35-ER is GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms' first ATX platform, and is the first in what is planned to be a broad range of ATX and ITX products designed to enable optimum solutions for a wide range of applications. It is an ATX single board computer with PCI Express and PCI expansion slots, and features a choice of Intel®'s Core(TM) 2 Quad or Core 2 Duo processors; up to 8 Gigabytes of DDR2 on-demand memory; two Gigabit Ethernet ports; twelve USB ports; two COM ports; a choice of SATA or IDE storage devices; and a wide range of multimedia implementations via the PCI Express x16 expansion slot. The sATX-Q35-ER also offers support for various RAID levels.
bCOM2-L1000
The previously announced bCOM2-L1000 is GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms' first COM Express platform, and is designed for applications including industrial, simulation/training, test and measurement, gaming and transportation. It offers a choice of Intel Core2 Duo, Core(TM) Duo or Celeron processors with up to 2 Gigabytes of memory, and is supported by the CCAR-L1000 carrier board for customer evaluation of the bCOM2-L1000.
The choice of three processors allows users to select an appropriate option depending on the power/heat dissipation and performance characteristics of the intended application. The Celeron M option - which sees the processor soldered to the board for even greater reliability - is specifically designed for temperature-critical environments. Two serial ATA ports and an IDE port provide the bCOM2-L1000 with the ability to handle extensive, high performance hard disk storage.
Optimum graphics performance for the bCOM2-L1000 is provided via integrated analog CRT and LVDS interfaces, DVMT 3.0, Intel's Dual-Frequency Graphics Technology (which reduces integrated graphics chipset power) and dual independent display pipes.
The ATX form factor CCAR-L1000 complements the bCOM2-L1000 with a single x16 PCI Express slot, two x1 slots and four PCI 2.3 slots. Rear panel interfaces include mouse/keyboard, serial, Ethernet, USB, VGA and audio, while onboard support additionally includes a parallel interface, CD-in, S/PDIF in/out and IrDA.
About GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms
GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, a joint venture between General Electric (NYSE: GE) and FANUC LTD of Japan, is a high-performance technology company and a global provider of hardware, software, services, expertise and experience in automation and embedded computing, with products employed in virtually every industry, including manufacturing automation, defense, automotive, telecommunications, healthcare and aerospace. GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms is a worldwide company head-quartered in Charlottesville, VA, and is part of GE Enterprise Solutions. For more information, visit www.gefanuc.com
Contact:
Ian McMurray, GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms
+44 (0) 1327 322821
ian.mcmurray@gefanuc.com
