DFI AL170-CB-N4200 Intel Pentium N4200 Mini-ITX Embedded Motherboard with Dual GbE and Triple Display

Digital signage players and self-service kiosks now mostly use eDP panels, and they often drive a second or third screen for menus or wayfinding. The AL170-CB-N4200 is the build in the DFI AL170 series of Mini-ITX embedded motherboards set up for that: two rear DP++ outputs plus an internal eDP connector, on a quad-core Pentium for indoor sites.

The Intel Pentium N4200 (Apollo Lake) has four cores at 1.1 GHz and bursts to 2.5 GHz, the highest burst clock in the series, within a 6 W TDP. That gives a responsive browser or media player without much heat. Two DDR3L 1866 MHz SO-DIMMs take up to 8 GB. Intel HD Graphics drives three independent displays, with both DP++ outputs and the eDP connector rated up to 4096 x 2160 at 60 Hz.

Two GbE ports on Intel I211AT controllers connect the content network and a local device network. Four rear USB 3.0 ports and six internal USB 2.0 headers take touch controllers, cameras and card readers, while two RS-232/422/485 ports on rear DB9, four RS-232 headers and 8-bit DIO handle printers and signalling. Storage is two SATA 3.0 ports and an M.2 M-key SSD slot; a full-size Mini PCIe slot takes Wi-Fi and a PCIe x1 Gen2 slot adds a card.

The AL170-CB-N4200 runs from a 24-pin ATX supply and operates from 0 to 60 °C on its fanless heatsink. AL170-CB-N3350 pairs the same eDP layout with a dual-core Celeron N3350 for single-application terminals. If the panel is LVDS, AL170-CB-E3940 and AL170-CB-E3950 carry an LVDS header instead.