DFI AL253-BN-20E30 Dual-Core Intel Atom x5-E3930 4″ x86 SBC with 9 to 36 V DC Input and Quad GbE

A protocol converter or data logger usually spends its day polling a handful of serial devices and forwarding the results, and its enclosure may have little room for heat. The AL253-BN-20E30 is the dual-core Atom x5-E3930 build in the DFI AL253 series of 4″ x86 SBCs, giving that kind of job four GbE ports and four COM ports on a 165 x 115 mm board.

The Intel Atom x5-E3930 (Apollo Lake) runs two cores at 1.3 GHz, bursting to 1.8 GHz, and is the lowest-power Atom option in the series. This build has 2 GB of DDR3L soldered on the board, which suits a lean Linux image, with one DDR3L 1866 MHz SO-DIMM slot to take the total to 8 GB if the software grows. Intel HD Graphics drives a DP++ output at up to 4096 x 2160 at 60 Hz and a VGA output at up to 1920 x 1200 for dual displays.

The four GbE ports on Intel I211AT or I210IT controllers let one board sit between a plant network and several machine networks. Four RS-232/422/485 COM ports and an 8-bit DIO connect meters, scales and relays, and USB is two USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports and two USB 2.0 on headers. An M.2 E-key (2230) for Wi-Fi, a full-size Mini PCIe socket with SIM for cellular and one SATA port complete the I/O, with firmware TPM 2.0 and a watchdog timer.

The AL253-BN-20E30 runs from 9 to 36 V DC on a barrel connector, cooled by a fanless heatsink, operates from 0 to 60 °C and carries CE, FCC, UKCA and RoHS compliance. For the same processor outdoors, AL253-TN-20E30 extends the range to -40 to 85 °C. Where the software needs four cores, AL253-BN-40E40 adds two cores and 4 GB of memory down.