DFI AL553-BN-E3950 Intel Atom x7-E3950 3.5″ Industrial Motherboard with 9 to 36 V DC Input and Dual GbE

A machine controller inside an electrical cabinet usually shares a 24 V DC supply with the PLC, drives and sensors. The AL553-BN-E3950 is the quad-core Atom x7-E3950 build in the DFI AL553 series of 3.5″ industrial motherboards, taking that supply directly on its 9 to 36 V DC input and giving the most processing in the series for standard 0 to 60 °C installs.

The Intel Atom x7-E3950 (Apollo Lake) runs four cores at 1.6 GHz, bursting to 2.0 GHz, within a 12 W TDP, which leaves room for an HMI runtime, data logging and a local database together. One DDR3L 1866 MHz SO-DIMM slot takes up to 8 GB. Intel HD Graphics drives HDMI at up to 3840 x 2160 at 30 Hz, VGA at up to 1920 x 1200 and dual-channel 24-bit LVDS at up to 1920 x 1200, all three at once.

Two GbE ports on Intel I210AT controllers separate the machine network from the plant network. One RS-232/422/485 COM port and an 8-bit DIO connect a drive or an older controller plus stack lights and interlocks. USB is two USB 3.1 Gen 1 and two USB 2.0 Type-A ports and two USB 2.0 on headers. An M.2 B-key (2242) takes an SSD, an M.2 E-key (2230) takes Wi-Fi and a full-size Mini PCIe socket with an optional SIM slot takes a cellular modem for remote support.

The AL553-BN-E3950 is cooled by a fanless heatsink, operates from 0 to 60 °C and carries CE, FCC, UKCA and RoHS compliance, with firmware TPM 2.0 and a watchdog timer. For the same processor in unheated or outdoor enclosures, AL553-EN-E3950 is rated for -20 to 70 °C and AL553-TN-E3950 for -40 to 85 °C.