DFI VC900-M8M-Q NXP i.MX 8M Quad Vehicle PC with E-Mark, 9-36V DC, CAN Bus and -20 to 70 °C

Fleet telematics units are often asked to do several jobs at once: read the CAN bus, log position and driver events, push data over LTE and drive a small screen. The VC900-M8M-Q is the i.MX 8M Quad build of the DFI VC900-M8M series, a small fanless vehicle PC with E-Mark (E24) compliance, CAN bus and ignition control.

Compute is the NXP i.MX 8M Quad, four Arm Cortex-A53 cores at 1.3 GHz, with 4 GB of LPDDR4, which leaves headroom for those jobs to run side by side. Storage is 16 GB of eMMC 5.1 on board, with up to 64 GB as an option, plus a microSD slot. The VC900-M8M-Q runs Yocto Linux 2.5, with Android 9.0 as an alternative image, and a 6-axis IMU with three accelerometer and three gyroscope axes supports driver behaviour and motion logging.

On the front are one GbE port on RJ45, COM1 as RS-232/422/485, two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, a micro USB OTG port, HDMI at up to 1920 x 1080 at 60 Hz and CAN bus on DB9. The rear carries COM2 as a four-wire RS-232 port and COM3 and COM4 as two-wire RS-232, plus four antenna holes for LTE, Wi-Fi and GPS. An M.2 2242/3042 B key slot with a Nano SIM takes an optional 4G LTE module and an M.2 2230 E key slot takes optional Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, while a 2 W speaker amplifier is optional on the VC900-M8M-Q.

Power is 9 to 36 V DC with ACC/IGN ignition control on a three-pole terminal block, so the VC900-M8M-Q starts and shuts down with the vehicle. It runs fanless from -20 °C to 70 °C, is shock and vibration tested to MIL-STD-810G, and DFI lists E-Mark (E24) compliance with CE, FCC, UKCA and RoHS. The sheet metal case mounts on DIN rail or a wall. We supply it configured and tested, with the OS image and any LTE or Wi-Fi module and antennas fitted. For lighter loads, the VC900-M8M-D carries the i.MX 8M Dual with 2 GB, and the VP070-M8M-Q pairs the Quad with a 7 inch touchscreen.