Diamond Systems SATURN : SAT-E3940-8GA PCIe/104 SBC with Intel Atom x5-E3940, 8 GB ECC RAM and 16-Bit Data Acquisition

Long-running measurement systems cannot afford silent memory errors, and rugged installs rule out loose memory modules. The SAT-E3940-8GA is the 8 GB ECC build with full data acquisition in the Diamond Systems SATURN series: a PCIe/104 SBC with a quad-core Atom, error-correcting memory soldered down and an industrial analogue and digital I/O circuit on one board.

The Intel Atom x5-E3940 is a quad-core Apollo Lake processor at 1.6 GHz, bursting to 1.8 GHz, with 8 GB of ECC RAM soldered down, which avoids the problems SO-DIMM modules can cause under vibration. Graphics drive two HDMI ports and dual-channel 24-bit LVDS with backlight power, and a TPM 2.0 chip is on board.

The data acquisition circuit gives 16 single-ended or 8 differential 16-bit analogue inputs at up to 250 kHz with a 2048-sample FIFO, four 16-bit analogue outputs with a waveform buffer, digital I/O lines, eight 32-bit counter/timers and four 24-bit PWMs, with autocalibration to within ±2 LSB. System I/O covers two Gigabit Ethernet ports on Intel I210 controllers, two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, two RS-232/422/485 ports and one RS-232 port, HDA audio on an ALC662 codec and a 7-pin SATA connector, with an M.2 2242 SATA socket for up to 1 TB. The SAT-E3940-4GA is the 4 GB non-ECC version, and the SAT-E3940-8GD keeps the ECC memory with digital I/O only.

Power is 5 V DC. The SAT-E3940-8GA runs fanless from -40 to 85 °C, cooled by a bottom heat spreader with an integrated thermal pad that also serves as the mounting surface, with latching connectors throughout. Expansion is through a top-side PCIe/104 OneBank socket with four PCIe x1 lanes and two USB 2.0, and a full-size PCIe MiniCard socket. The board supports Windows 10 64-bit and Ubuntu Linux 64-bit.