Nexcom EBC 357X 3.5" SBCs with Intel Atom E3900 and -40 to 85 °C Board Rating

An outdoor kiosk, roadside cabinet or portable device has to start on a frosty morning and keep running in summer heat, from a small board in a shallow enclosure. The Nexcom EBC 357X series is the extended-temperature version of the EBC 357: a 3.5 inch SBC rated from -40 to 85 °C at board level, with the processor mounted on the underside of the board.

Both EBC 357X builds share the same layout. Two DDR3L SO-DIMM sockets take up to 8 GB. HDMI runs at up to 3840 x 2160 at 30 Hz, VGA at up to 1920 x 1200 and a single-channel 18/24-bit LVDS interface drives a panel at up to 1366 x 768, with dual channel as an option, for three displays at once. That lets one board drive a built-in operator screen and two external monitors without a graphics card. I/O covers two Gigabit Ethernet ports on Intel I210-IT controllers with PXE boot and wake on LAN, two USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 ports, one RS-232 and one RS-232/422/485 port with two more RS-232 ports as an option, 4-in/4-out GPIO and Realtek ALC888S audio with mic-in, line-out and speaker-out headers. Storage is one SATA port and an M.2 2242 B key socket with a SIM holder, and a TPM module is optional.

The series has two builds. The EBC 357X-E3950 carries the Intel Atom E3950, and the EBC 357X-E3930 carries the Intel Atom E3930; I/O, memory and the -40 to 85 °C rating are the same on both, so the choice comes down to the processor the software needs. Both use the same connector positions as the EBC 357, which keeps an enclosure design reusable when a project moves from indoor to outdoor duty.

Power is a single 12 V DC input on a 4-pin right-angle connector, with AT or ATX mode set by jumper. Operating humidity is 10 to 90% and non-operating humidity 5 to 95%, non-condensing. The board measures 146 x 102 mm and carries a 4-pin PWM fan connector. The series meets CE and carries an FCC Class A mark. Nexcom names battery-powered portable devices, multimedia HMI panels, outdoor systems installed in harsh environments, home automation and thin clients as target applications.