DFI AL171 Intel Apollo Lake Mini-ITX Embedded Motherboards with Dual GbE and 12 V DC Input

A 12 V DC input removes the separate ATX power supply from an enclosure, which saves space, a fan and a failure point in a compact cabinet. The DFI AL171 series puts Intel Apollo Lake processors on a 170 x 170 mm Mini-ITX board with that input, on a barrel connector or 4-pin header, under a fanless heatsink. It keeps the serial ports and digital I/O that machine and kiosk designs rely on, and adds an eDP connector next to LVDS for current and older panels.

Every AL171 board takes two DDR3L 1866 MHz SO-DIMMs for up to 8 GB and uses Intel HD Graphics. Display connectors cover VGA, DP++ at up to 4K 60 Hz, dual-channel LVDS and eDP, with three running at once as independent displays. Networking is two GbE ports, one on an Intel I211 and one on an I210 controller, with the IT versions of both on the extended temperature builds.

The range covers four builds. AL171-CT-E3950 pairs the quad-core Atom x7-E3950 at 12 W with a -40 to 85 °C rating for outdoor and unheated cabinets, and AL171-CT-E3930 keeps that rating with the dual-core x5-E3930 at 6.5 W for low-power gateways and loggers. For indoor sites at 0 to 60 °C, AL171-CB-E3950 carries the x7-E3950, and AL171-CB-N4200 uses the quad-core Pentium N4200 at 6 W, which bursts to 2.5 GHz for responsive kiosk and signage front ends.

All four boards have six COM ports on internal headers (two RS-232/422/485 and four RS-232), 8-bit DIO, four rear USB 3.0 ports and five internal USB 2.0 connections. Storage is two SATA 3.0 ports plus an M.2 B-key (2242/2280) with PCIe, SATA and USB signals, which takes an SSD or a cellular module. A full-size Mini PCIe slot takes Wi-Fi, a PCIe x1 Gen2 slot adds a card, and an LPC header accepts DFI’s module for four more COM ports.

The boards carry CE, FCC, RoHS and UL compliance, a watchdog programmable from 1 to 255 seconds, an optional discrete TPM 2.0 and support for Windows 10 IoT Enterprise 64-bit and Linux with UEFI boot. Where the supply is a 24 V cabinet rail or vehicle supply, the AL173 series shares this board design with a 15 to 36 V DC input.