DFI AL171-CB-E3950 Intel Apollo Lake Atom x7-E3950 Mini-ITX Embedded Motherboard with Dual GbE and Triple Display

An operator station on a packaging or assembly line often drives a touch panel, a trend screen and sometimes a camera view, all from one controller in a compact cabinet. The AL171-CB-E3950 is the Atom x7-E3950 build for standard temperatures in the DFI AL171 series of Mini-ITX embedded motherboards, set up for that job on a 12 V supply.

The Intel Atom x7-E3950 (Apollo Lake) has four cores at 1.6 GHz with bursts to 2.0 GHz inside a 12 W TDP, the most capable Atom in the series. It can run the HMI, alarm handling and data logging side by side. Two DDR3L 1866 MHz SO-DIMM slots take up to 8 GB. Intel HD Graphics offers VGA, DP++ at up to 4096 x 2160 at 60 Hz, dual-channel LVDS at up to 1920 x 1200 and eDP, with three independent displays at once.

Two GbE ports on Intel I211AT and I210AT controllers link the machine and plant networks. Six COM ports on internal headers (two RS-232/422/485 and four RS-232) and 8-bit DIO reach PLCs, drives and stack lights. There are four rear USB 3.0 ports and five internal USB 2.0 connections, two SATA 3.0 ports and an M.2 B-key (2242/2280) for an SSD or cellular module. Full-size Mini PCIe takes Wi-Fi and a PCIe x1 Gen2 slot adds an I/O card.

The AL171-CB-E3950 runs from 12 V DC on a barrel connector or 4-pin header, operates from 0 to 60 °C on a fanless heatsink and carries CE, FCC, RoHS and UL compliance. If the station sits in a cold store or outdoors, AL171-CT-E3950 has the same processor with a -40 to 85 °C rating. For a lighter 6 W load with a higher burst clock, AL171-CB-N4200 uses the quad-core Pentium N4200.