DFI AL551-BN-E3930 Intel Apollo Lake Atom x5-E3930 3.5″ Embedded Board with Dual GbE and Triple Display

Not every panel needs four cores. A digital sign, a queue display or a data terminal on a warehouse wall runs one application all day, and a lower TDP keeps the enclosure cooler. The AL551-BN-E3930 is the dual-core Atom x5-E3930 build in the DFI AL551 series of 3.5″ embedded boards, keeping the full triple-display I/O of the series at 6.5 W.

The Intel Atom x5-E3930 (Apollo Lake) runs two cores at 1.3 GHz, bursting to 1.8 GHz. One DDR3L 1866 MHz SO-DIMM slot takes up to 8 GB, so memory can be kept modest for a single application. Intel HD Graphics drives DP++ at up to 4096 x 2160 at 60 Hz, VGA at up to 2048 x 1536 and dual-channel 48-bit LVDS at up to 1920 x 1200, all three at once.

Two GbE ports on Intel I210AT controllers carry content updates and management traffic. Two RS-232/422/485 COM ports and an 8-bit DIO suit barcode scanners, ticket printers and simple sensors. USB is two USB 3.1 Gen 1 and two USB 2.0 Type-A ports and two USB 2.0 on headers. An M.2 B-key (2242) takes an SSD, a full-size Mini PCIe socket takes Wi-Fi, and Realtek ALC262 audio drives two 3 W speakers for announcements.

The AL551-BN-E3930 runs from 12 V DC on a 4-pin or barrel connector, cooled by a fanless heatsink, and operates from 0 to 60 °C with firmware TPM 2.0 and CE, FCC, UKCA and RoHS compliance. AL551-BN-N3350 is the other dual-core option, on an Intel Celeron, and AL551-BN-E3940 doubles the cores at 9.5 W if the application grows.