DFI ASL173-CT-x7211RE Intel Atom x7211RE Mini-ITX Embedded Motherboard with 9 to 36 V DC Input and -40 to 85 °C

Remote outstations, telemetry cabinets and solar-powered sites have a power budget before they have a processing budget. The ASL173-CT-x7211RE is the 6 W build in the DFI ASL173 series of Mini-ITX embedded motherboards, and its 9 to 36 V DC input takes a 12 or 24 V battery bank directly across its charge range.

Its Intel Atom x7211RE (Amston Lake) runs two cores at 1.0 to 3.2 GHz within a 6 W TDP, which is ample for data logging, Modbus and MQTT gateways and a local web interface. Memory is one DDR5 4800 MHz SO-DIMM of up to 16 GB. Intel UHD Graphics drives two DP++ outputs at up to 4K 60 Hz, and a USB-C port with DisplayPort Alt Mode adds a third screen or a single-cable monitor.

The M.2 B-key with Nano SIM takes a cellular modem for backhaul, and the M.2 E-key takes Wi-Fi for local maintenance access. Six COM ports on internal headers (two RS-232/422/485, four RS-232) and 8-bit DIO connect meters, RTUs and alarm contacts, while two 2.5GbE ports on Intel I226IT controllers separate the field network from the uplink. Three rear USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, four USB 2.0 headers, a PCIe x4 slot and two SATA ports complete the I/O.

The ASL173-CT-x7211RE runs from 9 to 36 V DC on a 4-pin connector or barrel connector and operates from -40 to 85 °C fanless, with CE, FCC, UKCA and RoHS compliance. If the site has more power to spare, the quad-core ASL173-CT-x7433RE doubles the cores at 9 W, and ASL173-CT-x7835RE offers eight cores at 12 W.