DFI CMS330 Intel 10th Gen Core Micro-ATX Embedded Motherboards with Q470E or H420E Chipset

Plenty of automation and test systems still depend on a PCI data acquisition card and a row of serial instruments, and replacing the host PC should not mean replacing those too. The DFI CMS330 series is a Micro-ATX embedded motherboard on a 244 x 244 mm footprint that keeps two PCI slots and 10 COM ports alongside an LGA1200 socket for 10th Gen Intel Core (Comet Lake) processors.

The socket supports Core i3, i5, i7 and i9 processors in 65 W E and 35 W TE versions, from the four-core i3-10100E to the 10-core i9-10900E, plus Pentium G6400E and G6400TE and Celeron G5900E and G5900TE, and DFI rates it for processors up to 125 W TDP. Memory is DDR4 at 2933 MHz. Intel UHD Graphics drives VGA, DP++ up to 4096 x 2160 at 60 Hz and HDMI 1.4b, with hardware encode and decode for H.264, H.265 and VP9, and DFI lists Windows 10 IoT Enterprise, Windows 11 and Ubuntu 20.04 support.

The CMS330-Q470ECRM uses the Intel Q470E chipset with four DIMM slots for up to 128 GB, three independent displays, an M.2 M-key socket for PCIe x4 NVMe or SATA SSDs, an M.2 E-key socket for Wi-Fi, RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10, and Intel AMT on Core i5, i7 and i9. The CMS330-H420EC uses the H420E chipset with two DIMM slots for up to 64 GB, two displays at once, four SATA ports without M.2 and an Intel I219V controller with no AMT or vPro, for systems that need the slots and serial ports at a lower build cost.

Expansion covers a PCIe x16 Gen3 slot, a PCIe x4 Gen3 slot and two PCI slots driven through a PCIe-to-PCI bridge. One RS-232/422/485 port sits on a rear DB-9, with nine RS-232 ports on internal headers, so instruments, barcode readers and PLC links can all connect without a serial card. Both builds have two GbE ports with an Intel I210AT controller, four SATA 3.0 ports, rear USB 3.2 and USB 2.0 Type-A ports, a PS/2 port and Realtek ALC888 audio.

Power comes from a standard ATX supply over 24-pin and 8-pin connectors, and the boards run from -5 to 65 °C in indoor cabinets and test racks. Optional TPM 2.0 and a watchdog timer programmable from 1 to 255 seconds support unattended operation, and the CMS330 series carries CE, FCC and UKCA compliance.