DFI WCL051 Intel Core Series 3 Wildcat Lake Pico-ITX Motherboards with Dual 2.5GbE, HDMI and LVDS

Compact OEM designs often have to choose between board size and processing headroom. A 2.5″ board fits behind a display or inside a small controller housing, but the software going into those devices now includes video, analytics and remote management alongside the application itself. The DFI WCL051 series brings Intel Core Series 3 processors, code name Wildcat Lake, to the 100 x 72 mm Pico-ITX footprint, so a compact HMI, kiosk or vision gateway can run a current Intel Core processor on a board this size.

Every WCL051 board carries a six-core Intel Core processor at 15 W TDP, with Intel Xe3 graphics and a single DDR5 SO-DIMM socket that takes up to 64 GB at 6400 MHz. The Xe3 media engine decodes HEVC, VP9, AV1, AVC and VVC (H.266) and encodes HEVC, VP9, AV1 and AVC in hardware, which keeps video playback and camera streams off the CPU cores. HDMI runs at up to 4096 x 2160 at 60 Hz and dual-channel 18/24-bit LVDS at up to 1920 x 1200, driving two independent displays.

Three builds make up the range. They share the same board and I/O and differ by processor. The WCL051-BT-350 carries the Core 7 350 with a turbo frequency of up to 4.8 GHz for the heaviest single-thread and graphics loads. The WCL051-BT-320 uses the Core 5 320 at up to 4.6 GHz, a middle point for HMI and analytics software. The WCL051-BT-305 runs the Core 3 305 at up to 4.3 GHz, suiting kiosks, signage and controllers where six cores at a lower clock cover the workload.

Two 2.5GbE ports on Intel I226V controllers can keep a plant network and a camera or machine network apart. Two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports sit on the rear edge, with two further USB 2.0 ports, two RS-232/422/485 ports and 8-bit digital I/O on internal headers for touch controllers, meters and relays. Three M.2 sockets carry expansion: an E-key 2230 for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, a B-key 3042 with a nano SIM slot for 4G or 5G, and an M-key 2242 on PCIe Gen4 x2 for SSD storage. A discrete TPM 2.0, CM9825 audio and a watchdog timer are also on the board.

WCL051 boards run from a single 12 V DC supply on a terminal block and operate from 0 to 60 °C with the active cooler DFI supplies, which suits enclosures inside buildings, cabinets and equipment housings. Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC 24H2 and Linux are supported, and the boards carry CE, FCC, UKCA and RoHS compliance.