DFI WL171 Intel 8th Gen Core Whiskey Lake Mini-ITX Motherboards with Dual GbE and 12 V DC Input

When an application needs more single-thread performance than a low-power Atom offers, for a detailed HMI, a local database or image processing, a 15 W Intel Core processor is often the next step, and it need not mean a new enclosure. The DFI WL171 series puts 8th Gen Intel Core (Whiskey Lake) U-series processors on a 170 x 170 mm Mini-ITX board with a single 12 V DC input on a barrel connector or 4-pin header.

Every WL171 board takes two DDR4 SO-DIMMs for up to 32 GB, at 2400 MHz on the Core builds and 2133 MHz on the Celeron. Intel UHD Graphics drives three independent displays: two rear DP++ outputs at up to 4096 x 2304 at 60 Hz and a dual-channel LVDS header at up to 1920 x 1200. Networking is two GbE ports on Intel I210AT and I219LM controllers.

Two builds are rated from -20 to 70 °C and support Intel vPro and AMT on the I219LM port for remote management: WL171-NE-8665UE with the quad-core Core i7-8665UE, bursting to 4.4 GHz, and WL171-NE-8365UE with the quad-core Core i5-8365UE, bursting to 4.1 GHz. Two standard builds run from -5 to 65 °C without vPro: WL171-NB-8145UE with the dual-core Core i3-8145UE at up to 3.9 GHz, and WL171-NB-4305UE with the dual-core Celeron 4305UE at a fixed 2.0 GHz and Intel UHD Graphics 610.

Four rear USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports at 10 Gbps take cameras and fast storage, alongside four internal USB 2.0 headers. Two COM ports on internal headers (one RS-232/422/485, one RS-232) and 8-bit DIO handle field devices. Storage runs to an M.2 M-key (2242/2260/2280) with PCIe x4 for an NVMe SSD, and two SATA 3.0 ports with RAID 0, 1 and 5. An M.2 E-key (2230) takes Wi-Fi, and a PCIe x4 Gen3 slot takes a capture, fieldbus or I/O card.

The boards carry a discrete TPM 2.0, a watchdog programmable from 1 to 255 seconds and Realtek audio, with support for Windows 10 IoT Enterprise 64-bit and Linux, including Yocto. For a 24 V rail or vehicle supply, the WL173 series shares this board design with a 9 to 36 V DC input, so the same software image can move between the two.