DFI WL551 3.5" SBCs with 8th Gen Intel Core, Triple GbE and Dual Displays

A machine controller or gateway that talks to several networked devices soon runs short of LAN and USB ports on a smaller board, and add-on cards take space a compact enclosure does not have. The DFI WL551 series is built for that brief: a family of 3.5 inch SBCs, also called 3.5 inch motherboards, measuring 146 x 102 mm, with three GbE ports and four USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports on the rear edge and the processor on the underside.

Every WL551 shares the same board. One DDR4 SO-DIMM socket takes up to 32 GB of single-channel DDR4-2400, and Intel UHD Graphics handle hardware decode and encode for H.264 and HEVC. Two independent displays run from a DP++/HDMI port at up to 4096 x 2160 at 60 Hz and an LVDS connector at up to 1920 x 1200, with eDP as an option. The three GbE ports use Intel I211AT or I210IT controllers, and internal headers add two USB 2.0, one RS-232/422/485 port with RS-485 auto flow control, 8-bit digital I/O and audio. An M.2 M key 2280/2242 on PCIe x4 takes an NVMe SSD, a SATA 3.0 port adds a drive, an M.2 B key has an optional nano SIM slot and an M.2 E key 2230 adds a card.

The standard-temperature builds, rated from -5 to 65 °C, are the WL551-BCI-8665UE (Core i7-8665UE), WL551-BCI-8365UE (Core i5-8365UE), WL551-BCI-8145UE (Core i3-8145UE) and WL551-BCI-4305UE (Celeron 4305UE). The extended-temperature builds, rated from -20 to 80 °C, are the WL551-ECI-8665UE (Core i7-8665UE), WL551-ECI-8365UE (Core i5-8365UE), WL551-ECI-8145UE (Core i3-8145UE) and WL551-ECI-4305UE (Celeron 4305UE). The Core i7 and i5 are quad-core, the Core i3 is dual-core at a 2.2 GHz base clock, and the Celeron is the simplest option for lighter tasks.

Power is a single 12 V DC input on a 4-pin right-angle connector, with a DC jack or vertical connector on request, drawing a typical 7.68 W and up to 30 W on the i7 build. Every WL551 ships with a 35.5 mm heatsink, and a heat spreader is available as an option. The boards support Windows 10 IoT Enterprise 64-bit and Linux in UEFI mode, with fTPM 2.0 as standard, dTPM 2.0 as an option and a watchdog timer, and carry CE, FCC, UKCA and KC marks and RoHS compliance.