Diamond Systems ZETA Intel Atom and Pentium COM Express Mini Single Board Computers with Data Acquisition

Airborne and vehicle systems leave little room for electronics, yet they still need a current x86 processor, rugged I/O and analog measurement close to the sensors. The Diamond Systems ZETA series answers that with a complete SBC built in the COM Express Mini Type 10 form factor, made of three pre-assembled parts: a computer-on-module with the processor, a same-size carrier board with the I/O transceivers, power supply and expansion sockets, and a heat spreader with a flat outer surface that mounts directly to the enclosure. Diamond rates ZETA as equivalent in function and performance to its Aries SBC on a much smaller board.

Every ZETA uses a quad-core Intel Atom Apollo Lake processor at 1.6 GHz with 8 GB of RAM and eMMC on the module. I/O covers two Gigabit Ethernet ports, four RS-232/422/485 ports with protocol and 120-ohm termination set port by port, four USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 port, VGA and single-channel 24-bit LVDS, and a watchdog timer. A MiniCard/mSATA socket and a Micro SD socket hold boot storage or I/O cards, and an expansion connector carries two PCIe x1 links, SATA, HD audio, USB 2.0 and I2C to Diamond’s ZETA-DB-01 or ZETA-DB-02 daughterboards, which add a second MiniCard socket and an M.2 2242 SATA socket. Because the COM is an industry-standard module, a later processor can replace it in the same form factor with little or no hardware redesign.

The range covers two processors and two I/O circuits. The ZETA-E3940-8G064A pairs the Atom E3940 and 64 GB of eMMC with the full data acquisition circuit: 16 single-ended or eight differential 16-bit analog inputs at up to 100 kHz aggregate, four 16-bit analog outputs with a waveform generator, 27 digital I/O lines, eight 32-bit counter/timers and four 24-bit PWMs. The ZETA-E3940-8G064D keeps the E3940 with 16 digital I/O lines on a PCA9535 expander instead. The ZETA-E3950-8G128A and ZETA-E3950-8G128D move to the Atom E3950 with 128 GB of eMMC and the same two I/O choices. All data acquisition and digital I/O features run through Diamond’s Universal Driver library, with a graphical control program for testing and debugging.

Input is a wide 6 to 36 V DC, which suits vehicle supplies without a separate converter, and ZETA runs fanless from -40 to 85 °C measured at the heat spreader surface, with heat sink options available. Diamond supports Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS and Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSB, with drivers and development kits from the manufacturer. Diamond Systems positions the ZETA series for long-life military, medical and transportation equipment, where swapping the COM extends service life beyond a single processor generation, and for airborne and other vehicle systems where every board in the enclosure has to earn its space.