Kontron

This year PICMG celebrates thirty years of developing open computing specifications. And despite three decades of open hardware specs that are used by thousands of companies and countless engineers worldwide, the organization is still largely an unknown—even in our own industry.

But from behind the scenes, PICMG is responsible for billions of dollars of business. It has reduced time to market in virtually every electronics-driven industry. It has empowered companies to innovate by adopting off-the-shelf technologies, giving them space to focus on their core competencies. It has built markets based on coopetition, where companies collaboratively develop open, interoperable specifications then go toe-to-toe once they are ratified.

Even less recognized are the individuals who donate hundreds if not thousands of hours to the creation of PICMG specifications. These engineers are rarely acknowledged for their contributions. They are truly unsung heroes, and PICMG specifications wouldn’t exist without them.

One of these unsung heroes is Stefan Milnor, who recently retired from his role as VP of Engineering at Kontron. In parallel, he stepped down as the long-time editor of COM Express and COM-HPC specifications. 

Stefan has been involved in PICMG since the beginnings of COM Express, which is undeniably the most successful computer-on-module in a billion-dollar COMs market. As editor, Stefan incorporated input from numerous technical subcommittees over the years and implemented it into specifications that have been adopted by thousands of organizations building embedded systems. It’s a difficult job that requires a rare mix of technical acumen and attention to detail, and his skill and efficiency will be missed by us all—including some who never knew he was the hand behind their downloaded spec.

Stefan has always been a very private individual. In fact, by the time we could reach out to him for comment he had already left. In some ways, it’s a fitting conclusion for someone who performed yeoman’s work for decades without reward. And although he probably isn’t reading this, his contributions to PICMG and the embedded computing industry deserve to be acknowledged.

Thank you, Stefan, for helping make PICMG what it is today: 30 years strong and counting.

— Jessica Isquith, President, PICMG

Admin Note: Contact Doug Sandy, PICMG CTO, at [email protected] to learn how you can get involved in PICMG’s technical working groups. Contact me, [email protected] if you are interested in joining PICMG or have any questions about our organization.

WAKEFIELD, Mass., October 9, 2023. PICMG, a leading consortium for developing open embedded computing specifications, has announced the release of the COM-HPC 1.2 “Mini” specification. Measuring just 95 mm x 70 mm, COM-HPC Mini is nearly half the size of the next-smallest COM-HPC form factor and provides a cost-effective, lower power module for autonomous mobile robots, drones, mobile 5G test and measurement equipment, and other far edge applications.

A single, rugged 400-pin connector allows COM-HPC Mini to support communications interfaces such as:

• 16x PCIe lanes (PCIe 4.0 or PCIe 5.0)
• 2x 10 Gbps NBASE-T Ethernet ports
• 8x SuperSpeed lanes (for USB4/ThunderBolt, USB 3.2, or DDI)
• 8x USB 2.0
• 2x SATA ports (shared with PCIe lanes)
• 1x eDP
• 2x DDI

The 1.2 specification defines a separate FFC connector for MIPI CSI, while its 400 pins also support signals such as Boot SPI and eSPI, UART, CAN, Audio, FUSA, and power management signals. A signal voltage reduction from 3.3V to 1.8V on most pins is in line with reduced I/O voltage on the latest low-power CPUs. The input power is limited to a maximum of 107W at a wide input voltage of 8V to 20V, leaving plenty of headroom for performance processors.

“The COM-HPC size A started at 95 mm x 120 mm, but the market loves the Mini size as well as the performance you get with COM-HPC,” says Christian Eder, Director of Product Marketing at congatec and Chairman of the COM-HPC Working Group at PICMG. “The whole trend of making things smaller and more power-saving was a reaction to market trends, and it will continue.”

Mini’s smaller footprint also provides mechanical advantages, such as a 15 mm stack height from the top of a carrier board to the top of a heat spreader stacked on a COM-HPC Mini module. This 5 mm reduction compared to other COM-HPC variants means COM-HPC Mini modules must use soldered memory, which makes them inherently rugged through resistance to shock and vibration and provides direct thermal coupling to heat spreaders.

“The new revision of the specification allows COM-HPC to address additional high-performance applications that require a smaller footprint,” says Doug Sandy, CTO of PICMG. “COM-HPC 1.2 is a great solution that completes the spectrum of solutions of COM Express through COM-HPC Server Modules.”

“The COM-HPC Mini specification leverages the high-speed capabilities and SI performance of existing COM-HPC interconnect solutions,” says Matthew Burns, Global Director of Technical Marketing at Samtec. “Dropping one 400-pin connector enables small form-factors without sacrificing the data throughput demanded at the Far Edge.”

PICMG members ADLINK, congatec, Samtec, SECO, and others have either already released or plan to release COM-HPC 1.2 product in the near future.

The COM-HPC 1.2 specification can be downloaded today for $750 from the PICMG website at www.picmg.org/product/com-hpc-module-base-specification-revision-1-2. A COM-HPC 1.2 Carrier Design Guide is scheduled for release in early 2024.

For more information, visit www.picmg.org/openstandards/com-hpc.

About PICMG

Founded in 1994, PICMG is a not-for-profit 501(c) consortium of companies and organizations that collaboratively develop open standards for high performance industrial, Industrial IoT, military & aerospace, telecommunications, test & measurement, medical, and general-purpose embedded computing applications. There are over 130 member companies that specialize in a wide range of technical disciplines, including mechanical and thermal design, single board computer design, high-speed signaling design and analysis, networking expertise, backplane, and packaging design, power management, high availability software and comprehensive system management.

Key standards families developed by PICMG include COM-HPC, COM Express, CompactPCI, AdvancedTCA, MicroTCA, AdvancedMC, CompactPCI Serial, SHB Express, MicroSAM, and HPM (Hardware Platform Management). www.picmg.org.

Applications such as artificial intelligence and the upcoming 5G wireless standard come with enormous data hunger and require more computing power. This also requires new concepts for embedded computers: existing standards will no longer be sufficient to cope with the growing embedded market demands. Leading manufacturers in the industry, such as Kontron, have set up a new working group in the PICMG standardization committee to make the COM standard fit for the future. Computer-On-Modules High Performance Computing – COM HPC – will be complementary to the existing COM Express® standard.