Rugged single board computer.

GE Energy Management’s Intelligent Platforms has announced the SBC347A rugged 3U OpenVPX single board computer (SBC). Based on the latest ‘Broadwell’ processor technology from Intel®, it delivers higher performance and greater functionality than previous generations of SBC while maintaining the same power envelope. The SBC374A is the first in a number of Broadwell-based products that GE plans to introduce.

The new SBC is designed for demanding applications in harsh, SWaP (size, weight and power) constrained military environments such as manned and unmanned vehicles, signal processing in ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance), sonar, radar, and command/control, as well as the most challenging applications in industry such as energy exploration and transportation.

The SBC374A benefits from two channels of 10Gbase-T connectivity, giving it 10x the Ethernet capability of earlier SBCs. This enables customers upgrading from previous generations of GE’s 3U OpenVPX Intel-based platforms to benefit from substantially enhanced connectivity on the Control Plane without needing to undertake disruptive, expensive infrastructure changes.

In line with GE’s commitment to maximizing long term customer value and return on investment, the SBC374A provides a simple, form/fit/function pin-compatible upgrade path.

The latest Intel Core i7 quad core processor, operating at up to 2.7GHz, can deliver as much as 15% greater CPU performance and 30% greater 3D graphics performance compared with its predecessors. The SBC374A supports up to 16GBytes of soldered ECC memory, and provides the exceptional on-board and off-board bandwidth needed by today’s sophisticated applications with its support for PCI Express® Gen3 technology and USB3.0.

“With the announcement of the SBC374A, GE is again in the forefront of responding to customer demand for rugged embedded computing solutions that deliver unprecedented performance and flexibility, yet are compact, lightweight and consume minimal power,” said Richard Kirk, Director of Core Computing at GE’s Intelligent Platforms business. “It is also yet another example of our continuing commitment to enabling our customers to take advantage of the power of the latest Intel technology.”

The SBC374A is available in five build levels, from benign environment (air cooled) to fully rugged (conduction cooled), and supports Microsoft® Windows, Open Linux® and VxWorks®. It benefits from support by both GE’s AXIS Advanced Multiprocessor Integrated Software development environment that minimizes program risk and speeds time to market, and from GE’s industry-leading Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) programs that are designed to maximize the long term value of customer investments.