Cougar computer attacks rugged applications
By Warren Webb, Technical Editor -- EDN, May 1, 2008
With an eye toward demanding military, aerospace, medical, and industrial applications, VersaLogic announced the Cougar single-board computer at the April Embedded Systems Conference. The new PC/104-plus board offers designers of ruggedized systems the benefits of fanless operation, soldered-on system memory, and −40 to +85°C extended-temperature operation. The Cougar’s AMD LX 800 processor delivers Celeron 800-MHz-equivalent performance while drawing less than 5W of power. Standard onboard features include 256 Mbytes of SDRAM, dual 10/100-Mbps Ethernet, four USB 2.0 ports, an IDE (integrated-drive-electronics) interface, and three communications ports. A CompactFlash socket provides high-capacity, onboard storage with no moving parts. USB ports provide options for keyboard, mouse, external storage, and other devices.
The board integrates flat-panel support with MMX (multimedia extensions) and 3DNow! extensions for video-intensive applications. The PC/104-Plus interface supports both ISA (industry-standard-architecture) and PCI (peripheral-component-interconnect) add-on modules. Standard pass-through connectors allow the board to reside either above or below other PC/104 modules. The Cougar is compatible with a variety of popular operating systems, including Windows, QNX, VxWorks, and Linux. It sells for approximately $795 (OEM quantities).
