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One of the principal challenges in managing a large industrial or manufacturing facility is continuously monitoring the condition of remote sensors and equipment. A new approach gaining in popularity is to combine existing wired communications with wireless technologies to enable flexibility and easy expansion without the cost and delays needed to install new wiring. At last week’s Embedded Systems Conference in Boston, WinSystems announced the EPX-855-G, a new 1GHz ultra low-power single board computer supporting these industrial applications that need both wired and wireless communications. The module is based on the 4.5” x 6.5” Embedded Platform for Industrial Computing (EPIC) form-factor and operates over a temperature range of -40° to +70° Celsius. The EPX-855-G has two Ethernet and four USB ports plus four serial channels and optionally supports 802.11 wireless Ethernet, GSA/GPRS cellular modem, CDMA cellular modem, ZigBee wireless RF modules, and 56 Kbph global-compliant dial-up modem. The EPX-855- G features Intel’s popular 855GME chipset with the ICH4 communications controller and integrated Extreme Graphics 2 video 3D controller. The standard EPC-855-G features an Intel 1 GHz Celeron-M and needs no cooling fan. An optional 1.8 GHz Pentium M processor with a fan is available for very high-performance applications. Both CPU and system controllers are supplied from Intel’s Embedded Architecture Division for long-term availability. In addition to one Gigabit and one 10/100 wired Ethernet port, it also has SVGA and dual channel LVDS flat panel video, CompactFlash socket, Ultra-ATA disk interface, 24 lines of digital I/O, AC97 audio (5.1 codec), LPT interface, and a PS/2 port for keyboard and mouse. Also included on the board are PC/104 and PC/104-Plus connectors that support both off-the-shelf or user-designed specialty I/O modules. The EPX-855-B architecture is PC-compatible and supports Linux, Windows XP embedded, and other x86-compatible real time operating systems, such as QNX and VxWorks. The fanless 1 GHz board is priced at $695 in single quantities and is available now.