Advantech's Complete NLX Product Line Offers PCI and ISA Support

Advantech is pleased to introduce its PCI solution for a complete line of products, ranging from a half-size CPU card (which supports both PCI and ISA-bus cards) to NLX backplanes and chassis. The core of this NLX product line is the PCN-6351, an NLX form factor-based Pentium^® MMX CPU card with on-board features which include Ethernet, VGA/LCD, and an SSD socket.

Industry-wide Migration Towards PCI

For the past few years, the industry trend for both SBC's and CPU cards, in both the consumer and industrial fields, is to phase in PCI-bus cards, while gradually phasing out ISA-bus cards. A 1997 Embedded PC survey reported that in 1997, 17% of IPC used PCI-bus, whereas 37% of IPC's would use PCI-bus by 1999. In addition, Intel and Microsoft's PC'98 standard for desktops and notebooks no longer supports the ISA bus. This is happening because PCI is higher performance (32-bits at 33 MHz, vs. 8-/16-bits at 8 MHz for ISA), has a smaller size slot than ISA, and now is nearly the same price as ISA.

NLX: Advantech's PCI-ISA Solution

Advantech already provides a full-size CPU card solution that supports both ISA and PCI by employing the PICMG standard. But for half-size CPU cards, Advantech employs NLX form factor cards, on which ISA and PCI-buses are both supported and physically separated. This reduces signal interference more than PISA (another PCI-ISA solution). NLX is also an alliance standard supported by Intel and IBM. Furthermore, as David Lai, Sales Director of Advantech's Embedded PC Group notes, "supporting both PCI and ISA is better than a PCI-only solution because this ISA-to-PCI transition phase will last several years. NLX form factor boards can also preserve your previous ISA investments and provide one with the upward growth potential made possible with a PCI bus."

New NLX Product Line Now Available

Advantech now has begun to offer its new PCN-6351 NLX Half-size Pentium^® MMX-based CPU Card. This card, besides fitting half-size CPU card dimensions, will also include several features on board, such as 100Base-T Ethernet, VGA and LCD interfaces, as well as a socket for a CompactFlash card of up to 40 MB. Besides this high-powered, compact CPU card, Advantech also offers NLX backplanes in two sizes: 4 slot (1 NLX, 2 PCI, 1 ISA) and 6 slot (1 NLX, 3 PCI, 2 ISA). The 4-slot backplane is the PCN-6106NP2, while the 6-slot backplane is the PCN-6106NP3.