GE Intelligent Platforms announced a new rugged single board computer (SBC) based on the latest 3rd Generation Intel Core quad core processor technology. The SBC325 brings substantially increased processing performance to customers using the 3U VPX form factor to develop and deploy demanding industrial and mil/aero applications such as command/control, ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance), radar/sonar and signal processing.

3rd Generation Intel Core processors not only offer enhanced performance per watt but can also maintain full performance at more elevated temperatures than the previous generation -- offering an opportunity for the development of new capabilities in small form factor applications.

Provision of either a mezzanine XMC/PMC site for optimum flexibility and expandability or a quad fat-pipe (x16 PCI Express) for highest performance connectivity to GPGPUs makes the SBC325 an exceptionally versatile platform suitable for a wide range of High Performance Embedded Computing (HPEC) applications.

"Many of our customers are working on demanding applications that are highly constrained in terms of size, weight and power -- and the 3U VPX SBC325 provides an outstanding solution," said Rod Rice, General Manager, Military & Aerospace Products, GE Intelligent Platforms. "The improved thermal performance of the new Intel processor helps to deliver improved response times and throughput and reduce the thermal footprint of a solution - or reduce the number of boards required in a system, minimizing its size and weight."

The new OpenVPX platform -- which is 100% compatible with the previous two generations in GE's 3U VPXcel3 family - makes for a cost-effective, straightforward upgrade path for existing users.

The SBC325 is available in five build levels, from benign (air cooled) to fully rugged (conduction cooled) to provide customers with optimum price/performance.

The SBC325 is offered initially with the 2.1GHz Intel Core i7-3612QE processor featuring Intel Advanced Vector Extensions (Intel AVX), up to 8GBytes of DDR3 memory and a solid state disk drive of up to 32GBytes capacity. These enhanced capabilities are complemented by a broad range of I/O options including Gigabit Ethernet, SATA, USB and audio.