How to select a suitable industrial control motherboard?

The industrial control motherboard is an important part of the industrial control computer. The measurement of an industrial control motherboard needs to be determined from its chipset, design and layout, and manufacturing materials. Next, we will talk about how the quality of the IPC motherboard is reflected from the wiring design and layout of the IPC motherboard and the manufacturing materials of the IPC motherboard.

01 Layout of industrial control main board

In terms of layout, the industrial control motherboard is mainly reflected by the arrangement of various components and the wiring of the lines. In the view of Zechuang Weiye's R&D team, a good industrial control motherboard is a beautiful work of art. The manufacturer that provides the chipset will provide the design guide of the chipset (CHIPSET DESIGN GUIDE) when shipping to the manufacturer of the industrial PC motherboard. At the same time, there will also be a standard based template, which is called engineering board.

Industrial control main board

Large manufacturers in Europe and the United States often follow the design of standard boards, and they will do very well in accordance with the specifications provided by the official chipsets. This practice can guarantee the performance, but the price is difficult to control. In order to weigh the cost, manufacturers in Taiwan often make articles on the structural layout of industrial PC motherboards, often incorporating some unique designs.

02 Structure and materials of industrial control main board

(1) Now, in order to save costs and reduce prices, some industrial PC mainboard manufacturers can gain a firm foothold in the market. They not only change the number of layers of the board without using the public design, but also adjust the materials and accessories of the industrial PC mainboard to meet the basic performance requirements of the chipset. This cost-reducing approach is a test of the manufacturer's ability to design and layout the industrial PC mainboard.

Put the same number of expansion bits in a smaller space, and also maintain stability and limit interference, so the rationality of the structural arrangement and design of the industrial control computer motherboard is particularly important. A little bit of unreasonable design will lead to a crash. In this regard, weak manufacturers are easy to make mistakes in these places. The instability and poor performance of the motherboard are all caused by this. Therefore, if there are no special requirements, It is better to use the industrial PC motherboard of the public design. How to identify whether it is the public design depends on the user's mastery of the chipset.

(2) The position of the interface components on the main board of the IPC is generally fixed and cannot be changed at will. This is the case for expansion slots such as PICMG and interfaces such as keyboard, mouse and USB. They must coordinate with the hole position on the chassis to maintain the relative position. However, sometimes a new chassis bezel will be provided to replace the bezel provided by the chassis to realize the new interface layout.

(3) For the layout of CPU and chipset, since the circuit connecting CPU and CHIPSETS is more important, and the chipset has special design requirements, and the chipset manufacturer also has very clear requirements for the design of CPU, chipset and its surrounding areas, so the layout is almost always designed in the public version.

(4) Except for the expansion slot, CPU and CHIPSETS, other parts can be arranged freely. For example, the ATX power interface base should be designed away from the CPU fan to achieve better cooling effect in the chassis.

(5) The layout requirements of the IPC mainboard are reasonable, and some design considerations of the IPC mainboard are not very comprehensive. If you choose and purchase, you need to pay attention to some details, such as the capacitance of some IPC mainboards near the CPU interface will affect the installation of fans, etc. These are all things you should pay attention to when you choose and purchase.

03 Wiring design of industrial PC main board

(1) Before we talk about the wiring design, INCOS will tell you the concept: the equal distance between the North Bridge chip and the CPU and the memory is the basic requirement for the design of the industrial computer motherboard, namely the so-called "equal length of the clock line". We know that as a bridge between CPU and memory, the Northbridge chip is very particular about its layout. Now some industrial PC motherboard manufacturers with R&D capabilities have adopted the ingenious design of rotating 45 degrees in the layout of the North Bridge chip, which not only shortens the length of the wiring between the North Bridge and the CPU, memory slot and AGP slot, but also makes the clock line equal in length.

(2) The wiring design on the main board of industrial personal computer is a relatively professional knowledge, which requires different design and processing methods according to different circuit characteristics. The "serpentine wiring" adopted on the main board of industrial personal computer is very particular. Some people think that the more serpentine wiring, the higher the design level, which is wrong.

There are two reasons for adopting serpentine wiring: one is to ensure the equal length of the wiring line, because like the clock line from the CPU to the North Bridge chip, it is different from the line on ordinary electrical appliances. The signal running at a high speed of about 100MHz on these lines is very sensitive to the length of the line, and the unequal length of the clock line will cause the signal to be out of synchronization and cause the system to be unstable, so some lines need to be routed in a curved way, To adjust the length;

Another common reason for using serpentine wiring is to minimize the impact of electromagnetic radiation (EMI) on other parts of the motherboard and human body, because high-speed and monotonous digital signals will greatly interfere with the work of the simulator on the motherboard. A simple way to suppress EMI is to design serpentine wiring to absorb digestive radiation as much as possible.

The use of serpentine wiring has the above advantages, not to say that the more serpentine wiring is used in the wiring design of the industrial control computer main board, the better, because too many and too dense main board wiring will cause uneven layout of the industrial control computer main board, which will have a certain impact on the quality of the industrial control computer main board. Good wiring should make the line density of each part on the main board of the IPC not different, and should be distributed as evenly as possible, otherwise it is easy to cause the instability of the main board of the IPC.