Via Technologies has released a motherboard for computers that need to run in environments with extreme temperatures, such as deserts, mountains or locations with industrial machinery.
The fanless Epia N700-10EW Nano-ITX board, unveiled on Thursday, can operate at temperatures as low as -20°C and as high as 70°C, according to Via. The company's Epia motherboards are intended for embedded, connected systems in fields such as robotics and telematics, as well as in consumer digital entertainment systems.
"By expanding our range of Epia products to include extended temperature products, Via is addressing the broader needs of our extensive customer base," said embedded chief Daniel Wu in a statement.
In his statement, Wu promised that, while "extreme thermal competency usually comes at a premium, the Via Epia N700-10EW will help to significantly lower that barrier". However, the company has not announced pricing or availability for its new board.
Talkback
It's good to see things getting smaller and and yet just as useful whilst saving on power, I dream of the day all atx boards shrink to a smaller standard.
I'm always on the look out for this sort of thing, but as usual they seem to make it as hard as possible to get any real detail. Via's own product detail page is virtually blank (using firefox) and most of the reviewers mention headers for 'additional' interfaces such as serial and USB but don't actually mention how many of which!
One of our products uses any combination of 6 USB/RS232 ports and we are looking for a new self-contained wide temperature replacement for the existing kit. This could be it (if the price is right) but it certainly won't be on guesswork.
Aye its still early days for this one, still not much released finalized info as of yet, might be worth your your while sending email off to them see if you get a bite.