4.2 Connector X2 (XTX
™
Extension)
congatec AG has chosen to replace the outdated ISA bus, currently found on ETX
®
modules X2 connector, with the latest technologies available in todays market. This
implementation is called XTX
TM
. The XTX
TM
extension is an enhancement of the highly
successful ETX
®
standard and provides consumers the ability to equip their embedded
applications with the latest technology while still utilizing the ETX
®
standard form factor.
The following subsystems can be found on connector X2.
4.2.1 LPC
As a part of the replacement to the no longer supported ISA bus, conga-XLX offers the
LPC (Low Pin Count) bus through the use of AMD Geode™ CS5536 companion device.
There are already many devices available for this Intel defined bus. The LPC bus
corresponds approximately to a serialized ISA bus yet with a significantly reduced
number of signals. Due to the software compatibility to the ISA bus, I/O extensions such
as additional serial ports can be easily implemented on an application specific
baseboard using this bus.
4.2.2 USB 2.0
The AMD Geode™ CS5536 companion device only provides four USB ports and
therefore the conga-XLX does not support additional USB ports on the X2 connector.
4.2.3 Serial ATA
™
The conga-XLX provides two
Serial ATA150 connections through the use of the VIA
VT6421 single chip PCI to 2 port Serial ATA host controller. Serial ATA is an
enhancement of the parallel ATA therefore offering higher performance. As a result of
this enhancement the traditional restrictions of parallel ATA are overcome with respect
to speed and EMI. Serial ATA starts with a transfer rate of 150 Mbytes/s and can be
expanded up to 600 Mbytes/s in order to accommodate future developments. Serial
ATA is completely protocol and software compatible to parallel ATA.
If a hard drive is attached to either of the SATA channels and is to be used as an
installation drive, then the driver must be installed before beginning the installation
process. The driver for this controller can be found on the congatec website. There are
also special instructions included as a README file within the driver package that
explains how to use the hard drive as an OS installation drive for Windows XP and
2000
.
4.2.4 PCI Express
™
PCI Express™ is not supported on the conga-XLX.
4.2.5 ExpressCard
™
The optional implementation of ExpressCard™ is not supported on the conga-XLX.
Copyright © 2006 congatec AG
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