ETX-CN700
Product Summary
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Introduction
The Blue Chip Technology ETX CN700 complies with the embedded ETX standard Version 3.02 set of Bus
interface signals and peripheral IO devices interfaces on a single card. The concept of ETX is to provide the user
with a standard connector interface with fixed connector locations and predefined IO functions. This allows the
user to concentrate their design efforts on the supporting base board for the target application. This modular
approach provides a cost effective means of system upgrade and allows the user to easily validate a number of
CPU board price/power/performance options.
Following on from the highly successful BCT-ETX-C3, the Blue Chip Technology ETX CN700 Single Board
computer integrates the latest advances in processor, graphics, memory, and I/O technologies to provide not
only an ideal platform for new embedded designs, but also a means of upgrading existing ETX based
applications to take advantage of the latest technologies.
The board is available with CPU build options of Ultra Low Voltage VIA Eden 500Mhz, VIA C7 nanobga2
1GHz and the VIA C7 nanobga2 1.5GHz processors. On-board voltage regulator circuits provide the required
voltages for the processor from the incoming 5 volt power supply. The 500MHz version is targeted at lower
cost, power conscious, performance driven applications. Where reduced power is less of a requirement then the
1GHz and 1.5GHz versions offer a higher performance solution.
Further additions to the range are the VIA Nano-E series processors which both support 64bit OS’s: the Low
Power 800MHz U3400, and the 1.3GHz U3100
The processor maintains full backward compatibility with the 8086, 80286, i386 and Intel486 processors. It
supports both read and write burst mode bus cycles, and includes separate on-chip code and data caches which
employ a write-back policy. Cache is integrated within the CPU and operates at the full CPU frequency giving
excellent performance. On the Eden/C7 CPU’s, cache size is 128K L1 and 128K L2, while on the Nano, cache
size is 64KB (data) +64KB (instruction) L1 and 1024KB L2. Also integrated into the processor is an advanced
numeric co-processor which significantly increases the speed of floating point operations, whilst maintaining
backward compatibility with Intel486 math co-processor and complying with ANSI/IEEE standard 754-1985.
The memory interface supports up to 1GB of DDR2 SDRAM, in a standard 200 pin SODIMM socket.
The ETX CN700 utilises the VIA CN700 Northbridge and VT8237R Pus Southbridge to integrate many
peripherals. These include: VGA controller with CRT, LVDS and LCD interfaces, ATA-100 IDE interface,
10/100 Fast Ethernet controller, floppy disk interface, quad USB ports, dual serial ports, parallel port, real-time
clock, keyboard and mouse (PS/2) controller, AC’97 audio interface. Connection to these functions is made
through a standard set of ETX connectors onto a base board. The base board can then bring these signals to
either Industry standard or customer specified connectors. The base board may be a custom design, developed
for a specific application or a standard solution offered by Blue Chip Technology. The VT8237R also provides
SATA interface which is accessed via two SATA connectors positioned on the ETX CN700 SBC in accordance
with the ETX V3.02 specification.
The ETX CN700 also has an on board USB connector which is only available to allow access to custom form
factor Flash drives. Note. This is not a standard USB port and will not work with non flash devices
The ETX-CN700 will drive up to four external PCI cards, all of which can perform Bus Mastering. Further IO
expansion is available through the 16-bit ISA bus.
