Introduction
Athena II is an embedded single-board computer (SBC) in a custom PC/104 small form factor that integrates a
complete embedded PC and data acquisition circuitry into a single board.
The single board Athena computer is a Pentium III class device with onboard central processing, memory and
memory management devices and I/O management for specific functions. The board is larger than the PC-104 PCB
format on three sides but uses the PC-104 mounting method and interface specification. The Athena II board
includes the following additional features.
•
Communicates externally over the ISA bus and I/O ports.
•
Generates on-board RGB video for CRT display systems.
•
Contains LVDS formatting to drive a flat panel
•
Is powered from an externally reg5VDC supply.
Four models, shown in the following table, provide various speed, memory size and data acquisition options.
Model
Processor Speed
RAM Size
Data Acquisistion
ATHM500-256A
500 MHz
256MB
Yes
ATHM500-256N
500 MHz
256MB
No
ATHM800-256A
800 MHz
256MB
Yes
ATHM800-256N
800 MHz
256MB
No
The Athena II CPU uses the ISA bus, internally, to connect serial ports 1 through 4 and the data acquisition circuit to
the processor. The ISA bus is brought out to an expansion connector to mate with add-on boards. Diamond
Systems Corporation manufactures a wide variety of compatible PC/104 add-on boards for analog I/O, digital I/O,
counter/timer functions, serial ports and power supplies.
Description and Features
The Athena II board includes the following key system and data acquisition features.
Processor Section
•
800MHz Mark CPU with integrated Northbridge, downclocked as needed to
reduce power consumption.
•
256MB RAM, system memory.
•
100MHz memory bus.
•
512KB 16-bit wide integrated flash memory for BIOS and user programs.
•
Advanced 2D/3D video graphics engine with integral MPEG-2 hardware
acceleration.
•
33MHz PCI Bus.
I/O Section
•
4 serial ports, 115.2kbaud max.
Diamond Systems Corporation
Athena II User Manual
Page 8
