Which 3.5-Inch Industrial SBC Fits Your Embedded Design?
August 31, 2021
The right 3.5-inch single board computer depends on three things: how many displays it has to drive, the temperature range it has to survive, and how much processing the application needs. The iBASE boards below cover the range from low-power Intel® Atom™ boards rated -40 to +85°C to an AMD Ryzen™ board that drives four displays. All are built for industrial use with long-term availability, and we supply each from Ronkonkoma, New York, as a board, as a tested kit with display and touch, or as part of a complete system.
Which 3.5-inch SBCs are current?
| Board | Processor | Displays | Operating range |
|---|---|---|---|
| IB836 | Intel® Atom™ x6000 (Elkhart Lake) | Up to 3 independent, up to 4K at 60 Hz | -40 to +85°C |
| IB839 | Intel® Atom® x7000RE (Amston Lake) or N-series | DisplayPort, LVDS, optional eDP | Wide range, see datasheet |
| IB838 | Intel® Core™ i3 N-series (Alder Lake-N) | Type-C, DP++, eDP or LVDS | 0 to +60°C |
| IB818 | Intel® Apollo Lake (Celeron® J3455 standard) | 24-bit dual-channel LVDS, HDMI | Up to -40 to +85°C with E39xx |
| IB918 | AMD Ryzen™ Embedded V1000 or R1000 | Up to 4 independent | 0 to +60°C |
Which board suits a harsh, real-time application?
The IB836, rated -40 to +85°C. Its Intel® Atom™ x6000 processors come in three variants with up to twice the graphics performance of the previous generation, for critical real-time applications. It drives three independent displays at up to 4K at 60 Hz over two DisplayPort outputs (DP and USB Type-C) and an internal eDP or 24-bit dual-channel LVDS output. Two DDR4 slots take up to 32 GB, and it adds three Intel® Gigabit LAN ports, four USB 3.1 and two USB 2.0 ports, two SATA III, M.2 E-Key and mini PCIe, with an integrated TPM, all on a 102 × 147 mm board.
Which boards suit power-sensitive and AI-assisted applications?
The IB838 and IB839. The IB838, with an Intel® Core™ i3 N-series processor, combines low power with fast, stable computing for automation and control, retail displays, transportation and automotive applications. Its wide 9 to 36 V input lets it run from most common power supplies and cope with the varying voltages of logistics and transportation equipment. It offers two 2.5G LAN ports, four USB 3.2 and two USB 2.0 ports, four serial ports, digital I/O, SATA III and two M.2 sockets (E-Key and B-Key) that make it 5G-capable, with firmware TPM and a watchdog timer. The IB839 handles compute-intensive tasks such as machine vision and predictive maintenance with up to 16 GB DDR5, two 2.5GbE ports, multiple USB and COM ports, and M.2 slots for AI accelerators, along with a watchdog timer, TPM and digital I/O. For boards with a built-in NPU, see embedded boards with NPU or AI acceleration.
Which board drives the most displays?
The IB918. Its AMD Ryzen™ Embedded V1000 or R1000 processor drives up to four independent displays at high resolution, over one LVDS, one eDP and two HDMI 2.0a outputs. That suits medical imaging and industrial automation with demanding graphics. It takes up to 32 GB DDR4 in two SO-DIMM sockets, runs from 12 to 24 V DC, and includes TPM 2.0. It is also available as the fanless, slim ASB200-918 embedded box PC.
Can a 3.5-inch SBC be customized?
Yes. FORTEC Integrated, our sister company in the FORTEC Group, developed a version of the IB818 with iBASE, the DI-IB818F-J3455_A0, available exclusively through FORTEC. It adds Wake-On-Time through the BIOS, so the board and its 24-bit dual-channel LVDS display start up and shut down at predefined times and run only when needed. The standard IB818 is fanless, takes other Apollo Lake processors for a small minimum order quantity, offers up to 8 GB DDR3L, four COM ports and a 12 to 24 V input, and iBASE promises availability until 2031. A special version of the IB917, with extra serial interfaces, was developed the same way; the IB917 is now discontinued.
Which 3.5-inch SBCs are discontinued?
The IB917 (7th Gen Intel® Core™ i), the IBR210 (the first 3.5-inch SBC on NXP’s 64-bit i.MX8M ARM processor), and GigaIPC’s Apollo Lake QBiP-4200, QBiP-E3940 and QBiP-3350 are end-of-life. For 3.5-inch boards from Advantech, see Advantech MIO Pico-ITX and 3.5-inch SBCs, and for the basics, what single board computers are.
Every board here is available as an individually configured and tested kit, with display, touch, cables, memory, SSD and a pre-installed Windows operating system, and with mechanics on request. Tell us what the system has to run and where, and we will take it from there. When a board receives an EOL notice, we tell you early and plan with you: a last-time buy to cover remaining builds, or qualifying a replacement before supply runs out.
