The phyCARD Concept

Scalable, flexible, compatible… reducing design complexity… extending product life cycles…

The new phyCARD family represents the latest advance of PHYTEC’s state-of-the-art System On Module (SOM) technology. This next generation SOM standardizes hardware and software around broadly supported embedded processor architectures, resulting in extensive deployment benefits for embedded product design.

Scalability and Price/Performance Flexibility

phyCARDs enable OEMs and OEDs to design complete embedded end product families around a scalable range of four processor classes, from ARM9 to Intel Atom. This provides overall system cost optimization according to specific price performance and market requirements. With a standardized interconnect bus, the entire phyCARD line can be deployed in the same end product without requiring redesign of application level target hardware.

Hardware and Software Compatibility

phyCARDs maintain hardware compatibility due to standard break-out of interface signals common to the majority of embedded designs. PHYTEC's innovative X-Arc embedded bus standard defines the location of these interface signals on a single 100-pin connector. Each pin is assigned a specific signal per the X-Arc standard: 10/100 Ethernet, USB 2.0, UART, SPI, I2C, audio, SDIO/MMC, GPIO, JTAG, display (LVDS) and more. Future generations of the phyCARD will evolve and offer a revised set of standardized I/O, to potentially include: USB 3.0, 1GbitE, HDMI, SATA-SSD and WiFi. Preceding generations will be maintained in support of legacy designs, in accordance with the extended product life-cycle policy that PHYTEC has established across 25 years of providing embedded hardware products.

Production-ready Linux and Windows Embedded Board Support Packages (BSPs) are available, further reducing development time and design risk by allowing you to focus on application level hardware and software. A unified, mainline Linux BSP supports the entire phyCARD series, likewise enabling seamless scaling of both PHYTEC hardware and this open-source embedded standard.

Reduced Design Complexity

With its number of interface signals reduced to essential I/O, the phyCARD represents a reduced complexity approach to embedded development. Its streamlined functionality greatly simplifies the design of the target hardware in which it is deployed, resulting in reduced time-to-revenue. Like their phyCORE counterparts, phyCARDs are available in Rapid Development Kits (RDKs) that provide a platform to jump-start embedded designs.

Extended Product Life Cycles

phyCARD SOMs represent a simplification of embedded design in response to the steep technology curve and the proliferation of an ever-expanding set of chip-level features and peripherals on processor architectures. At the design level, the phyCARD provides a long-term solution to issues of component obsolescence. With its standard break-out of interface signals, the phyCARD enables you to avoid system-level hardware redesign of your embedded product due to critical component discontinuation, including the processor.

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