XTX™ is an expansion and continuation of the well-established and highly successful ETX^® standard. XTX™ offers the newest I/O technologies on this proven form factor. Now that the ISA bus is being used less and less in modern embedded applications, congatec will offer different features on the X2 connector than those found on the current ETX^® platform. These features include new serial high speed buses like PCI Express™ and Serial ATA^®. All other signals found on connectors X1, X3, and X4 will remain the same in accordance to the ETX^® standard (Rev. 2.7) and therefore will be completely compatible. If the customer’s application still requires the ISA bus then a PCI-ISA bridge can be implemented on the customer specific baseboard. If this solution is too costly then the customer can use the readily available XTX™ LPC bus located on the congatec module.

XTX™ - open standard

XTX™ is dedicated to be an open industrial standard. Several partners are already supporting it and there are more to come. Find more details at www.xtx-standard.org

Identical Mechanics to ETX®

The size (95x114 mm), the mounting, the height, the connectors and the heatspreader are exactly the same as defined in the ETX^® specification. Existing ETX^® solutions can easily switch to the innovative XTX™ platform without any mechanical change.

Backwards Compatible to ETX®

XTX™ is 100% backwards compatible to the ETX^® standard (Rev. 2.7). Most customer specific baseboards will not require a redesign in order to use congatec’s XTX™ modules. The additional XTX™ signals do not affect the onboard ISA functions.
The ISA bus can be implemented through the use of a PCI-ISA bridge on the customer specific baseboard. As an alternative to this the customer can use the readily available XTX™ LPC bus.

Placing XTX™ into an existing ETX^® design allows the customer to expand their applications to the newest technologies available such as PCI Express™ and Serial ATA.

• XTX™ is 100% backwards compatible to the ETX^® standard (Rev. 2.7) if the ISA bus is not required.
• The ISA bus can be implemented through the use of a PCI-ISA bridge on the customer specific baseboard. As an alternative to this the customer can use the readily available XTX™ LPC bus offered on the congatec board.
• Most customer specific baseboards will not require a redesign in order to use congatec's XTX™ board.
• The additional XTX™ signals do not affect the onboard ISA functions.
• Complete re-usability of the existing mechanical design.

congatec not only offers our customers the latest in innovative products but also extensive design-in support.

In addition to the 32 bit parallel PCI bus XTX™ offers 4 PCI Express™ lanes. These lanes can be configured as 4x1, 2x2 or 1x4 and offer the ability to connect up to 4 external devices. This allows the customer to equip their embedded PC application with next generation of PC performance. PCI Express™ is a low pin count interface with maximum bandwidth per pin. This results in cost optimization and very compact solutions with the highest I/O performance. The scalable bandwidth is 2.5 GBit/s per lane. With the 4 PCI Express™ lanes available on XTX™, devices with a high demand for bandwidth like Gigabit Ethernet or very fast video are easily connected.

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 EMV. 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 software compatible to parallel ATA.

XTX™ supports up to two ExpressCard™ slots. ExpressCard™ is the successor to PCMCIA. This interface allows the use of USB 2.0 and PCI Express™ applications as well. The ExpressCard™ standard offers a new performance class in a small package.

LPC Bus

As a replacement to the no longer supported ISA bus, XTX™ offers the LPC (Low Pin Count) bus. 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 using the LPC bus.

Extended System Management

XTX™ offers additional signals and functions to further improve System management.

• Fan Control using a PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) Output
• Fan Surveillance/Monitoring
• Battery Support

XTX™ offers two additional USB 2.0 ports. This allows for the connection of up to 6 USB 2.0 devices to maximize the connectivity of your embedded solution.

Digital Audio Interface

Next to standard audio support (Line-in, Line-out, Mic), XTX™ offers a digital audio interface for AC97 or High Definition Audio codecs (HDA). The following features are available:

• DVD Audio
• Multi Stream Capabilities
• Telephony (VoIP)
• Dolby 5.1/6.1/7.1
• Dynamic connector configuration
• Conferencing
• THX

XTX™ can utilize several audio codecs. This allows for the easy implementation of telephone and audio applications that require the highest sound quality and numerous channels.

Design-In Support

congatec not only offers our customers the latest in innovative products but also extensive design-in support.