We decided to take a DIMM-PC®/520-IE with AMD® Elan™ SC520 (133MHz) CPU from Kontron.
The Core used for the AMD Elan is a 5×86 processor. This processor is an x86-compatible CPU which was introduced in 1995 by AMD for use in 486-class computer systems.
Due to the internally-set multiplier of 4, the core runs at 133 MHz. The combination of the relatively large 16 KB write-back L1 cache and 133 MHz clock speed allows the 5×86 to perform >= an Intel Pentium 75 MHz processor in integer arithmetic performance.
The Elan CPU comes with following architecture.
And last but not least the full feature list of our DIMM-PC
| CPU | AMD® Elan™ SC520 133MHz |
| Cache | 16 kByte Write-Back L1 |
| Common Features | JIDA Support, I²C Bus, Programmable / CS Output, Support for alphanumerical displays |
| Dimensions (H x W x D) | 68 x 40 mm (2.7 x 1.6“) |
| Ethernet | 10/100 MBit Ethernet |
| Flash Disk | IDE compatible Flash Disk up to 32 MByte on board |
| Hard Disk | IDE Hard Disk Interface on external device |
| Humidity | Operation: 10% to 90% Storage: 5% to 95%, (non condensing) |
| Interface | Floppy Interface single drive |
| JRC / JIDA32 | JRC remote control via COM |
| Keyboard | Keyboard Controller integrated with chipset |
| Main Memory | Up to 32 MByte DRAM on board |
| Operating System | Preinstalled DR-DOS®, lol 🙂 |
| Parallel Port | 1 x LPT1, EPP support |
| Power Consumption | 2 Watt @ 5V only |
| Power Supply | 5V |
| Real Time Clock | Integrated with chipset |
| Serial | 2 x Serial TTL (16550 compatible) |
| Special Features | EEPROM for CMOS Setup |
| USB | Optional 1x USB 1.1 OHCI |
| Watchdog | Watchdog |
Our aim was to build an education system to show our students how PC systems are working and how easy it is to build a Linux OS from scratch for this kind of architecture. Secondly we want also to have a small development platform for third party projects.
With 32MB of DRAM and up to 32MB of IDE compatible hard drive and full featured I/O interfaces like serial port, LPT, IDE interface, Watchdog Timer, I²C Interface, General Purpose Chip Select and last but not least a beautiful Ethernet Interface suit all our needs for an easy to handle development platform.