ADLINK Technology Announces First Industrial-Grade "Smart Panel" Products

SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- ADLINK Technology, Inc., a leading manufacturing of industrial computing products, announced the availability of the revolutionary new Smart Panel series of products designed to provide a new "all-in-one" concept to panel computing applications, such as factory automation equipment, transportation systems, multimedia navigation devices, advertising systems, interactive kiosks, and medical care systems. The Smart Panel series of products provides users an embedded human-machine (HMI) where cloud computing is used for the Things of the Internet in both public and private cloud services to enable access to information and services from any location as needed.

Smart Panel products comprise highly-integrated, ultrathin, and flexible designs ready for development. Benefits of this series of products include a quicker time-to-market of your end products, reduced development risks and costs, and simplified material management. This is the first series of products in the marketplace to integrate the CPU, networking capability, and a display into a single panel device. The Smart Panel incorporates the main board and is designed for minimal size and thickness, which gives greater flexibility to the case design of the target application. The Smart Panel completely integrates three key components of a system design: a high-brightness LCD panel, a touch screen, and a main board. This allows designers to focus on the I/O board design needed for their application. Use of the Smart Panel not only reduces design risks, but also cuts system development time by at least half.

The 8 in. model Smart Panel offers a screen brightness of up to 800 cd/m2 (compared to 250 – 300 cd/m2 commonly found in the LCD panels available in the marketplace) to ensure a clear image both indoors and outside under direct sunlight. The high-resolution, full-color interface makes it much easier for users to use the device to gather data and display images, reports, and text for viewing through simple operations. The integrated touch-screen feature is provided in response to recent market trends and also eliminates the need for system integrators to worry about cleanliness requirements between the LCD panel and touch screen if they were to apply their own. The high-brightness Smart Panel provides resistive or capacitive touch-panel options for greatest flexibility with different system designs. All of these features are provided in a modular design of less than 2 cm to further extend the flexibility offered to designers for their industrial-grade panel computers.

Most tablet computers already include the LCD and CPU panel in the case, for which physically larger designs are unavoidable. For some embedded systems, a new case design is necessary. For these applications, the ultrathin Smart Panel allows greater flexibility in system and case designs so that developers are able to easily provide customized solutions and platforms for high-quality devices with minimal resources. ADLINK also provides system customization services to enable our customers to provide a completely customized panel computing system quickly, through co-design and co-development opportunities. ADLINK can also provide standard cases based on application requirements, allowing means for quicker assembly of the Smart Panel and I/O control module into the case.

Current Smart Panel products are offered in x86 and ARM architectures with displays ranging from 5" to 21.5" for a variety of applications. The high-definition display (1920 x 1080) options include aspect ratios of 4:3 and 16:9. Optional Wi-Fi is offered to enable remote monitoring for effective control of factory production status, materials management, and troubleshooting. Enhanced data collection features can be realized through designing the HMI into automated MES and ERP systems. The information can be exported as an Excel spreadsheet where a user can directly view the content remotely. The market response has been enthusiastic and the interest has been extremely high. The industrial-grade high-brightness Smart Panel will be the key to revolutionizing the development of many applications across several industries.

For more information, please visit: http://www.adlinktech.com/smart-panel/index.html

About ADLINK Technology

ADLINK Technology provides a wide range of embedded computing products and services to the test & measurement, automation & process control, gaming, communications, medical, network security, and transportation industries. ADLINK products include PCI Express®-based data acquisition and I/O; vision and motion control; and AdvancedTCA, CompactPCI, and Computer-on-Modules (COMs) for industrial computing. With the acquisition of Ampro Computers, Inc., ADLINK also provides a wide range of Extreme Rugged and Rugged Single Board Computers, Computer-on-Modules and Systems under the brand name Ampro by ADLINK. ADLINK strives to minimize the total cost of ownership (TCO) of its customers by providing customization and system integration services, maintaining low manufacturing costs, and extending the lifecycle of its products. ADLINK is a global company with headquarters and manufacturing in Taiwan; R&D and integration in Taiwan, China, and the US; and an extensive network of worldwide sales and support offices.

ADLINK is ISO-9001, ISO-14001, ISO-13485, and TL9000 certified, is an Associate Member of the Intel® Embedded Alliance, an Executive Member of PICMG, a Sponsor Member of the PXI Systems Alliance, and a Member of the AXIe Consortium. ADLINK is a publicly traded company listed on the TAIEX Taiwan Stock Exchange (stock code: 6166).

SOURCE ADLINK Technology, Inc.