In this presentation, pygmyTITAN's Nikola Nenadic describes electrical and mechanical specifications of the new open architecture industrial computer-on-module standard based on MIPI interfaces. The idea behind developing such a specification is to make consumer mobile technology available to embedded product designers in other industries, while taking the best from both worlds. It is author’s opinion that existence of MIPI computer-on-module platforms will foster proliferation of mobile technology in a number of industrial sectors, the same way current industrial computer module form factors did for PC technology.

1. MIPI
Beyond Mobile
Industrial
Computer-on-Module Case
Study
Nikola Nenadić,
pygmyTITAN

2. “Industrial Mobile” Market
• Non-consumer applications of mobile technology
• Potential to disrupt a number of industries
• Medical, robotics, instrumentation, retail, logistics &
transportation, emerging markets (VR/AR, IoT, drones)
• People are already doing it…
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www.happymed.com www.mobisante.com www.imageholders.com www.oscium.com

3. Market Forecasts by 2020
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4. Benefits of Mobile Technology
• Driven by smartphone form factor
• Low power, small form factor
• Latest ARM processor architectures
• Superior video processing with hardware acceleration
• Integrated signal processing capability
• Integrated radio (cellular, Wi-Fi, BT)
• Advanced power management
• Pervasive technology (over 2 billion devices)
• Rich mobile software application ecosystem
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5. The Most Popular Invention in History
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Telephone
1.6B
Television
1.26B

6. Mobile Application Space is Huge
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Apple App Store – 2 million applica?ons as of June 2016

7. ARM Landscape is Changing
• Mobile ARM market consolidation is in progress
• A number of suppliers left the mobile market recently
(TI, Nvidia, Broadcom, Marvell, Intel)
• Only pure play mobile suppliers stay in the game
(Qualcomm, Samsung, MediaTek, HiSilicon)
• Disproportion: $400B1 mobile vs. $25B2 embedded
• Budgets for innovation in mobile are much bigger
• Reduced supply of high-end ARM platforms for
embedded
! Growing pressure to employ consumer mobile
SoCs in embedded applications
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1) Global revenue from smartphone sales in 2016, GfK; 2) Embedded Boards and Integrated computer systems market size in 2018, VDC Research, 2016

8. Key Obstacle for Industrial Mobile
• Pure play mobile suppliers are focused on
a small number of high volume customers
• Embedded systems market is highly fragmented,
with thousands of different clients and applications
• Mobile components are short-lived,
driven by consumer market dynamics
! Mobile technology stays inaccessible
for embedded developers
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9. Lesson from the Past – Industrial PC
• In the early 90’s technology landscape was similar
• There were 18 manufacturers of x86 processors
• IBM PC’s commercial success accelerated
development and consolidated the market
• Latest innovations were becoming cheap
• Pressure to use commercial PC technology
in industrial applications was rising
• 1992 – PC/104 Consortium
• 2005 – COM Express (PICMG)
• $3.5B1 market today
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1) IMS Research, 2011

10. Consumer vs. Industrial Applications
Consumer Products:
• Fast time to market
• Large volumes
• No customization
• Price pressure
• Short product lifetime
Industrial Devices:
• Slower adoption rate,
regulatory approvals
• Low and medium volumes
• Tailored solutions
• Relaxed price margins
• Expected longevity
(> 5 years)
• Multi-vendor sourcing
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11. Mobile Computer-on-Module
• Smartphone electronics packed in a component
• Open architecture
• Standardized form factor and pinout
! Solves longevity issue, enables multi-vendor sourcing
• Modular approach – reduced complexity & risk
• Building products on mainstream mobile technology
! Compatibility & continuous access to the latest innovations
• Standardization of interfaces inside smartphones
makes mobile COM possible
! Key role of MIPI Alliance
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12. Mobile Form Factor
• Smartphone main boards takes approx. the same area
• High level of integration, small thickness
• Power consumption: up to 3 W
• Mobile COMs can be made small and thin,
enabling smartphone-like industrial mobile devices
• Heat dissipation, EMC/EMI, RF shielding
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13. How We Did It
• PCB area: 21.6 cm2
• Total thickness: 5 mm
• Integrated heat spreader, EMC/EMI and RF shielding
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14. Mobile COM Module Pinout
• Mobile by its nature: based on MIPI interfaces
• No power hungry/legacy industrial PC interfaces
(Ethernet, PCIe, SATA)
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Widely used mobile interfaces:
• MIPI Display Serial Interface
(DSI + LCD control)
• MIPI Camera Serial Interface (CSI + CCI)
• Universal File Storage (UFS + card signals)
• HSIC
Smartphone external interfaces:
• USB 2.0 / USB 3.0
• HDMI
Integrated radio:
• Cellular
• Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth, NFC
Legacy mobile interfaces:
• SD Card, SDIO
Audio, sensors and control:
• Audio (MIPI SLIMbus/MIPI SoundWire/I2S)
• MIPI I3C, VGI
High-Performance:
• MIPI UniPort-M or M-PCIe?
Embedded Interfaces:
• UART, SPI, I2C, GPIO
Auxiliary Interfaces:
• SIM card, JTAG, boot selection,
power management, system management

15. Mobile COM System Block Diagram
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16. Mobile vs. PC COMs
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Feature Industrial Mobile Industrial PC
CPU architecture: dominantly ARM dominantly x86
Board size: 12.5–25 cm2 45–90 cm2
Power consump?on: < 3 W 6-55 W
Integrated radio: " #
Ba]ery power manag.: " #
So^ware: Android/Linux Windows/Linux
Total system price: low high

17. Mechanical and Thermal Considerations
• Connector solution
! Low mating height
! High density
! 250-400 signal pins
• Mobile use cases
! Constrained space inside device
! Power dissipation
! Mechanical robustness
! Low weight
• Maintenance and servicing
! Easy module replacement
! Easy device upgrade
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An example – pygmyTITAN solu?on

18. Mobile COM Ecosystem Challenges
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• Industrial Mobile ecosystem do not exist today
• The idea is to take components and know-how
directly from consumer mobile
• Ease technology transfer by implementing mobile
standards without any changes
• SoCs, ICs, displays, cameras, sensors,
mechanical components suppliers
– should have no extra effort
• Unified Industrial Mobile software architecture is
needed to ensure compatibility and enable re-usage
of commercial mobile applications

19. The Winner is Clear
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20. Software and Security
• Android is the winner of platform wars
• Embedded Android variant is needed
for Industrial Mobile to succeed
• Part of AOSP or middleware extension?
• Plug and play functionality, dynamic driver loading
• Mobile and IoT applications – security is key concern!
• Security Architecture should be
integral part of COM platform specification
• Hardware root of trust, secure boot, Trusted Zone
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21. Conclusions & Recommendations
• Open architecture COM module standards facilitate
usage of mobile technology in industrial sector
• Mobile is enabling technology for a number of
non-consumer applications with high-growth potential
• Mobile industry is positioned well to capture significant
part of the industrial market in the future
• PICMG led the effort for the Industrial PC
• MIPI Alliance should lead it for the Industrial Mobile
• Mobile computing module standard,
security architecture, and embedded Android
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22. Thank you for
your time!
Any questions?
Nikola Nenadic
Founder & CEO, pygmyTITAN
nikola.nenadic@pygmyTITAN.com