SolidRun Unveils "the Ultimate SBC" for the Industrial IoT: The HummingBoard I.MX8M IIoT SBC

Embedded computing specialist SolidRun has announced what it claims is "the ultimate SBC [Single-Board Computer]" for human-machine interface (HMI) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) projects: the HummingBoard i.MX8M IIoT SBC.

"We designed the HummingBoard i.MX8M IIoT SBC to exceed the rigorous demands of modern industrial environments," claims SolidRun chief executive officer Atai Ziv of his company's latest hardware launch. "This new SBC provides hardware manufacturers and system integrators with the flexibility, power, and connectivity required to implement advanced IIOT and HMI systems that will drive the future of industrial automation."

As with previous HummingBoard designs, the HummingBoard i.MX8M isn't a true single-board computer; rather, it's a carrier board for an NXP i.MX 8M Plus-based system-on-module (SOM). The SOM itselff delivers four Arm Cortex-A53 cores running at up to 1.8GHz, up to 8GB of LPDDR4 memory, and up to 128GB of eMMC storage — the latter expandable via microSD Card, with an M.2 M-key slot on the carrier board for high-performance Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) storage or an accelerator for edge artificial intelligence (edge AI) workloads.

Elsewhere on the carrier board are MIPI Display Serial Interface (DSI) and LVDS display options, with an evaluation kit bundle including a 7" touchscreen display, two gigabit Ethernet ports, 802.11ac and Bluetooth radios, one USB 3.0 On-The-Go (OTG) and two USB 3.0 Host ports, two MIPI Camera Serial Interface (CSI) four-lane connectors, two CAN FD connectors, and two RS232/RS485 serial ports, plus an M.2 B-key for an optional cellular modem.

In-keeping with its industrial focus, the HummingBoard i.MX8M IIoT SBC offers the ability to be powered from a wide 7-32V input range, with reverse polarity support, or through IEEE 802.3at Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) for simplified cabling. It also offers an industrial temperature range, with SolidRun claiming the device can operate at temperatures from -40°C to 85°C (-40°F to 185°F).

For those looking for a ready-to-deploy option, the company has also announced the IIOT-200-8M Gateway, which is based on the same system-on-module but comes in a robust aluminum chassis — though lacks support for displays, focusing instead on edge compute and network gateway tasks.

More information on the HummingBoard i.MX8M IIoT SBC and IIoT-200-8M Gateway are available on their respective product pages; at the time of writing, neither device had appeared on the SolidRun store, where other board models based around the same SOM are available starting at $279.