PICMG, a leading consortium for the development of open embedded computing specifications, announces the ratification of IoT.1 specification defining a communication standard between sensors / effecters and local IoT controllers such as micro Sensor Adapter Modules (microSAM) already specified by PICMGs IoT.0 specification.

The IoT.1 specification defines a firmware interface and low-level data model that provides for vendor-independent configuration of smart sensors and effecters, as well as plug and play interoperability with higher levels of the installation. IIoT.1 supports both sensing and profiled motion control required by most emerging Industry 4.0 applications.

The IoT.1 specification is the first work product from PICMG based on collaboration with the DMTF organization. PICMG’s IoT.1 specification leverages and extends the Platform Level Data Model (PLDM) specification from Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) in order to address the needs of industrial automation and control. PLDM is a low level messaging system that supports topologies, eventing and discovery and runs over a variety of system level buses such as I2C/SMBus and PCIeVDM (Vendor-Defined Message) over MCTP (Management Component Transport Protocol) as well as RBT (RMII-Based Transport (RMII = Reduced Media Independent Interface)) over NC-SI (Network Controller Sideband Interface).

IoT.1 was developed in order to benefit the industry in four specific ways:

1. To enable sensor vendors to create smart sensors without having to manufacture the control circuitry and/or software by purchasing these components from PICMG-compliant suppliers
2. To enable controller suppliers who wish to create smart sensors or smart-sensor components to do so in a way that is interoperable with other suppliers
3. To enable sensor/effecter integrators to integrate sensors/effecters from multiple vendors with controllers from multiple vendors
4. To accelerate the uptake of smart-sensor technology through open-specifications and interoperability

When combined with the PICMG sensor-domain network architecture and data model, sensors connected to MicroSAMs (PICMG IoT.0) or other controller modules will seamlessly integrate into the network with plug-and-play interoperability.

“Nothing like this has ever been done before in Industrial IoT – PICMG IoT.1 brings true multi-vendor plug and play interoperability to the sensor/effecter domain with flexible, open-standards based solutions,” said Doug Sandy, CTO of PICMG.

Jessica Isquith, president of PICMG, adds “this specification has the potential to accelerate the shift to better sensor interoperability and encourage a better and wider range of options.”

IoT.1 was developed in collaboration with the following PICMG members: Arroyo Technology, nVent, Triple Ring Technologies, Sandy Systems, PICMG

For more information, please visit PICMG’s website https://www.picmg.org/industrial-iot-overview/. The specification can be purchased and downloaded here: https://www.picmg.org/product/iiot_firmware.

PICMG releases Platform Management Interface specification for COM-HPC

Wakefield, MA., USA / August, 2021 – PICMG, a leading consortium for developing open embedded computing specifications, announces the release of the COM-HPC Platform Management Interface (PMI) specification. It provides a framework of remote and out-of-band platform management features for COM-HPC Computer-on-Module based edge computing designs and is freely available on the PICMG website. COM-HPC is an open Computer-On-Module (COM) form factor standard for High-Performance Computing (HPC) that combines high-end I/O bandwidth with edge computing performance levels. Standard COM-HPC modules plug into an application-specific carrier board (aka baseboard) and offer OEMs an application-ready computing core to accelerate design cycles, reduce NRE costs and increase ROI as well as sustainability by extending longevity options beyond a certain processor family or module vendor.

 “The dedicated modular system management interface, which gives remote management access to embedded systems – even out-of-band – is another industry first introduced by COM-HPC,” explains Christian Eder of congatec, the chairman of the COM-HPC committee. “Thanks to this feature, OEMs and users will be able to ensure highest levels of reliability, availability, maintainability, and safety (RAMS) for their worldwide deployments of distributed network infrastructure equipment and edge/fog computing servers as well as IIoT gateways and clients. For individual needs, these COM functions can be expanded via an optional board management controller on the carrier board. This provides OEMs with a modular framework of uniform remote management functions that can be flexibly scaled to specific requirements.”

 The COM-HPC PMI specification is a supplement to the COM-HPC open standard and serves as a guide on how to achieve interoperability between COM-HPC modules from different vendors and combinations of carrier boards. It adapts the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) specifications to COM-HPC designs and also touches the implementation of Redfish features.

 IPMI is a collection of side-band/out-of-band management commands that are used for system interaction. IPMI firmware generally runs on a board management controller, a discrete integrated circuit that is accessed via a network connection and/or serial interface, and/or LPC/eSPI. Redfish, a standard managed by DMTF, provides a Representational State Transfer (RESTful) interface for the management of systems. Redfish is still under active development, and it continues to evolve as new use cases are discovered.

 The COM-HPC PMI document describes three different PMI maturity levels for modules and two for carrier boards. The modules’ PMI maturity levels range from unmanaged module (M.U) and basic managed modules (M.B) to fully managed modules (M.F); and carrier board levels range from unmanaged (C.U) to managed carrier boards (C.M). The goal of specifying these different levels is to allow interoperability between multiple modules and carrier board designs. The different module management capabilities are broken down by their adherence to a set of IPMI commands listed below.

 The modular COM-HPC Platform Management Interface specification is available for download on the PICMG website at https://www.picmg.org/openstandards/com-hpc/  

congatec – a leading vendor of embedded and edge computing technology – presents a brand new COM-HPC™ starter set at embedded world 2021 DIGITAL. Optimized for modular system designs utilizing the latest high-speed interface technologies such as PCIe Gen4, USB 4.0 and up to ultra fast 2×25 GbE connectivity as well as integrated MIPI-CSI vision capabilities, the starter set is based on congatec’s PICMG COM-HPC Computer-on-Module conga-HPC/cTLU, which leverages 11th Gen Intel® Core™ processor technology (code name Tiger Lake). This new high-end embedded module generation targets system engineers working on the broadband connected edge devices that are emerging in industrial IoT. Target markets include medical, automation, transportation and autonomous mobility, as well as vision based inspection and video surveillance systems, to name just a few.