Single Board Computers

Frontgrade Technologies offers several form factor and performance levels of Single Board Computers (SBCs). Our SBCs are based on Frontgrade’s internally developed LEON family of microprocessors, with a roadmap that includes ARM, RISC, and HPSC-based future SBCs that are already in development. 

The Frontgrade family of SBCs is targeted primarily at Command & Control as well as payload processing applications. These computers offer DMIPS performance from 45 DMIPS through 1700 DMIPS with a roadmap of devices that will reach performance levels of 26K DMIPS! Some in-development SBCs even offer a built-in, dedicated Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) – running at over 10GFlops for image and data processing needs.  

Our SBCs are offered in a very compact ~3.7” x 3.9” stacking format for CubeSats or space-constrained applications. They currently also include 3U cPCI and 3U SpaceVPX formats.  Our roadmap focuses on SpaceVPX+ and SpaceVNX+ future offerings, but our experts are always eager to discuss adapting Frontgrade’s designs to our customers’ special needs.

Each of Frontgrade’s SBC offerings come with significant volatile memory for application processing and non-volatile memories for boot image and data storage. We offer SBCs with a wide range of I/O options like Ethernet, SpaceWire, CAN, UART, MIL-STD-1553, and GPIO. This allows out-of-the-box capabilities for most mission needs with SERDES, PCI, and PCIe – as well as interfaces to mezzanines that allow easy customization of our SBCs to meet specific mission I/O needs.

All missions are unique. And that’s why Frontgrade SBCs come with a Software Development Kit so customers can fully customize the embedded application software to suit specific mission requirements. Many of these computers also offer FPGAs to further customize the SBC operation and interfaces.  

On the chance that a standard SBC offering doesn't perfectly meet your mission requirements, Frontgrade works with our customers to develop customized versions tailored to requirements that are based on our current designs or built from scratch for your exact requirements. 

Frontgrade SBCs offer a range of architectural options to create the ideal solution for your mission's command & control application.

• Flexible Architecture
• Build on LEON Family Microprocessors
• Up to 1000 Dhrystone MIPS performance with 132MHz System Clock
• Up to 256 MB of performance SRAM Memory
• Up to 8 GB of Non-Volatile Memory
• Compact PCI (cPCI) & SpaceVPX System interface options
• Controller Area Network (CAN), SpaceWire, and MIL-STD-1553 peripheral interfaces
• Ethernet, Serial DSU, and UART interfaces for development, test, and management
• IPC-6012 Class 3A compliance
• TRL-8 board qualification completed
• Low Power <5 W (Typical)