The PDQ Board is an I/O-rich single board computer Mosaic Industries that is designed to cut the cost of data acquisition and control. It has 1MB of memory, communications, dozens of analog and digital I/O lines, and dual expansion I/O buses onto a 2.5-x-4-inch board. It is suited to instrumentation, industrial control, automation, and data acquisition. The PDQ Board sports a Motorola 68HCS12 processor eight digital I/O lines with counter/timer capabilities, eight pulse-width modulated (PWM) digital output signals, and eight general purpose digital I/O lines. Additional I/O includes 16 analog inputs with 10-bit resolution, dual RS232/485 ports with speeds to 256 KBaud, and synchronous SPI and IIC serial interfaces. Any of the digital I/O ports can be configured for general purpose I/O, and the analog input lines can be configured as digital inputs. An optional battery-backed real-time clock reports the time and date. The PDQ Board can directly host up to eight I/O mezzanine modules called Wildcards that can be mixed-and-matched depending on the application. The Wildcards stack onto the dual 24-pin Wildcard connectors on the PDQ Board. Wildcards implement a variety of user interface, communications, data acquisition, and control capabilities. Available Wildcards include Ethernet, GPS, octal 12-bit D/A and 16-bit A/D converters, a 24-bit resolution analog data acquisition subsystem, Compact Flash card mass memory interface, USB, fast buffered RS232/485 dual UART, high voltage/high current isolated I/O, and AC or DC solid-state relays. OEM can select the Wildcards that meet their needs. The PDQ Board is priced at $159 in hundreds. A Starter Kit is available for rapid prototyping of new products. For more information, visit Mosaic Industries. Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.
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