At the press conference during embedded world, Congatec announced record growth of 24% compared to the previous year and record sales of 132.5 million US dollars compared to 106.6 million US dollars in 2017. Based on the current order backlog, the company also expects further growth in 2019.

One focus of Congatec's growth strategy is on growth markets driven by the digital transformation. Among other things, the company is entering the 3.5-inch single board computer (SBC) market - with a 40% increase in performance for existing applications. To achieve this performance increase, the new 'conga-JC370' 3.5-inch SBCs are equipped with 8th generation Intel Core i7 mobile processors (codenamed Whiskey Lake). OEM customers will benefit from very early access to this new processor architecture. In the future, congatec will support all relevant processors that are suitable for this compact SBC form factor - including the various embedded variants of the brand new 8th generation Intel Core i7 Mobile processors.

"Users of 3.5-inch boards will benefit from this launch through a new player in the market that differentiates itself through added value that other providers cannot or do not want to offer," explains Jürgen Jungbauer, Product Line Manager for SBCs at Congatec.

Industrial server platform

In addition, Congatec, together with Intel and Real-Time Systems, presented a live demo of its new industrial application server platform for multiple industrial real-time controllers at embedded world. With its deterministic behavior on up to six cores, the industrial application server platform based on COM Express Type 6 modules with an Intel Xeon E2 processor can handle several real-time and non-real-time tasks. These include smart vision, artificial intelligence (AI), robot control and, optionally, IIoT-based monitoring, maintenance and management. The application-ready, multitasking-capable industrial control platform uses the RTS hypervisor from Real-Time Systems. It is designed for the next generations of vision-based collaborative robots, automation controllers and autonomous vehicles that need to manage multiple tasks in parallel - including situational awareness using deep learning-based AI algorithms.

"We see various fields of application for multifunctional and multitasking-capable industrial application servers," explains Christian Eder, Director Marketing at Congatec. "As next-generation industrial control systems are networked, they also need to interact with each other in real time. We also see the need to integrate vision-based AI for many applications. In addition, IIoT-based data exchange is needed to monitor machines distributed in a wide variety of industrial fields. The demo of our industrial-grade application server platform, designed for multiple real-time controllers, was qualified precisely for such applications."