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If it’s embedded, it ’s Kontron.
High-End Medical Imaging Requires High-End Processor TechnologyMulticore Platforms: How Integration Drives Efficiency
High-End Medical Imaging Requires High-End Processor TechnologyMulti Core Platforms: How Integration Drives Efficiency
Now that you don’t need to buy a supercomputer to run a high end medical imaging application, hospitals, drug researchers and medical institutions are able to find affordable high performance platforms that can run CAD, X-Ray, MRI and other imaging systems. The demand for Intel®-based multi core platforms continues to grow and enhance the high-end medical sector.
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Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Multi core solutions for imaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Solutions for medical imaging servers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Embedded EATX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
19” Embedded rack mount server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Benefits of the Intel® Xeon® 5500 processor platforms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
High energy efficiency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Option virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Increased long-term availability required . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Kontron ETXexpress-PC with Intel® Core™2 Duo mobile processor . . . . . . . .6
Kontron KTQ45 embedded motherboard with Intel® Core™2 Quad . . . . . . . . .
desktop processor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Kontron EATX server board with two 45nm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
Kontron KTC5520-EATX – The features in detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Remote Management – Everywhere and any time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
About Kontron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 8
COnTEnTS
www.kontron.com
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Making efficient, high performance medical devices is the key to bringing state-of-the-art care to hospitals and patients around the world. In the days of super computers, while they brought high performance to the medical field, integration of these expensive platforms was hardly cost-effective for hospitals. Designers of medical equipment needed smaller, power- efficient devices that could deliver the same performance as the super-computer with minimal latency. As an example, the new x86 servers, with their highly integrated functions and chipsets provide the highest performance levels. These high performance computers could improve medical procedures and, as a consequence, save lives. The Intel® Xeon® 5500 series processor architecture exemplifies these possibilities and it is currently being utilized in the fields of High-End Medical Imaging Systems. Depending on the computing needs, the scalable Intel® Core™2 Duo or Core™2 Quad processors bring efficient solutions to the field of image processing. Other imaging solutions, ultrasound for example, are converting to embedded mobile or portable platforms, hence creating a power constricted environment. The latest generation Intel® Core™2 Duo mobile processors and corresponding chipsets allow for increased image qualities while maintaining the overall power budget. Not all embedded computer vendors provide the required experience for embedded medical computer technology and cover the wide spectrum of platforms and form factors for this diversified range of high-end applications. Kontron is one of the few vendors who covers the complete spectrum of embedded computing platforms for high-end medical computing, and Kontron products have successfully been embedded in many medical imaging applications.
The most important methods (in order of their market significance in the US) in this area are X-ray imaging, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound imaging, computed tomography imaging and nuclear medicine imaging. Significant improvements have been achieved in all fields over the past years, particularly in the high end of the sector, as highlighted by current US market surveys from iData Research:
» The market for X-ray systems, including analog, CR, DR, cardiovascular, fluoroscopy and mammography systems, is the largest one. Up until recently there were mainly analog X-ray devices or Computed Radiography (where the film had been replaced by a digital image plate cassette). Today digital radiography is the state of the art technology and a growth market. The same applies to the digital mammography and the cardiovascular / fluoroscopy X-ray markets.
» The magnetic resonance imaging market, which divides into low, mid and high-end MRI systems, as well as open and intra operative systems, is likely to double at the high-end of the systems market until 2015, making it the fastest growing within this sector. The market for intra-operative MRI is a new growth segment within the MRI technology.
» The ultrasound imaging market divides into three fields: Cardiology, radiology, and OB/GYN (obstetrics, gynecology). Only the OB/GYN ultrasound domain and some of the smaller specialty markets (like 3D ultrasound) are in growth phases currently and are forecasted to become significant market segments by 2015.
» The market for Computed Tomography imaging includes the 16-slice, 32/40-slice, 64-slice and ultra-premium (over 64-slice) markets. There is a clear tendency in this market toward higher slice systems because they produce more accurate images. This explains the higher growth of the 64-slice segment.
» In nuclear medicine imaging the mixed technologies PET/CT and SPECT/CT systems are increasingly taking the place of dedicated PET, SPECT or CT Systems. The SPECT/CT market will grow especially well in the future, by 9.4% CAGR until 2015.
One pattern is common in all of these fields, the issue is computing performance, and speed is of the essence. The availability of data in real time is crucial to the efficiency of these systems. Some current diagnosis procedures - such as nuclear medicine, CT and magnetic resonance - could be considerably faster and/or more precise if a super computer for data preprocessing was available at each hospital. This is especially true in the case of new procedures that detect malign cell based mutations by body scans.
Currently the largest super computer for processing and analysis of mass volumes accumulating raw data provides 129,600 processor cores. A super computer however is not a suitable option for a hospital as they are very large and extremely costly installations. Only a few large research centers can afford such investments.
The good news is that appropriate performance will be affordable to them in the foreseeable future. The Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q6600 for example, with its 21.4 GFLOPS of power, performs at the level of a super computer from the early 90’s. It remains to be seen how much of what is considered super computer performance today will be available in a single box in 15 to 20 years from now. We can expect that considerably improved procedures, with similar performance leaps, will be available in the following years. Currently the Intel® Xeon 5500 series processor platform offers the latest performance class for high-end medical systems, using easy to develop highly integrated processor platforms.
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Multi core solutions for imagingAs seen in the above study from iData research, the field of imaging is quite diverse, so are the computing requirements with aspects of performance, power and expandability. For example, a multi slice CT scanner generates many times more data than an ultrasound sensor or X-ray. Requirements for volumetric reconstruction or organ detection will push the need for processing performance tremendously.
In portable solutions the available power is restricted by the battery, thus the energy efficient Intel® Core™2 Duo processors with the Mobile Intel® GS45 Express chipset provide a solution with increased CPU and video capabilities. Highly efficient mobile processors and chipsets simplify the design of an efficient and compact cooling concept. Furthermore a small footprint is required. Computer-on-Modules in combination with an application specific carrierboard and dedicated interfaces provide the ideal hardware basis. An example is Kontron’s Computer-on-Module ETXexpress-PC™ (see box 1). The compact build with the low power consumption makes this COM Express™ based module a great platform for portable systems.
Cart based imaging solutions, such as ultrasound, C-arm X-ray or computed radiology, are not constrained by power consumption and space like portable units. Even for high-end solutions dual or quad core CPUs in single processor configuration provide enough processing performance. To further optimize the cost/performance ratio OEMs can use desktop processors. The Intel® Q45 express chipset & 82801JO I/O Controller Hub provide dual independent display support using powerful Intel® GMA 4500 MHD graphics. Embedded Motherboards like the Kontron KTQ45 (see box 2) available in ATX or Flex-ATX form factors provide expandable solutions via dedicated extension PCI and PCI express cards and offer rich I/O, connectivity and board management features.
Solutions for medical imaging serversImaging applications with extremely high data volumes, such as CT or MRI, or complex computation such as cardio-vascular X-rays require more than one processor to handle the data and its computation. The new Intel® Xeon® 5500 series processor platform enables dual processor platforms with high data throughput with new architecture. The large number of 2nd generation PCI Express interfaces brings faster communication or dedicated processing cards.
Embedded EATXThe ExtendedATX, or rather the EATX form factor, presents an attractive Medical Imaging Sever Platform for high-end systems, providing all the advantages of the ATX form factor. Options and advantages include ATX compatible power supply pack connections and the entire ATX compatible
mechanics. A real benefit is that small platforms come with a uniform design that spans from the simple to the most complex system structure. This standardizes the mechanics of the extension assemblies, the system design itself and the power supply features.
The Kontron KTC5520 embedded motherboard (see box 3) hosting two processors of the complete Intel® Xeon® Processor 5500 Series is one of the first long-term available embedded motherboards of the EATX class (see Box1). It provides an established form factor within the server domain while high-end long lasting workstations can have all the advantages the standard EATX form factors offer. The integration of standard extension boards for PCIe and PEG gives you the advantages you would expect of a modular platform, but aimed at the Embedded or Medical Computing Technology markets. It has no complex mechanical design specifications. Better still, the EATX systems provide an abundant number of extension slots for the inclusion of peripherals, connection to the IT infrastructure in the hospital and for telemedicine.
19” Embedded rack mount serverIf medical imaging system developers want to do without the Embedded Computer System Design, the appropriate server platforms for application specific designs are already available. By supporting two processors of the entire Intel® Xeon® Processor 5500 Series, the Kontron NSN2U Network Server combines higher performance and power efficiency in order to provide improved performance-per-watt over previous generation rack mounted servers. To add to the many benefits already inherent in Kontron’s IP Network Server family, the NSN2U introduces several new key features such as support of PCI-E Gen2, Power Management Bus, DDR3 memory, hot-swap/redundant fans, as well as increased memory and storage capacity.
Figure 1: The Kontron NSN2U Network Server features high performance and power efficiency for medical imaging systems.
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Benefits of the Intel® Xeon® 5500 processor platformsThe Intel® Xeon® Processor 5500 series of chipsets supports the latest 45nm, high-k technology. These chipsets also support the Intel® QuickPath Architecture, allowing for exceptional bandwidth for I/O in addition to advanced virtualization support with Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel® VT) for Directed I/O (Intel® VT-d). These chipsets also support Intel® QuickPath Interconnects at 6.4 GT/s, 5.86 GT/s, and 4.8 GT/s speeds. (1GT/s = one billion transfers per second (US/short scale)). Additionally, the Intel® 5520 chipset delivers up to dual x16 or quad x8 PCI Express 2.0 card support, and support for Intel® High Performance Solid State Drives. This bandwidth provides sufficient performance to connect the fastest peripherals, such as those used in computer tomographs, which currently achieve transfer rates with optical transmission technology of up to 5 Gigabit/s. In the future it can be expected that up to 50 Gigabit/s are achievable, based on the filed patent applications. [http://www.patent-de.com/20080814/DE102006059442B4.html].
For example, optimized communication between CPUs and memory are no longer slowed by chipset latency. This creates a considerable improvement on the processor technology currently available. Now each CPU has an integrated memory controller with 3 DDR channels. In addition, in dual processor designs, the processors can communicate with each other and with the chipset along individual QuickPath interfaces, which accelerates multi processing and improves on the performance of multi-bladed server configurations. Therefore the new high-k Intel® Xeon® 5500 processor series provides that highest level of performance available.
High energy efficiencyDespite the high performance, all Intel® platforms also improve on energy efficiency. For instance, the Intel® Xeon® Processor X5570 assembly achieves twice the performance per watt of previous generation processors and we expect even more efficient processors to be brought on the market in the future, all with the latest launched 45nm processor generation that can be used by OEMs to improve system performance. Results of any diagnosis can be evaluated either faster or more accurately (being based on more precise data). Besides the server class CPU, the Intel® Core™2 Duo and Core™2 Quad processors have benefited greatly from the 45nm technology.
Option virtualizationAt one time, workflows had to be located on separate dedicated machines with different OS configurations e.g. Linux for data gathering and processing and Windows for visualization and networking. Also if OEMs want to use their established code basis, they had to use separate systems. With the new Intel® Core™ and Intel Xeon® based platforms, these workflows can now be processed on a single Medical Imaging Server. This is made possible through Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (Intel® VT-d), which supports exclusive assignment of physical devices at virtual environments. Two or more operating systems reside on the same system with dedicated I/O allowing full separation of the data. Many matching system solutions are conceivable within the domain of Medical Imaging. Hybrid systems can be developed using the new processor platform in charge for both, processing and diagnostic/reviewing of the image data. The HMI for machine operation and the control itself could be migrated to a platform like this.
Increased long-term availability requiredLong term availability of the embedded computing hardware is especially important as an efficient use of algorithms for data preparation is dependent on the capacity of its processor platform. Additionally the whole system setup including software, OS and device drivers have to be tailored to the embedded computer technology. So investments in medical image analysis, diagnosis and visualization cannot simply be ported overnight. With a sales period of several years and an extended life-cycle, OEMs must be able to guarantee long time support. So manufacturers must take steps to extend life beyond the basic ten years you would expect in medicine. Therefore it is recommended that a processor is chosen that supports an embedded roadmap, such as Intel’s, over 7 years. Also it is best to buy a matching embedded board or system platform from a manufacturer belonging to the Intel® Embedded Communications Alliance. They can provide the vital long-term continuity medical designs require, and often exceed life cycle lengths from other suppliers.
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Kontron ETXexpress-PC with Intel® Core™2 Duo mobile processor
The ETXexpress®-PC module unifies the latest 45 nm generations of Intel® Core™2 Duo processors with the new SSE4 instruction set and the latest Mobile Intel® GS45 Express Chipset. This combination sets new standards in many terms: more performance than ever on the COM Express™ form factor, outstanding performance-power-ratio, and fast DDR3 SO-DIMM memory up to 8 GB and L2 cache up to 6 MB. The Kontron ETXexpress®-PC is assembled in a small form factor package that saves space on the design while utilizing Intel® processor technology to allow for operations at ultra low voltages for best energy-efficiency. Processors like the Intel® Core™2 Duo mobile SU9300 with a TDP of 10W paired with the Mobile Intel® GS45 Express Chipset provide a 2.5x improvement in video processing speed compared to the earlier 945GM generation. With 4 Serial ATA ports and the native RAID support, the ETXexpress®-PC is well prepared for data intensive applications. On top of all that, DirectX® 10 supports Windows Vista® and the coming Windows 7 perfectly. Like all Kontron ETXexpress® modules, it is strictly compliant to the COM Express™ standard. Therefore, upgrading existing carrier boards becomes extremely easy and minimizes redesign efforts.
Kontron KTQ45 embedded motherboard with Intel® Core™2 Quad desktop processor
The long term available motherboard based on Intel® Q45 Express Chipset + 82801JO I/O Controller Hub (ICH10DO) is built in two form factors, Flex-ATX and extended ATX, to address varying needs. The KTQ45 features the Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E8400 or the Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q9650. The Intel® Core™2 Quad delivers outstanding performance while the Core™2 Duo processors allow for energy efficiency. The integrated Intel® GMA 4500 graphics can support multiple displays and allows flexible flat panel support with ADD2 cards. The KTQ45 series supports up to 3 Gigabit Ethernet channels, one with Intel® AMT 5.0 remote management support. Up to 5 SATA300 ports with RAID support and 12 USB channels and up to 8GB DRAM complete the feature set. Also featured in the Intel® Q45 Express Chipset are Intel® Trusted Platform Module (Intel® TPM) and enhancements to Intel® Active Management Technology release 5.0 which include: Remote Alerts, secured access in Microsoft* NAP* environments, Access Monitor, Fast Call for Help, and Remote Scheduled Maintenance.
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Kontron EATX server board with two 45nm
Intel® Xeon® Quad Core ProcessorsThe flexibly extensible SSI EEB compatible Kontron KTC5520-EATX Server Board with 7 year lifecycle support and two Intel® Xeon® Processor L5518 with 45nm and quad core processors provides a performance that is unequaled with high I/O bandwidth and exceptional reliability. The new features of the Intel® Xeon® 5500 processor series include an integrated memory controller with 3 DDR channels for faster memory access and more commands per clock cycle with improved caches for more performance per core. In the mean time the use of cache and bandwidth is dynamically optimized and the processor is controlled load-dependent. With up to 8 cores or 16 threads for simultaneous multi-threading the new Kontron KTC5520-EATX server board is especially attractive for virtualization applications such as integrating the HMI of a Medical Imaging Systems and the preprocessing computer in order to economize additional hardware for the control of the system.
Kontron KTC5520-EATX – The features in detail
The Kontron KTC5520-EATX server board provides two Intel® Xeon® Processor L5518 quad core processors with 45nm technology and a dual-port GbE controller with support for the iSCSI memory technology. Boot-up via iSCSI can also be realized. Two flash compatible USB headers, a TPM 1.2 Header, four PCI-Express x8 Gen2 slots, a PCI-Express x4 Gen1 slot and a PCI 32 Bit/33 MHz slot allow for customized extensions. The comprehensive features are completed by six SATA II interfaces, four USB 2.0 ports, seven fan outputs, VGA, PS/2 for keyboard and mouse and HD audio interfaces.
The Kontron KTC5520-EATX server board uses the Intel® 5520 I/O Hub (36D) and Intel® ICH10R chipset that offer significant new enhancements to accelerate I/O traffic and lower CPU utilization in both native and virtualized environments. Memory options feature support for up to 48GB DDR3 800/1066/1333 MHz on three channels of two DIMM sockets per CPU, for a total of 12 DDR3 ECC Registered DIMMs. Software support includes Windows Server 2008 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 5.2 or later (64 bits) operating systems.
Remote Management – Everywhere and any time
The attractive selling-points for system management are the integrated management processor (IMP) providing VGA/2D, BMC (Baseboard Management Controller) and KVM/VM functions over IP. The real-time access can be utilized via IP at anytime and everywhere via keyboard, video, mouse and virtual media (VM). Because the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) 2.0 can be accessed over LAN, the new Kontron Server Board provides an independent operating system and platform-spanning interface in order to monitor temperature, voltage, fans and further hardware conditions. Even when the main processor is switched off, the Out-of-Band Management feature on the server board is activated. Due to KVM and VM-over-IP remote drives such as disks, CD/DVD-ROM, flash memory or hard disks for software installations can also be used on the server board. Furthermore KVM/VM functions accelerate trouble shooting since the server board can be accessed from any place via LAN. In addition, IPMI proactively supports the system management and conditions that could interfere with the server functions are reported via alarms thus reducing down times and lowering operating costs.
About Kontron
Kontron designs and manufactures embedded and communications standards-based, rugged COTS and custom solutions for OEMs, systems integrators, and application providers in a variety of markets.
Kontron engineering and manufacturing facilities, located throughout Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific, work together with streamlined global sales and support services to help customers reduce their time-to-market and gain a competitive advantage. Kontron’s diverse product portfolio includes: boards & mezzanines, Computer-on-Modules, HMIs & displays, systems & platforms, and rugged & custom capabilities.
Kontron is a Premier member of the Intel® Embedded Alliance and has been a VDC Platinum Vendor for Embedded Computer Boards 5 years running. Kontron is listed on the German TecDAX stock exchange under the symbol "KBC". For more information, please visit: www.kontron.com
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