profile

Background
Formed in 1981, initially as a design consultancy, Microbus started design and manufacture of embedded-PC products in 1986, making it one of the earliest companies in this market.

The Microbus mission is to supply PC-capable products designed for OEM use and for applications where 24 hour, 7 day a week operation is a requirement and long term supply and complete support is mandated.

With a focus to design and manufacture everything in-house, Microbus has total control over design and manufacture quality.

Ongoing supply
Microbus have a proven record in long term supply of embedded-PC product. As examples of long term supply, Microbus still manufacture 486 cards originally designed in 1993, Pentium cards designed in 1996.

As well as long term supply, the boards can be defined for fixed revision board and BIOS as specified by the customer.

Applications
Microbus embedded-PCs are used across a wide range of OEM applications. This includes a number of Telecoms applications, ship control and navigation, process control, machine control, and a wide range of medical and military applications.

Better by design
While the PC is a common technology requirement for all these applications, all require 24 hour operation and ongoing supply of the same product. They also require the board to be designed for ongoing operation. The cost effectiveness in Microbus product is its resilience to external events and long term supply.

For example, in 1990, Microbus started use of self healing fuses to protect the board from external shorts. The designs also includes high levels of protection against static discharge for the serial channels (see data sheet).

In addition, Microbus introduced the use of an EEPROM to backup the battery-dependent CMOS data.

Component selection is based on quality. This can add to the initial cost with the intention of reducing the overall cost of ownership. Reducing the service costs is seen as the return on a higher initial component cost.

From early Pentium designs, we saw the benefit in designing the on-board PSUs for efficiency. This helps to reduce both the power consumed and the overall temperature rise in the system. We continue with this philosophy today.

Quality control
Microbus have been ISO 9000 approved since 1992 and ISO 9001 certified for both design and manufacture.

Complete support
With full in-house design, including BIOS source code, full surface mount manufacturing and test, Microbus are well equipped to offer complete support to meet the demands of the OEM.