In June 2010, Microsoft Taiwan announced the establishment of its Software and Services Excellence Center (SSEC). Since then, the SSEC has been endeavoring to develop natural user interfaces (NUI) for various smart cloud devices. Six months later, Microsoft Taiwan hosted a smart cloud platform and application development symposium, sharing the progress of its cooperation with Taiwan's academia and business partners as well as government organizations for the development of cloud devices, cloud servers, and relevant applications and services over the past six months.According to Microsoft Taiwan, the mission of the SSEC is to make good use of Microsoft's years of experience in software, service, and cloud datacenter R&D, its forward-looking software technology, as well as Taiwan's global leadership in hardware R&D to help Taiwan partners develop new generation smart end-user devices and cloud datacenters to create new business opportunities.Over the past six months, the SSEC has worked with 20 Taiwan academia, business, and R&D partners and had 20 projects implemented.For example, Microsoft Taiwan and Sinyi Realty have together developed House View 2.0 service, which is unprecedented in Taiwan. House View 2.0, which runs on Windows 7 tablets with real-time video integrated, helps Sinyi customers understand house layouts and the latest status on the offerings that they are interested in while enabling real-time interaction with Sinyi salespeople.Next let's see the convenient software services that Microsoft Taiwan provides to Taiwan businesses to help them win in the forthcoming era of cloud computing.Attractive cloud services should cater to user demand for convenience, and should provide a friendly human-machine interface, in particular, the touch-control interface that is becoming increasingly important in the marketplace.According to Limin Zhang, a senior consultant for Microsoft Taiwan, nowadays we are getting much more used to touch control and there is a certain demand for multi-touch control, especially for web browsing, accessing audio-visual files, and entertainment such as game playing.Touch control for more intuitive operationMulti-touch control is becoming increasingly popular among computer users because it enables more intuitive operation. For example, map browsing can directly use fingers for drag and pull to move the map, and use the thumb and index finger for pinch and stretch for map zoom-in and out. This is definitely more intuitive than shift and tab.In addition, multi-touch control helps enhance business productivity. For example, if factory workers have to wear thick gloves for a long time and it is inconvenient for them to use any keyboard and mouse, touch-control devices will definitely enhance their effectiveness and efficiency.Then, is it difficult to develop the touch-control applications that meet user needs? How should this be done?It is Limin Zhang''s recommendation that, when selecting programming tools, developers should factor in whether a development platform can be easily accessed, whether a touch-control interface facilitates implementing different tasks, whether various gestures are supported, and whether the applications running on the development platform and supporting support touch control will increase.Windows 7 touch-control development tools: WPF 4.0 and SilverlightAccording to Limin Zhang, Windows 7 is touch control ready because Microsoft provides built-in multi-touch/gesture-control tools, such as WPF 4.0, for the development of various touch-control applications. Since the Windows 7 launch, there have been more and more applications for even easier multi-touch control on the operating system."Windows applications are different from other software tools," said Zhang. "They do not need any gesture API for the window interface to support touch-control applications such as size adjustment, but gesture APIs can also be utilized to develop more diverse and natural interfaces such as rotation zoom-in and out, and reverse." In addition to the basic applications as aforementioned, APIs help design operating methods that are even more convenient and even more cool.In terms of Windows 7 touch-control development tools, WPF 4.0 with multi-touch gesture control and inertia built in is an option, and Silverlight that only supports single-touch control is another, but no further programming for multi-touch control is required when Silverlight is used because Expression Blend 4.0 adds multi-touch control and inertia to objectives."Windows is better than other development platforms because of its built-in touch control," said Zhang. "No further programming is required because Windows development tools enable easy development of even more convenient human-machine interfaces."Easy development of Windows Phone 7 touch-control applicationsMicrosoft also provides Silverlight and XNA, which are development tools of multi-touch gesture control for Windows Phone 7. According to Zhang, Windows Phone 7 supports not only four-point touch control but also single- and multi-touch control such as tap, double tap, pan, flick, touch and stretch, and pinch and stretch.However, not any object on Windows Phone 7 is touch controllable, and developers should pay attention to three issues:1. Touch-control objects: Touch-control objects should be visible to users, not be smaller than nine millimeters (or 34 square pixels), and the space between touchable touch-control widgets should be at least two millimeters (or eight square pixels). Under special circumstances, a widget can be smaller but cannot be smaller than seven millimeters (or 26 square pixels). Moreover, a touch-control object should be larger than a touch-control element, while a touch-control element should not be more than 60% smaller than a touch-control object.2. Touch-control elements: Touch-control elements make touch-control objects visible to users.3. Touch-control widgets: Touch-control widgets combine touch-control elements into touch-control objects.According to Zhang, on the Windows Phone 7 platform developers can select Silverlight or XNA that work with mobile phone and PC application development tools to develop various gesture-touch control applications such as Button, Slider, List Box, Panorama, and Pivot."As long as developers understand Panorama and Pivot design standards, they will be able to easily develop Panorama and Pivot gesture controls on Windows Phone 7," said Zhang.Limin Zhang, senior consultant, Microsoft TaiwanPhoto: Digitimes

Optimistic of the market of cloud services, ViewSonic has been developing Windows 7-based tablets since Microsoft launched Windows 7.According to Alan Chang, general manager of ViewSonic Asia Pacific and Europe, the year 2011 is widely considered the beginning of an era of tablets. But can anyone imagine what it will be like three years from now or beyond? ViewSonic thinks that people will no longer carry MP3 players, notebooks, or other mobile electronics devices with them in the near future because flexible panels connected to cloud services will suffice for their needs.ViewSonic, which is sure that cloud services will become increasing prevalent, has been actively developing user-end devices and seeking the most suitable application model. The company takes the initiative to work with Microsoft, Intel, and other industry partners for the development of many models of tablets and is keen on various events that communicate how tablets in conjunction of cloud services will enhance work efficiency and improve the quality of life."ViewSonic is generous enough to lend more than 30 tablets to our symposium for symposium attendees to download symposium slides in advance and take important notes, view our cases of application development online and download relevant development tools," said Cathy Yeh, senior group manager, Business Marketing Organization, Microsoft Taiwan.Multi-touch control applications for businessesAccording to Wade Tsai, a senior consultant for the Microsoft Technology Center, since the Windows 7 launch Microsoft Taiwan has worked with many Taiwan companies and developed a number of touch-control applications that help facilitate business operation, such as a 3D touch-control apparel demonstration system launched together with Makalot Industrial Co in 2009 and a touch-control display window/showcase system launched together with Eslite in 2010.These examples show that businesses need not only a cool, impressive effect of multi-touch control but also a system that can be operated both online and offline as well as integrated with ERP and BI.Clarification of what business applications need touch control beforehand"Touch control is not omnipotent and we should first assess what applications need touch control and the levels of touch control are required," said Wade Tsai, who categorized touch-control applications into four scenarios:1. Consumer tablet application: A consumer tablet is often used as the secondary PC primarily for entertainment and reading, and the focus is easy access to information instead of information editing.2. Professional tablet application: Professional tablets provide specialized applications to the education, law, and medical industries, for example. Doctors and nurses can use such tablets to rapidly access medical records of patients, and real estate agents can provide real-time demonstration of house statuses and prices to customers.3. Entertainment and professional tablet application: Such tablets, e.g., flip-top tablets, are used as the primary PC for both work and entertainment.4. High-end business tablet application: High-end business tablets provide more intuitive business applications to senior executives, e.g., an icon, when touched, immediately shows the factors that influence inventories.According to Tsai, the above four scenarios require different touch-control applications, and a company should first clarify whether the touch control functions to be adopted would help enhance the applications that it wants. If the answer is yes, which level of touch control is required should then be identified, e.g., single-touch control, multi-touch control, gesture control, or other special touch control functions.How to more effectively and efficiently add touch control to applications is the next focus of attention.According to Tsai, developers should consider how an operating system communicate with device screens, how the operating system processes touch-gesture control, and how applications respond to the system interface changed by touch-gesture control. If applications are based on Windows, it is relatively easy to add touch control because the underlying WPF supports gesture and touch control as well as inertia and no further programming for touch control is required."As the difference between PCs and other end-user devices such as mobile phones is increasingly vague, developers are recommended to carefully consider whether development platforms and tools support cross-platform development, whether application services can be integrated into different platforms, whether development tools support cross-platform compilation and management, and whether the applications to be developed have common modules for other applications," suggested Tsai.Alan Chang, general manager of ViewSonic Asia Pacific and EuropePhoto: DigitimesWade Tsai, senior consultant for Microsoft Technology CenterPhoto: DigitimesCathy Yeh, senior group manager, Business Marketing Organization, Microsoft TaiwanPhoto: Digitimes

Samsung Electronics has announced the development of 1Gb mobile DRAM with a wide I/O interface, using 50nm-class process technology. The new wide I/O mobile DRAM will be used in mobile applications, such as smartphones and tablet PCs.Samsung said the new wide I/O mobile DRAM uses 512 pins for data input and output compared to the previous generation of mobile DRAMs, which used a maximum of 32 pins. "If you include the pins that are involved in sending commands and regulating power supply, a single Samsung wide I/O DRAM is designed to accommodate approximately 1,200 pins," Samsung pointed out.The new Samsung 1Gb mobile DRAM can transmit data at 12.8GB per second, which increases the bandwidth of mobile DDR DRAM (1.6GB/s) eightfold while reducing power consumption by approximately 87%. The bandwidth is also four times that of LPDDR2 DRAM (which is approximately 3.2GB/s).In addition, Samsung is aiming to provide 20nm-class 4Gb wide I/O mobile DRAM sometime in 2013. The company revealed its recent achievements in mobile DRAM include introducing the first 50nm-class 1Gb LPDDR2 DRAM in 2009, and the first 40nm-class 2Gb LPDDR2 in 2010.Samsung will present a paper related to wide I/O DRAM technology at the 2011 International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) being held from February 20 to 24 in San Francisco.Citing iSuppli, Samsung expects mobile DRAM to account for 16.5% of total annual DRAM shipments worldwide in 2014, up from about 11.1% in 2010.

AU Optronics (AUO; TAIEX: 2409; NYSE: AUO) will attend 2011 SNEC 5th International Photovoltaic Power Generation Exhibition & Conference and showcase the world's highest efficiency PV module SunForte PM318B00 with a conversion rate up to 19.5% and eco-friendly PV modules. AUO will deliver low-carbon, advanced and high-quality total green solutions to clients through its world's highest efficiency vertical solar value chain.AUO is a global leading low-carbon TFT-LCD corporation and has been developing proactively its solar business since 2008. The company by acquiring M.Setek, and joint venturing with SunPower, it has created the world's highest efficiency vertical solar value chain, including polysilicon raw material, solar cell, PV module and system projects. AUO has also established its first high-efficiency PV plant in Tianjin, which will be the first PV plant in China acknowledged by US Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. The plant is designed to be a green facility, with construction and equipment installation expected to complete this year. Its total capacity will reach 1GW.In addition to establishing green PV plants, AUO has engaged itself in promoting carbon footprint verification for products. AUO's EcoDuo PM220P00 is the world's first PV module to have passed PAS2050 carbon footprint verification by SGS, signifying a critical milestone for the PV industry. AUO will also benchmark all its future PV modules against this standard and devote itself to energy-saving designs, raw material reduction or replacement, and develop innovative R&D technologies to effectively lower total CO2 emissions and reduce carbon footprints in products.In 2011 SNEC 5th International, AUO will display the high efficiency mono-crystalline SunForte PM318B00 that targets densely populated urban areas with smaller rooftops. The SunForte PM318B00 has a conversion rate as high as 19.5%, the world's highest for PV modules, and the output is approximately 40% higher than that of the conventional module in the industry with conversion rate of 14%. The product will maximize the solar power output for solar system users. Moreover, AUO will also demonstrate its PM240P00 PV module that could withstand salt corrosion and moisture in coastal or humid areas, making the power systems more efficient. All AUO high-efficiency PV modules are tested for power performance and durability in UL certificated laboratories, meeting CGC, TUV, UL, IEC standards to assure customers of excellent long-term first class power generation warranty. In the future, AUO will continue to take advantage of its world's highest efficiency vertical solar value chain to design low-carbon and high efficiency PV products, and offer high quality total green solutions to customers with its innovative R&D strengths and mature supply chain management systems.AUO PV module SunForte PM318B00 Photo: Company

Estimates by IDC, Gartner, Strategy Analytics, and Wall Street analysts show that the global PC shipment in 2014 would be at least 50% higher than 2010, and 18% of the growth would come from notebooks, compared to only 1% from desktops. According to Jochen Siegl, manager of ODM Business Development, Microsoft, it is obvious that untypical computing devices such as notebooks, netbooks, and smartphones are replacing desktops and becoming mainstream products in the market, but this also helps extend the average product life cycle of PCs.Accordingly, Microsoft's marketing for Windows 7 - doing without the company's traditional PC operating system positioning - emphasizes the operating system's support for different platforms for tablet PCs, smartphones, and mobile Internet devices as well as ARM, Qualcomm Snapdragon, and Nvidia Tegra 2 processors not based on the x86 Architecture. This is to highlight Windows 7's computing effectiveness in the emerging cloud environment."For user-end devices, Windows 7 and Windows Live 2011 provide rich cloud applications such as Messenger, Web Mail, Photo Gallery, Mesh, and Family Safety, which together deliver a complete personalized cloud environment and the convenience of synchronization," said Siegl.Windows Live Mesh 2011 is a good example. Once the client software is installed on the PC or device to be synchronized, any folder can be designated as a synchronization folder. If any file in the folder has been updated, the system will automatically upload the latest updated file to SkyDrive in the cloud. In the future, when any other device is connected to SkyDrive, the same file in the device will be updated to the latest version. "Windows Live Mesh 2011 enables PC-to-cloud, cloud-to-PC, and PC-to-PC synchronization," said Siegl. "The file sharing setting of Windows Live Mesh 2011 is simple enough to enable any file to be shared with others."According to a market survey, computer users on the average spend 57% of their time on web browsing. "Web browsing has become the core experience of almost everyone in the Windows environment. As a result, the expectations for web browsing are getting increasingly higher and web contents have evolved from simple texts, pictures and photos, and videos to rich multimedia and animated interactions," said Siegl. "However, it is a pity that we cannot fully enjoy today's wonderful web contents because of limited web browser functions."In order to strengthen browser functions, Microsoft has implemented significant interface, operating efficiency, security, and visual enhancement for its new IE 9.0. "IE 9.0 has many Windows 7 features integrated to do without many unnecessary command lines," said Siegl. "It focuses on web contents and has many convenient functions such as pinned sites, new tab page, and address bar search that work seamlessly with the applications in Windows."Moreover, the new Chakra JavaScript engine for IE 9.0 supports HTML 5, an international standard, and makes sufficient use of the hardware computing resources, such as GPU, that many browsers overlook. This is an attempt to help local devices accelerate processing texts, graphics, audio, and video on the web and make web contents more responsive and richer. Siegl used WebKit SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark to show the outstanding computing speed of IE 9.0. Moreover, IE 9.0's SmartScreen filter is effective in fending off malware and phishing attacks.In terms of business applications, Siegl stressed a great difference between the work patterns now and in the past. "In the past we only worked during office hours at office, but now various mobile devices and cloud applications are rapidly evolving, and it is possible for us to work anytime and anywhere, online or offline, with notebooks, tablet PCs, cell phones, e-readers, iPad, etc," said Siegl. "Moreover, we are able to operate NUI devices by touch control and voice to process texts, graphics, audio, and video." In order to support business applications and new devices such as tablet PCs, Microsoft has added many new functions to Windows 7, and Windows 7 is therefore able to increase productivity, strengthen control and security, and reduce the management cost of switching between devices."Windows is a very ideal operating system for client devices in a cloud environment," said Siegl. This is because Windows commands an overwhelmingly high market share and no further learning is required as both consumers in general and IT professionals are very familiar with how to operate the OS. Moreover, Windows supports Mobile Broadband, DriectAccess, and VPN; has an advantage of location awareness; and there is a range of Windows devices for consumers to select based on price or many other considerations. "Windows is the best, irreplaceable operating system to access cloud services," added Siegl.Microsoft provides all the products and technologies that IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS require. IaaS is supported by Windows Server, Hyper-V, and System Center; PaaS by Windows Azure Platform; and SaaS by Windows Intune and Office 365. "Many IT companies only support one or two of these cloud services. For example, VMWare and Amazon.com only support IaaS and some of PaaS, while Salesforce.com focuses on SaaS and some of PaaS," said Siegl. "Microsoft is one of a few companies that provide complete cloud computing products and services, and is the company that crystallizes IT as a service."Jochen Siegl, senior technology manager, ODM, MicrosoftPhoto: Digitimes

Doug Burger, director of Client and Cloud Applications, Microsoft, is primarily responsible for "redefining how people use computing devices and their experience in such devices in order to develop the hardware and software systems as well as chip functions required." During his speech at a smart cloud platform and application development symposium recently hosted by Microsoft, he noted that various cloud computing applications and tablet PCs have brought in a new era of continuous computing that will incur unsteady development of hardware and both hardware and software companies will be impacted considerably by such a rapid change. "For the IT industry, this will be a great crisis and challenge, but it is an opportunity, too," said Burger.As tablet PCs, touch control screens, and various sensor devices are becoming increasingly prevalent, NUI input methods for body movement, gestures, and voice will mushroom to make us even more closely connected with computing devices everywhere to enjoy richer and more personalized cloud services. "After multi-core PCs are available in the marketplace, NUI and the first NUI killer application are expected to have a boom in 2012; this will mark the advent of a continuous computing era," said Burger.How should computer systems and computing architectures evolve to cope with the change? According to Burger, a computing environment that is capable of continuous computing should enable smooth system switching and accessing computing resources anytime. It also should be content-oriented and provide personalized service as well as a high level of privacy and security. This means that both Cloud and Client should have powerful computing capability. This is a great challenge and each and every area in a computing environment needs careful integration and collaborative design. "This can only be achieved by close cooperation among hardware and software companies for both Cloud and Client," said Burger.Microsoft Kinect, for example, is a typical continuous computing device. It uses a 3D depth sensor that integrates various movement sensing and tracking technologies to follow gamer movement to do without a traditional game console. It is intuitively controlled by body movement, gestures, and voice for the enjoyment of a realistic game experience. "The close cooperation between Microsoft and our hardware and software partners for ongoing R&D is key to the success of the Kinect project," said Burger.Full integration of Client resources is also very important for continuous computing. Pocket Cloudlets that Microsoft Research recently announced at ASPLOS is a representative example. "Nowadays the storage capacity of a client device often exceeds 1TB. If this can be effectively used as an endpoint in the cloud to have frequently used site maps cached to the flash storage area, it will help increase the overall computing speed considerably," said Burger. Because a great deal of mobile information can be provided by the cache area, the demand for immediate uplink connection can be decreased and 70% of clicks can be completed in four milliseconds. "The speed is 1,000 times of the past," said Burger.Various cloud applications for consumers, experiment, simulation, storage, text processing, etc have made the global information traffic have a petabyte increase, making it more difficult for immediate exploration, search, and analysis of information. As a result, cloud datacenter architectures need to evolve along from container data centers that stress configuration, high density, scalability, and stability to the latest ITPAC, because ITPAC offers the lowest cost of total ownership, is readily available online, and becomes even more efficient when expanded.Rapidly strengthening cloud datacenter capability is making many cloud applications that used to be expensive more affordable. According to a George Church article published in IEEE Spectrum in February 2010, in 2004 developing a human genome map required US$3 billion, which decreased to US$45,000 or 1/60,000, in less than six years. It is expected to drop to US$100 eventually. With the increasing capacity of storage devices, nowadays only 1.5 3G flash disks can store a complete human genome map, evidencing how powerful the influence of IT technology evolution to applications."This means that cloud application services will be more frequently used," said Burger. However, because such services tend to record a great deal of personal private information, including online attitudes and behaviors, how to maintain information security in the cloud is a critical issue. "Ill-intended access to such information can incur identity falsification," he added. Therefore, a balance between rich cloud services and privacy protection is necessary.In sum, many application services of continuous computing need to combine Client and Cloud in order to provide the best user experience. In general, Cloud is responsible for the security and trust of private and public cloud information services, while Client is responsible for strengthening interactivity, sensor input, and expected operations. "Context and content awareness as well as adaptive performance require the collaboration between Client and Cloud," said Burger. Therefore, to realize cloud computing, both Client and datacenters that support cloud computing need ongoing expansion and upgrade.But this does not mean continuous computing does not face any challenge. "The greatest challenge comes from semiconductors because semiconductor scalability faces a bottleneck," said Burger. Research findings show stagnant semiconductor performance despite more transistors added by manufacturers. A balance between performance, R&D costs, and volume is required in order to resolve the bottleneck and, to achieve this, Burger recommended heterogeneity in conjunction with EDGE in design collaborated by Client and Cloud companies.Doug Burger, director, Client & Cloud APPS, eXtreme Computing Group, MicrosoftPhoto: Digitimes

Smartphone vendor HTC has won "Device Manufacturer of the Year" award by GSMA at the Global Mobile Awards ceremony in Barcelona. Last year, HTC was awarded "Best Mobile Phone of 2010" with the HTC Hero smartphone. The other two finalists for the award were Apple and Samsung.

Silterra Malaysia and CMT have announced the completion of silicon verification of CMT's LogicFlash memory technology on Silterra's 0.18-micron standard CMOS technology.The LogicFlash provides customized embedded memory solutions for system-on-chip (SoC) integration. Unlike conventional embedded memory technology, LogicFlash memory technology offers seamless integration with standard CMOS technology without any additional mask and process modification. With the design elegance and cost advantage it offers, the LogicFlash is ideal for mobile multimedia applications that require high performance and low power, such as embedded microcontrollers, RFID and Near Field Communication (NFC)."We are delighted with the successful completion of silicon verification of CMT's LogicFlash on Silterra's 0.18-micron standard CMOS technology. This provides our customers with a unique embedded non-volatile memory technology for complex SoC design which lowers design risk and speeds time-to-market," said Yit Loong Lai, vice president of Worldwide Sales and Marketing of Silterra. "The cooperation with CMT provides our customers with the shortest path from design to high-volume production, using Silterra's well proven 0.18-micron CMOS technology and CMT's unique, high density memory architecture, for low power and high-performance system-level devices.""By partnering with Silterra, CMT's LogicFlash enables our mutual customers to design a cost effective embedded memory SoC chip with low power, high performance used in mobile multimedia applications." said Wingyu Leung, president and CEO of CMT. CMT develops, licenses and markets innovative memory technology for semiconductors. Founded in 2007, CMT is headquartered in San Jose, California.Silterra Malaysia provides foundry services to fabless and IDM companies, as well as verification services for IP developers. It offers CMOS logic, high-voltage and mixed signal/RF process technologies.

Memoright, a leading global supplier of SSDs, will showcase an array of military-, industrial- and enterprise-level ruggedized SSD products at the 2011 CeBIT show from March 1-5 (Hall 17, G26). The company will also demonstrate its latest SSD solutions at Embedded World 2011, March 1-3 (Hall 12, 479).Memoright will present its GTR, GTR II and GTR-P series of military and industrial ruggedized SSDs at the upcoming trade shows in Germany. The products meet both the US MIL-STD-810F/G and China GJB standards, which cover a broad range of environmental tests such as low pressure for altitude testing, exposure to wide temperature (both operating and in storage), humidity, fungus, salt fog (as a corrosion test), shock, vibration and so on.Also during the exhibitions, Memoright will highlight its latest enterprise SSDs, the FTM/STM series, and an IPC solution that delivers an outstanding balance of system performance and solid reliability.With proprietary core technologies, Memoright is capable of providing efficient and customized solutions for a wide variety of applications. The company offers qualified SSDs for the military purpose. In addition, products for industrial control IPC solutions support 2.5-, 1.8- and 1.2-inch form factors, and Disk on Module, SD and CF formats, as well as transmission interfaces of PATA/IDE, SATA, mSATA, and PCIE.

Protech Systems, an industrial PC and embedded system supplier, has unveiled a new 3.5-inch embedded board, the EB-821LF. Measuring 102mm by 145mm, the EB-821LF integrates a full-range of functions for general industrial and embedded applications such as in-vehicle information systems, industrial control and automation equipment, digital security systems, gaming, and medical imaging applications.The EB-821LF is based on the Intel Atom N455 single-core processor and enhanced with graphics and memory controllers on 45nm process technology, delivering significant power reductions, performance improvements and smaller platform footprint over the previous Intel Atom processor. Besides, the EB-821LF supports DDR2 667MHz up to 2GB.The EB-821LF offers one Serial ATA port, one CF socket, one Parallel port, one high definition audio port, two RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet, four serial ports and four Hi-Speed USB 2.0 ports. The integrated VGA controller supports both CRT and 18-bit single channel LVDS LCD displays up to WXGA 1366 by 768 resolution. In addition, PC/104 slot is also integrated on the EB-821LF for expandability.Protech EB-821LF embedded boardPhoto: Company