IBASE has unveiled the IB966, a 3.5-inch single-board computer built around Intel's Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" processors, packing up to 180 TOPS of aggregate AI performance into a board measuring just 102 x 147 mm (4.0 x 5.8 inches). Three processor options are available: the top-end Intel Core Ultra X7 358H with 16 cores, boost clocks up to 4.8 GHz, and an integrated Arc B390 GPU sporting 12 Xe cores and 122 TOPS of GPU compute; the Core Ultra 7 356H, also 16 cores but with a smaller 4-Xe-core integrated GPU at 40 TOPS; and the Core Ultra 7 355, an 8-core part with the same 4-Xe-core GPU. All three include a dedicated NPU rated at 49 to 50 TOPS, and the 180 TOPS headline figure represents the combined throughput of CPU, GPU, and NPU on the top SKU.
Memory support comes from two DDR5 SO-DIMM sockets handling up to 128 GB of non-ECC DDR5-7200, and storage expansion is handled by an M.2 2280 slot and an M.2 2242 slot for NVMe SSDs plus an M.2 E-key 2230 for CNVi wireless modules. Networking consists of dual 2.5 GbE ports driven by Intel I226LM and I226V controllers. Display output is generous for a board this size: HDMI, DisplayPort, DisplayPort over USB Type-C, LVDS, and eDP are all present, alongside two USB 3.2 Type-A ports, one USB 3.2 Type-C port, and three USB 2.0 interfaces. Industrial-oriented features include two configurable RS-232/422/485 serial ports, 4-in/4-out digital I/O, a discrete TPM, Intel AMT, and a 256-level watchdog timer. The board accepts 12 V to 24 V DC input and is rated for operation from 0 to 60°C (32 to 140°F).
Panther Lake's open-source driver situation on Linux is in solid shape. Intel's Xe3 graphics driver stack, including the kernel-side i915/Xe driver and Mesa's ANV Vulkan and Iris OpenGL backends, has shipped production-ready Arc B390 support with Linux 6.18 and Mesa 25.3, and the NPU 5 driver was upstreamed as early as Linux 6.13 with firmware binaries now in the linux-firmware repository. That means the IB966's full accelerator stack, GPU and NPU alike, should work out of the box on recent distributions without proprietary blobs, which is notable for anyone eyeing edge inference or local AI workloads on a compact x86 board. IBASE's own specifications for the IB966 list Ubuntu alongside Windows 11 as a supported operating system, as noted by LinuxGizmos, giving buyers an officially sanctioned Linux path on top of the upstream driver work.
IBASE has not announced pricing or availability for the IB966. Further details are available in the product announcement and on the IB966 product page.
