Innovative Integration
Innovative Integration provides board-level hardware products that integrate the best analog I/O and reconfigurable FPGAs to provide cost-effective solutions for challenging data acquisition and signal processing applications.
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by jason mcdonald, senior editor | read other
blog posts |
The just-concluded Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose is a mecca for tech geeks everywhere.
We walked the floor, talked with vendors, listened to talks, and distilled the spiels to get to the top news and technology trends.
Embedded multicore is entering its software phase; there were many cool new companies; and we also identify some robust board announcements.
Enjoy!
contents of this post:
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Embedded Multicore Software - The Coming Revolution
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Cool New Embedded Companies
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Embedded CPUs and Boards
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feedback - read it
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feedback - give it
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Embedded Multicore Software - The Coming Revolution
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Multicore in embedded systems - like so many developments - began with the semiconductor vendors.
A few years back, Intel, Freescale, ARM, Mips and others out-announced each other with new 'revolutionary' chip architectures.
The hardware had done its work, so to speak, and the next phase of the revolution would of course be the software.
The multicore revolution has begun to mature; you can tell this fact alone by the pride of place at this year's ESC, which was co-branded as the Multicore Expo.
But beyond marketing, the software itself must harness the potential of multicore.
Many RTOSes have already embraced multicore - that, per se, isn't news.
What is new is the proliferation of software development tools that may make multicore development not just easier but more powerful.
First among these at ESC is Express Logic's announcement of TraceX/MC™, a multicore-enabled and expanded version of its powerful TraceX graphical real-time event analysis tool.
TraceX/MC enables embedded developers to visualize and better understand the behavior of their real-time systems by showing thread and core activity graphically across a common timescale. (More info,
here
).
Second, CriticalBlue and Freescale Semiconductor have made CriticalBlue's Prism development environment available to support Freescale’s QorIQ multicore processor families.
Software developers will be able to migrate, optimize and verify their existing software applications on Freescale’s multicore platforms based on Power Architecture® technology.
As communication equipment vendors migrate from single-core to multicore designs, they face the complex and time consuming task of rewriting their code to work with multiple cores.
The addition of Prism support to Freescale’s QorIQ multicore ecosystem will help customers preserve the value of their legacy code while designing with new multicore platforms. (More info,
here
).
Finally, Mentor Graphics announced that the Mentor Embedded™ Nucleus® SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessing) technology now supports the Multicore Communications Application Programming Interface (MCAPI) standard for inter-processor communication (IPC), established by the Multicore Association.
According to the company, these Mentor Graphics technologies provide a comprehensive solution for developers of multicore and multi-OS designs for both symmetric and asymmetric multiprocessing (SMP and AMP) deployments. (More info,
here
).
We are not there, yet, with Multicore and embedded software but companies like Express Logic, Critical Blue, and Mentor Graphics are leading the way towards the full deployment of multicore-enabled embedded software.
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Cool New Embedded Companies
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ESC functions as a sort of debutante ball for new embedded companies as well as established companies eager to penetrate the embedded systems marketplace.
This Spring's show was no exception.
Here are the coolest new companies.
First, check out
B Labs
, a startup company developing embedded virtualization solutions.
Their core product is the Codezero Embedded Hypervisor which provides secure isolation and co-existence of baremetal and Linux applications on the same hardware platform.
Second, check out
Crosshairs Embedded
. Their claim to fame is a functional debugger, which lets you see inside your product in real time, in a real-world environment across the Internet.
The idea is to bring debugging out of the lab and into the real world.
Very cool!
Another interesting start up is
Nabto
. They provide embedded web server technologies.
Yawn, you say? Their claim to fame is that the Internet of things has very sparse resources (e.g., limited memory and CPU), and is normally located behind a firewall or NAT router, many times not even capable of running a true webserver.
Teeny tiny webservers behind firewalls... Intriguing.
Fourth, a giant debutante has entered the embedded systems industry:
DELL OEM
. Dell's OEM division seeks to bring the economies of scale and flexibility of Dell to a prolific embedded world.
Unlike some other giant companies, Dell is eager, willing, and able to white label your products and speed time to market.
Hungry for business, Dell is eager to please.
If you are rather large and would rather focus on your core (software? application?) competencies, Dell is worth a look.
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Embedded CPUs and Boards
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This was the year of incrementalism.
With the economic meltdown behind us, the lack of new standards at ESC was conspicuous by its absence.
Instead, the board community went back to basics and built upon the standards of last year.
Except for Taiwan's VIA, which announced their VIA Nano E-Series processor, bringing native 64-bit software support, virtualization capabilities and extended longevity support to embedded markets. (More information,
here
). Expect the board community to build on the 64-bit opportunity going forward, just not yet.
VersaLogic announced their "Leopard," an ultra-fast PC/104-Plus embedded computer.
Leopard brings the power of a 2nd generation Intel® Core™2 Duo processor (SP9300) to a compact PC/104-Plus form factor. "VersaLogic's new Leopard is the premium, high-performance PC/104-Plus embedded solution for applications requiring high-speed processing and extreme graphics capabilities," said Len Crane, President of VersaLogic. "Quickly advancing technology requirements in the high-end OEM markets are driving the need for higher performance and increased processing power in a small package.
That's what this board really delivers." Translation: a robust, impressive incremental announcement - very solid, very customer-centric. (Details,
here
).
Similarly, Reach Technology built upon its expertise in embedded LCDs, embedded touch screens, and embedded controller boards to announce the SLCD5 MX21 embedded touch screen controller board which powers panels up to 12.1” with SVGA resolution (800×600). Large panels and high pixel density allow more controls to be visible at the same time, which is important for many medical and industrial embedded LCD touch screen applications. (Details,
here
). Both Reach and VersaLogic are examples of vendors with staying power, building on their basic strengths and waiting for customers to re-awaken during the nascent economic recovery.
We have uploaded and indexed all available news from ESC as well as all companies at
http://www.eg3.com/embshow/
. Feel free to browse the news, and visit the companies via our web-based indexed.
The virtual experience can be just as good as the real world one!
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feedback - read it:
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feedback - give it:
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Express Logic develops, markets and supports the ThreadX® real-time operating system (RTOS), NetX™ TCP/IP networking stack, USBX™ USB stack, and FileX® embedded file system, and PrismX™ GUI toolkit for embedded applications.
ThreadX is a royalty-free, full source code, small-footprint, low-overhead RTOS that is extremely easy to learn and use. ThreadX is one of the most widely deployed RTOS products in the world, with over 800 million products based on ThreadX.
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