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New on Embedded.com
Exclusives
Richard
G. Lyons
Richard
Lyons
Richard
G. Lyons
Highlights
Editor's Note
With
ESC DESIGN East just a few weeks away in
Boston, Mass., product and news activity this week of interest to
embedded developers leads me to believe it should be an intense three
days. Be sure to register.
Product news of note this week includes: JTAG Technologies Datablaster boundary scan controller, MSC
Embedded's Qseven digital media processor, Winsystem's PCI
Express digital I/O module in a PC/104 format and MSC
Embedded's Davinci based media processor module.
At Hot Chips this week AMD and Intel contended for the Lion's Share of
attention: AMD's four core mobile design, and movement toward an API for its Heterogenous Systems Architecture. And
Intel showed its 50 quad-threaded Xeon Phi Pentium class core. Also,
AlcaLu is proposing a new processor architecture for a new class of small-cell wireless basestations. And
at Hot Interconnect, the Rapid I/O interconnect was promoted as open alternative to Intel's proprietary Xeon chip
interconnection scheme.
Finally, if you enjoy lively on-line discussion, read Jack Ganssle's
"Sequence Points," an exploration of
one of C's dark corners.
Design How Tos
In
the final part in a four part series Abhik Roychoudhury, author of
"Embedded Systems and software validation" explains the
usefulness of formal verification techniques to traditional software
testing techniques.
In
the third in a four part series Abhik Roychoudhury, author of
"Embedded Systems and software validation" discusses the pros
and cons of metric base fault localization and directed testing for
assessing software functionality.
In
the second in a four part series, Abhik Roychoudhury, author of
Embedded Systems and Software Validation details the ways in which
dynamic slicing can be used for assessing software functionality.
In
this four part series Abhik Roychoudhury, author of Embedded Systems
and software validation,, explains why it is important for embedded
developers to learn about new techniques for assessing software
functionality. Part 1: what must be done and how to achieve it
The
charge pump in some ways has been nearly forgotten due to limited
voltage range and historical performance that placed it somewhere in
between an LDO and a switching regulator. In this Product How-To
article, Steve Knoth at Linear Technology suggests designers -who do
not like to use inductors- to use high voltage charge pumps instead.
Here's
how to configure FPGA-based systems over USB to implement the
flexibility of in-field upgrades, replace the JTAG configuration
interface, and eliminate a separate on-board JTAG controller.
Innovative
and proven switch device technology adds centralized, fully shareable,
dynamically allocated, and adaptive packet memory management
architecture, ideal for cloud networks. Operators scaling network
infrastructure can select switching equipment with an understanding of
the tradeoffs.
Power
supply ripple and transient specifications establish the requirements
for the amount of capacitance you will need
Freescale
Semiconductor's latest Touch Sensing Software converts capacitive touch
panel readings into the reliably reproducible functions of buttons,
dials and sliders and other novel control surfaces—all built right into
device's case for very little extra cost.
This
article is the first of a multi-part series that discusses SAR and
delta-sigma ADC topologies, appropriate systems for these devices, and
a comprehensive error analysis in various application circuits.
Adopting
CAE analysis tools has helped Ford to cut the number of physical
prototypes it uses, reduce costs, and improve quality. Asaad Makki,
Global Electrical CAE Supervisor, and Dave Beard, Senior CAE Engineer,
explain their approach.
2012 Embedded Market Survey webinar
UBM
Electronics' 17th annual survey of embedded systems designers worldwide
shows trends in software and hardware usage. The 2012 Embedded Market
Survey also looks at languages, productivity, and the challenges design
teams rank
as most important. A webinar on Friday April 20 will examine
the results from over 1,700 respondents from across the embedded
industry, the dataset enables a deep analysis to track key changes in
this important electronics industry segment. There will also be the
opportunity to ask questions online. To register click
here.
Product News
The
DataBlaster JT 37x7/PXIe from JTAG Technologies is the newest in the
company's line of high-performance boundary-scan IEEE Std. 1149.1
controllers.
The
PXM-UIO96-2 from WinSystems is a SUMIT-ISM compatible 96-line digital
I/O module designed for high-speed interfacing.
The
Baserock Slab from Codethink is the company's first-generation,
high-performance, power-efficient ARM server.
MSC
Embedded Inc. has released their Qseven MSC Q7-TI8168 module in a new,
higher-performance variant with a DaVinci DM8168 digital media
processor.
National
Instruments has added 3D vision capabilities in LabVIEW to make machine
vision applications more accurate.
News
Wireless
networks need chips designed for a new class of small-cell basestations
said Marcus Weldon (pictured) in a Hot Chips keynote.
The
Heterogeneous Systems Architecture group could finish "within
months" the first draft of a new API, said Mark Papermaster
(pictured), AMD's CTO in an interview at Hot Chips.
Xeon
Phi aka Knights Corner packs more than 50 quad-threaded Pentium-class
cores with 512-bit vector units and 25 Mbytes cache around a 512-bit,
three-ring interconnect.
AMD's
Jaguar puts four x86 cores into one unit with a large shared L2 cache
to compete with Intel's Core and Atom chips in notebooks, tablets and
embedded systems.
Software-defined
networking and the OpenFlow protocol holds promise but also could
disrupt business models said a panel of experts.
RapidIO
is quietly courting ARM, ARM SoC and server makers in an effort to
become as an open alternative to proprietary technologies in Intel Xeon
chips.
Product
designer and entrepreneur Ben Einstein (shown) is part of a team in
Boston looking to give hardware startups their fair share of the glory.
AMD
named John Gustafson, formerly of rival Intel's eXtreme Technologies
Lab, to the role of senior Fellow and chief product architect for AMD's
graphics chip business unit.
While
Apple's victory in the Apple vs Samsung patent lawsuit dominated the
news cycle in the Western media, the story got a subdued, understated
treatment in the China Daily.
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