RTC Magazine

COMs vs. SBCs: Forward Thinking Helps Make the Best Embedded Choices

The end application of any design typically helps define the choice of the computing form factor used. From there, the desired level of performance and scalability can be built intoRead More...

USB 3.0 Boosts Speed 10x, Broadens Embedded-Systems Applicability

USB has become the interface of choice for many PC and consumer products, having reached an installed base of more than six billion units and counting. It is the ubiquitousRead More...

APIX Starter Kit for Development of Robust, Inexpensive Control Units

APIX Starter Kit for Development of Robust, Inexpensive Control Units Automotive Pixel Link (APIX) technology was originally developed for transferring image data in vehicles,Read More...

Multicore Silicon and Virtualization Software—Made for Each Other

Embedded virtualization is finding increasing deployment in intelligent devices of all kinds. As in the enterprise and on the corporate desktop, embedded virtualization meets the needsRead More...

Concept to Reality: An Application Architecture with MicroTCA

Much has been written about the virtues of MicroTCA platforms and AdvancedMC (AMC) modules. Both of these technologies have been maturing and there are now numerous options andRead More...

Industry Insider

Intel has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Wind River Systems, under which Intel will acquire all outstanding Wind River common stock for $11.50 per share in cash, orRead More...

Building Fault Tolerance into Embedded Data Management

Small resource-constrained applications are getting so complex that we can’t even start comparing the requirements from 10 years back with what we see today. Nonetheless there has beenRead More...

USB I/O for the Embedded OEM

With the advent of the serial interconnect such as PCI Express and USB, the most obvious reaction and approach for designing new I/O has been to continue with just offering a connectorRead More...

Recent Trends in FPGAs Drive Adoption in Mil Apps

The adoption of FPGAs into rugged applications continues to increase at a rapid pace thanks to a number of factors. These factors, which make FPGAs more attractive and easier toRead More...

USB and StackableUSB: Enabling Efficiency and Scaling for Embedded Designs

Board-level system designers have benefited from Moore’s Law of exponential improvement in size, cost, density and speed over the years as processor boards have packed more horsepowerRead More...

USB Offers Many Choices for Use in Embedded Systems

USB is not a peer-to-peer protocol like Ethernet. One USB device, called the USB host, acts as the master. Other USB devices, called USB devices or USB peripherals, act as slaves. TheRead More...

Beyond Handsets: Android Platform Picking up Major Chip and Tools Supporters.

OK Labs Claims Mathematically Verified Microkernel / Hypervisor Technology

Eurotech—from Sensors to Supercomputers

What kind of embedded computing company also produces Petascale supercomputers—computers running at over 1,000 Teraflops—and considers them integral to their embedded business? TheRead More...

RTI DDS Selected for Upgrade of Grand Coulee Dam’s Control System

Real-Time Innovations has announced that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has selected RTI Data Distribution Service (DDS) for an upgrade of the Grand Coulee Dam’s control system.Read More...

Embedded Database Upgrade for Scalability and Flexibility in Real-Time Apps

Embedded Database Upgrade for Scalability and Flexibility in           Real-Time Apps With version 4.0 of its flagship eXtremeDB embedded database product, McObject offersRead More...

Graphics Processors Running General-Purpose Code Set to Revolutionize Embedded Computing

The quest for ever higher performance in embedded computing has seen successive generations of microprocessor come and go, with quad core the latest to rise to the challenge. DSP andRead More...

Technology Advancements Enable Accelerated Development of Digital Signage Deployments

Companies are embracing digital signage as never before. One cannot step inside a retail store, airport or healthcare facility without seeing a kiosk or video display. And, there isRead More...

Development Platform Features Blackfin Processor and .NET Micro Framework

Development Platform Features Blackfin Processor and .NET Micro Framework  A new VITA 57-compatible development platform features the Analog Devices Blackfin BF518F processor and alsoRead More...

Development Platform Features New Texas Instruments Multicore DSP

Development Platform Features New Texas Instruments Multicore DSP  An off-the¬-shelf multiprocessor, multicore development solution features dual Texas Instruments (TI)Read More...

Life in the Cloud (sans Harp and Halo)

Sometimes a minor observation can lead you to realize that the world around you is fundamentally changing. Last week I went in for my yearly physical, which of course always involvesRead More...

The Multicore Developer's Toolbox

All major embedded processor architectures—ARM, Intel, MIPS and Power—have spawned multicore processors, and designers across a range of industries are snapping them up due to theRead More...

Tools for Motor Control Improve Efficiency and Performance and Reduce Development Time

Tools for Motor Control Improve Efficiency and Performance and Reduce Development Time Two new low-cost development systems enable the rapid development for motor controlRead More...

Embedded Technology, Multicore, and Virtualization. Are You Keeping Up?

The embedded design world has changed markedly over the last decade, and the progress shows no sign of slowing. Multicore processing (in the form of both symmetric multiprocessingRead More...

Capacitive Touch Development Suite for Atmel AVR Microcontrollers

Capacitive Touch Development Suite for Atmel AVR Microcontrollers A complete development suite for capacitive touch buttons, sliders and wheels using AVR microcontrollers fromRead More...

Advancing Advances in Technology

Two innovative companies have different takes on what could be called “conventional advanced technologies”—graphics and wireless networks. Both highlight ways these slightly differentRead More...

Intel’s “Tunnel Creek”—A New Thrust for the Atom into Embedded

What is a system-on-chip? Maybe we thought we knew, but the definition seems to be shifting and that has some interesting implications for the embedded space. Time was, an SoC wasRead More...

Energy Management in Multicore Designs with Embedded Virtualization

Energy conservation is increasingly an important requirement in the design of computer systems. In the desktop and server space the main driver is the cost of electricity and airRead More...

New Intel Processor Family Extends the Embedded Span of x86

With the announcement of a new family of processors and chipsets, Intel is enhancing its CPU offerings for the desktop and mobile space while also tailoring some of them to theRead More...

Software Quality a Matter of Life or Death—and Not Just for the User.

I think it started with that little “check engine” light. I had for some years been blissfully driving a number of cars that were equipped with the enigmatic little light but hadRead More...

Hypervisor Enables MSI Support for all Operating Systems

A bare metal (Type 1) hypervisor allows the execution of real-time operating systems (RTOSs) in parallel to operating systems like Linux or Microsoft Windows XP without adding anyRead More...

nanoETXexpress Starterkit for Wind River VxWorks

A new Atom Processor-based COM Express-compatible  nanoETXexpress Starterkit for the latest VxWorks platform is designed to enable easy and efficient development and validation ofRead More...

On-Chip Debug Solutions Support ARM Cortex-A8

The ARM Cortex-A8 processor now has a full debug suite available with on-chip debug technology. The Cortex-A8 is ARM’s first superscalar processor featuring technology for enhancedRead More...

Embedded Application Lifecycle Management Solution Targets 50% Cost Reduction

Embedded Application Lifecycle Management Solution Targets 50% Cost Reduction A new end-to-end application lifecycle management (ALM) system for the embedded space merges productRead More...

Hypervisor Supports On-Chip Debugging and Processor Virtualization Technologies

Autonomous UIs—A New Path for Customizing Application Look, Feel and Function

Embedded computing has its roots in industrial automation and instrumentation. The vast majority of traditional systems was headless, or communicated with operators and other usersRead More...

Multicore Trace Tool Enables Event Analysis

A new multicore-enabled development tool enables embedded developers to visualize and better understand the behavior of their real-time systems by showing thread and core activityRead More...

Retooling Applications to Ride on Multiple Cores

It goes without saying that today multicore processors are all the rage. As silicon manufacturers attempted to obtain increased performance by simply flogging the clock faster, theyRead More...

Power, Processing and Communication

When we talk about embedded systems, the word “power” is commonly associated with two other words: heat and processing. Sometimes it is easy to confuse them, but both are central toRead More...

CPU Architectures Bring C Programmability into Formerly Specialized Devices

Given all the hardware assists that are continually appearing to speed specialized parts of applications such as I/O, signal conditioning, graphics processing, signal processing, etc.,Read More...

Gap Remains Between Multi-core Potential and Software Realization

VDC’s embedded hardware and systems research practice recently surveyed over 200 embedded developers who were using multicore processors. The results showed that there is still a majorRead More...

Low-Power in Small Systems Made Simple

Developing a power management plan is a critical step in embedded systems design. Consumers and manufacturers alike value long battery life, and engineers must focus on the same endRead More...

Look Before You Leap: Hypervisors Present New Design Challenges for Embedded Developers

Increasingly, hypervisors are being touted as a solution for consolidating multiple systems or applications onto a single piece of hardware. Using a hypervisor offers several potentialRead More...

Hypervisors Ease the World of Multicore Processors

In the realm of high-performance embedded 32-and 64-bit devices, it is becoming increasingly difficult to buy a single core processor. This means that systems that have beenRead More...

Tightly Integrated Devices Yield More Efficient Motor Control

Motor controls are comprised of the power electronics that control the application of voltage and current to the motor. Digital motor controllers manage the power electronics toRead More...

Medical Device Software: Why Has It Gone Code Red?

An FDA analysis of 3,140 medical device recalls conducted between 1992 and 1998 reveals that 79% of software-related recalls were caused by software defects introduced when changesRead More...

Advanced Static Analysis: Evaluating Tools to Optimize ROI

Advanced static-analysis tools have become popular in recent years because they are capable of finding serious programming errors that might otherwise go undetected. UnlikeRead More...

Windows Embedded Compact 7 Supports Connectivity from Device to Enterprise

Microsoft has just unveiled the public community technology preview (CTP) for Windows Embedded Compact 7, the next generation of Microsoft’s Windows Embedded Compact platform forRead More...

Java Tackles Multi-Core Complexity

As VLSI transistor densities continue to rise, microprocessor vendors are increasingly turning toward multicore architectures as the most effective utilization of availableRead More...

Time to Rethink Software Testing for Embedded Devices

Whether they realize it yet or not, test teams and their software development colleagues at embedded product companies are headed for trouble—or are knee-deep in it already. There isRead More...

Security Considerations in Embedded I/O Virtualization

In any embedded system, there is inevitably a need for sharing a limited set of physical I/O peripherals across workloads. The embedded operating system provides abstractions, such asRead More...

DDS Component Links Incompatible Network System Interfaces to Build Multisystem Applications

By now, the world is familiar with machine-to-machine (M2M) systems in which autonomous or semi-autonomous nodes communicate and share data over a dedicated network to operate as anRead More...

Ensuring Software Quality in Embedded Medical Devices

The term “medical device” is used to refer to any item that treats, diagnoses, prevents or monitors patients. This ranges from simple stethoscopes, to teleoperated surgical devices, toRead More...

CE Goes Multicore: Microsoft Windows Embedded Compact 7

Microsoft sells two operating systems tailored to the embedded community, confusingly named Windows Embedded Standard 7 and Windows Embedded Compact 7. Windows Embedded Standard 7Read More...

Newest Embedded Technology Used by Industry Leaders

10 GigE Switches Provide IP Carrier Class Routing on 6U cPCI, VME and VPX A family of switches supports jumbo frames, full-wire speed Layer 2 bridging as well as Layer 3 UnicastRead More...

The World of Embedded Systems Continues to Expand—but How Far into the Consumer Realm?

The editorial page in a magazine can, in our opinion, be used in a number of ways. Mostly it is used to express an opinion or perspective regarding the editorial focus of theRead More...

Storing Device Data in the Cloud

In the past few years, the business world has adopted a new buzzword—cloud computing. Although many industries are embracing cloud computing, the embedded device market has yet to findRead More...

Industry Insider

LynuxWorks and Themis Team to Demonstrate Rugged and Secure Server Solutions  LynuxWorks and Themis Computer have announced that they have teamed up to demonstrate a new rugged,Read More...

Tracing Requirements through to Verification: Improve current practices for standards compliance

Recent quality concerns are driving many industries to start looking seriously at ways to improve the quality of software development. Not surprisingly, there are marked differences inRead More...

Windows 7 Goes Embedded

Windows Embedded Standard 7 (WES 7) takes the latest Windows desktop operating system, Windows 7, into the embedded space just as its predecessors, Windows XP Embedded and Windows NTRead More...

Software Verification Tool Boosts Automation and Transparency of Test Process

A test management and traceability component for the LDRA tool suite increases automation of verification tasks and result retrieval to complete workflow integration. TBmanager is aRead More...

Hypervisors Leverage Multicore Processors for Embedded Systems

The newest multicore processors contain hardware-assisted virtualization features that enable hypervisors to be constructed in such a way that they can support multiple operatingRead More...

Power Debugging the Software: Optimizing the Power Consumption of an Embedded System

Power debugging is a methodology that provides software developers with information about how the software implementation in an embedded system affects system-level power consumption.Read More...

Large Operating Systems Have Embraced Embedded. Did Anyone Notice?

Here’s a riddle: What do Windows CE, Linux and Java all have in common? Answer: They were all originally designed with no thought to their use in embedded and real-timeRead More...

Safe Software: Things to Consider when Building Products that Can Cause Injury

A fair number of developers in the embedded software industry are now building products that are considered to be moderate or high level of concern devices. This terminology means thatRead More...

Advanced Controls Enable Airborne Wind Power Generation

Just a few thousand feet above our heads blows a vast untapped resource that could supply civilization with ample quantities of cheap, clean and abundant energy. No leaps of scienceRead More...

The End of an Era for Source Code

Software development engineers are front and center of the revolution in the capabilities of smart products. Embedded software in products ranging from agricultural machines toRead More...

Challenges and Opportunities For The Medical Device Industry: Meeting The New IEC 62304 Standard

The recent IEC 62304 standard for medical device software is causing companies worldwide to step back and examine their software development processes with considerable scrutiny.Read More...

Real-Time Java Virtual Machine Undergoes Overhaul

Since 1997, the PERC Ultra virtual machine has enabled developers of Java applications to deploy in contexts that require compliance with real-time constraints. Unlike traditionalRead More...

Android—Google’s Mobile Platform and its Capabilities for Embedded

Google Android deployment has been rising steadily since the introduction of the mobile/embedded OS in 2008. While most adoption has centered on building smartphones and moreRead More...

Industrial Automation Software Supports Controller Redundancy, User Interface, Reporting, Trending and Alerts

A full set of software applications and utilities for the Snap Pac System of automaton controllers from Opto22 provides control programming, HMI development, OPC connectivity,Read More...

A Static Analysis Approach to Identifying Defects in Multithreaded, Multicore Designs

Multithreading adds entirely new classes of potential bugs to those that must be considered by developers. At the same time, the nondeterminism and sheer number of possibilitiesRead More...

Making Embedded Systems More Secure with Windows Embedded Standard 7

Microsoft’s Windows Embedded Business supplies OEMs with platforms and technologies for embedded systems. Released in the spring of 2010, Windows Embedded Standard 7 delivers theRead More...

Wind River Unveils Graphics-Rich Linux Platform

The latest Linux 4, Update Pack 2, is the latest release of Wind River’s commercial embedded Linux runtime and development platform. The company says it is the first commercialRead More...

Downloadable Modules Ease Memory Constraints in Small Embedded Systems

Embedded systems have always found themselves between a rock and a hard place with regard to the amount of memory available for their software and data. More is always desirable,Read More...

New Levels of Hardware Integration with LabVIEW 2011

National Instruments has unveiled NI LabView 2011, the 25th-anniversary version of its award-winning system design software. LabView accelerates the productivity of engineers andRead More...

Reducing the Cost of Developing Safe, Secure and Resilient Industrial Control Systems

The cost of developing and certifying control systems that are safe, secure and resilient continues to escalate due to increasing complexity, demands for increased assurance andRead More...

The Yocto Project: New Possibilities for Intelligent Embedded Systems?

Anyone familiar with the embedded technology industry will acknowledge that the approaches to developing embedded systems are very fragmented. They are fragmented in the way theRead More...

Software Systems Collaborate on Security and Resilience for Cloud Deployments

LynuxWorks and TransLattice have announced that they have ported the TransLattice Application Platform 2.0 onto the latest version of the LynxSecure separation kernel andRead More...

The Windows Embedded Legacy Continues with Windows Embedded 8 Standard

In the past we would have been referring to Windows 8 as the latest desktop version of the popular Microsoft Windows operating system. However, this release of Windows has beenRead More...

App Servers and Lua Scripting Speed Rich Web Applications for Small Devices

Running a business used to be straightforward. You had development and production and marketing and sales, little of which had fundamentally changed for decades or more. And thenRead More...

Changing Demands Are Changing the Role and Applicability of SoCs and ASICs

Companies building embedded systems that depend on SoCs and ASICs have reached a tipping point. They cannot continue to meet their customers’ increasingly aggressive product-featureRead More...

ARM Debugger Adds New Support and Features

An updated version of an ARM debugger includes many new features. SourcePoint from Arium includes support for a lineup of JTAG-based debuggers and trace port analyzers (TPA). ThisRead More...

Requirements Engineering Today

Requirements engineering is the process of determining user expectations for a new or modified product. That sounds so simple, doesn’t it?  Of course, those who are in the field ofRead More...

Future Proofing through Portable Software

Developing and deploying an embedded device is a complex and risky task. The embedded systems market is constantly changing as customers demand higher performance, more features and aRead More...

Common Weakness and Enumeration—Tracing the Path to Industrial Security

Cost reduction is the primary driver for connecting critical infrastructure components to the Internet. Utility meter reading and the control and monitoring of remote plantsRead More...

Android Poised to Move from Phones and Tablets to Wider Embedded Applications

It’s happened before. The development of a compelling operating system and/or software system envisioned for purposes unrelated to the unique needs of embedded and real-time systemsRead More...

Designing ASP-Type Devices: What Does it Take?

An Application Services Platform, or ASP, a name coined by RTC Editor-in-Chief Tom Williams, is a new class of IC that combines a CPU, a standard set of configurable peripherals and aRead More...

Tool Suite Extension Offers Certification Validation for Altera Nios II Soft Core Processors

The LDRA tool suite offers independent verification support across the full development lifecycle from certification objectives of standards to requirements, code and target testing.Read More...

Platform Provides Lifecycle Management, Security, Safety and Reliability for Smart Grid Devices

A Next Generation Platform for Smart Energy provides a robust and expandable end-to-end solution for intelligent electronic device development and deployment including: optimizedRead More...

Windows Embedded POSReady 7: The Right Choice for Digital Signage

On July 1, 2011, Microsoft released their newest Embedded Operating System, POSReady 7. The previous versions of POSReady were well accepted and hold a dominant marketshare positionRead More...

Transforming Code Analysis with Visualization

Code analysis tools for finding programming defects in large code bases have proven very popular in recent years because they are effective at improving software quality. These toolsRead More...

Embedded Systems and Digital Signage: A Natural Fit

When it comes to digital signage, the present looks nothing like the past. Traditionally, these devices, in the form of billboards, kiosks and monitors, were simple electronic screensRead More...

ARM Yourself

If, like most SFF board suppliers, you’ve spent your career building x86-based embedded PCs, you must feel challenged by the announcements coming out of Embedded World regarding newRead More...

Harnessing the Potential of Multicore Processors for Real-Time Applications

Multicore processing provides many opportunities to the embedded community, including the potential to scale applications while using the same code. In spite of this, many within theRead More...

A Requirements Engineering Solution for Embedded Systems

The IRQA Systems Engineering Template, an extension to the IRQA Requirements Engineering Suite from Visure Solutions, is designed to address the challenges of increasingly complexRead More...

Embedded Real-time Monitoring and Control Platform Based on NI LabVIEW

A new monitoring and control platform for embedded applications is distinguished by the fact that it is a third-party product designed to be programmable with the LabView system designRead More...

32-Bit Mixed-Signal MCUs Offer Easy Configuration of Rich Peripheral Set

A new microcontroller family offers a highly integrated, flexible architecture, a rich peripheral set, ultra-low-power, and Eclipse-based development tools that are downloadable at noRead More...

Linux OS-Based AMP Solution Supports Xilinx Zynq-7000 EPP

An open-source Linux OS with Asymmetric Multi-Processing (AMP) support for the Xilinx extensible processing platform (EPP), enables developers to put Zynq-7000 devices to work onRead More...

Approaches to Inter-OS Communication and Messaging for Multicore – Multi OS Systems

The fact that embedded hypervisors can be used to run multiple operating systems independently in parallel and under real-time constraints on multicore platforms has become publicRead More...

Meeting Regulatory Demands—Is There Help from the World of IT?

Once upon a time in the early days of embedded systems, developers were tinkerers working on relatively small and dedicated projects—a braking controller, a vending machine, variousRead More...

Wireless HD Video Streaming: Struggling toward a Standard Solution

The world of high definition video took its time getting firmly established in the consumer space in the form of HDTV, which has since become practically so ubiquitous that we loseRead More...

Services Streamline FAA/EASA Certification at a Fixed Price

A comprehensive and fully compliant FAA/EASA certification solution brings together a team of certification industry experts who are fully accredited across all aviation disciplinesRead More...

Cloud Operating System Supplements Supplied Embedded OS

The practice of supplying complex embedded systems (COMs = Computer-on-Modules, SOMs = System-on-Modules) together with a specific operating system is the norm for nearly allRead More...

Android—At Last A Ubiquitous Embedded OS?

This article is the third in a series written for RTC discussing the potential and reality for developing and deploying embedded systems using Android. The first, “Android Moves BeyondRead More...

Power Architecture Combines Rich Features for Embedded

Power Architecture processing technology is the common thread for a very broad range of devices, based on 32/64-bit Architecture. It is a ubiquitous architecture with more than aRead More...

Microchip Simplifies C Compiler Line, Optimizes Execution Speed and Code Size

Microchip Technology has simplified its line of C compilers that provide the best execution speed and code size for all ~900 PIC microcontrollers (MCUs) and dsPIC Digital SignalRead More...

Android Goes Beyond Google

As of Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), Android as delivered by Google is a software platform largely targeted at the mobile handset and tablet market. The Google Android software developmentRead More...

Once the Network Was the Computer. Now the Network Is the World.

It is sometimes amazing how things develop in ways we never expected. Let us consider the humble “app.” Now, the word “app” is nothing new. It has long been used as an abbreviation toRead More...

Accelerated Processing Units and Multicore Programming Innovation at the Cusp of Machine-to-Machine

Heterogeneous system architectures promise to transform many applications and the usability of machine-to-machine (M2M) solutions in these applications, enabling reliable and real-timeRead More...

Software Platform with Enhanced Tools for Optimal Multicore Performance

A multicore software platform consists of a bundle of productivity tools and a runtime communications engine that simplifies the process of migrating to and developing applications forRead More...

Industrial Computers in Safety-Critical Applications: Out of the Ordinary

Wherever you go these days, chances are you have to put your faith in some type of electronic system that is controlling all kinds of equipment and amenities in our lives, and theRead More...

Out of the Passenger’s Seat: Requirements Traceability to Drive the Software Development Process

Requirements traceability has become ubiquitous in the software development process. While useful in many environments, it is especially so in regard to safety-critical systems. TheRead More...

Parallel Computing with AMD Fusion-Based Computer-on-Modules

Embedded computing tasks are getting more and more demanding across all applications. The same applies to the processors, which must be flexible and customizable in order to encode orRead More...

Secure Hypervisor Offers Increased Endpoint and Server Protection

A new version of a secure hypervisor has been designed to offer military-grade protection for the latest generation of laptops, desktops, servers and embedded systems, helping protectRead More...

Unlocking the Potential of a Multi-Touch Experience

Today’s smartphones and tablets have awakened the world to the capabilities and ease of use of multi-touch systems. Innovative OEMs, ODMs and systems integrators are designingRead More...

Platform for Automotive Digital Instruments Targets Next-Generation Clusters and Telematics

Unlike legacy clusters in automobiles, which often run simple OSEK kernels, next-generation designs require a partitioning real-time system that can support a challenging combinationRead More...

Multi-Core Software: To Gain Speed, Eliminate Resource Contention

Deployment on multicore CPUs should make software faster by enabling tasks to run in parallel rather than waiting for a time slice on a single core. But in practice, parallelRead More...

Secure Remote Management Technologies Support Embedded Platforms

A rise in the level of network integration and ever larger bandwidth have paved the way for increasingly complex, remote IT management of embedded systems. Remotely managing andRead More...

Power Debugging—Minimizing Power Consumption by Tuning the Code

For a vast number of embedded, handheld and mobile devices—most of which are battery operated—minimizing power consumption is a goal of ever-increasing importance. Low-power CPUs nowRead More...

The Old-Timer in the Background – I2C Bus as a Cost Cutter on Small Form Factors

I²C is capable of assigning up to 1136 addresses configured as master or slave. While it is not the be all and end all in communications, it interfaces proprietary functional unitsRead More...

OpenCL Programming: Parallel Processing Made Faster and Easier than Ever

Parallel processing isn’t really new. It has been around in one form or another since the early days of computing. As traditional CPUs have become multicore parallel processors, withRead More...

Digital Home Devices to Offer Increased Opportunities for Embedded OEMs

With embedded systems spreading well beyond industrial environments, they have become pervasive in peoples’ everyday lives. The trick has been to design such systems so that theRead More...

Need a Many-Core Strategy?

Most experts agree that the era of Moore’s law driving endless performance increases of legacy processors is ending, even though the transistor count may continue to climb.Read More...

Use Power Debug to Optimize Software for Minimal Power Consumption

Long battery lifetime is an essential characteristic for embedded systems in market segments ranging from medical to consumer electronics. Traditionally, minimizing powerRead More...

Safety and Multimedia Collide in Next-Generation Automobiles

At last year’s CES trade show, I saw a snazzy car demo in which each rear-seat passenger had a different high-definition movie playing on the two screens mounted on seat backs.Read More...

JTAG Boundary Scan Tester/Programmer Relieves Users of Detailed Setup

  A Universal JTAG Boundary Scan Tester and Programmer can be utilized as a production run time and application development system for performing circuit card assembly (CCA)Read More...

Point Tool Enforces Programming Rules

A programming rule checker brings together a collection of rules from a broad spectrum of programming standards with the goal of improving software quality and consistency. ImplementedRead More...

Source Code Static Analysis Tool for Java

A source code static analysis tool is now available for Java. CodeSonar for Java from Grammatech works on all Java code, including code written for Android. The analysis flags qualityRead More...

Simplify Development with Cost-Effective Bootloading Using I2C/SMBus Interfaces

Adding bootloading capabilities to embedded applications provides the framework to update firmware running on a microcontroller (MCU) at any time. This capability is beneficial ifRead More...

Tool Verifies Test Coverage Completeness

A stand-alone code coverage tool verifies that the source code of an application has been fully structurally tested. LDRAcover from LDRA responds to the needs of companies that wish toRead More...

New Release Extends Data Distribution Service Infrastructure

Real-Time Innovations (RTI) has released the next generation of its RTI Connext product family. With over 70 new features, the latest release of RTI Connext provides a much moreRead More...

Development Tools Are Key for FPGA SoCs

Embedded designers have practiced heterogeneous computing by combining microprocessors and FPGAs within embedded systems since the advent of commercially viable FPGAs. FPGAsRead More...

Vote!

’Tis the season once again. Politicians seek elected offices, and we choose them by casting votes. Majority wins, and the weight of individual votes are equal. Winners go on toRead More...

Tools Support Advanced Development of Multicore Linux-Based Embedded System

A next-generation tool set aims at optimizing multicore performance in Linux-based embedded systems. The Embedded Sourcery CodeBench and Sourcery Analyzer products from Mentor GraphicsRead More...

Virtualization Software Enables Development of RTOS Applications to Run Alongside Windows or Stand-Alone

An updated release of INtime for Windows and the new INtime Distributed RTOS from TenAsys provide a new level of flexibility for embedded system developers in reducing system-levelRead More...

Integrated Gesture Recognition Coming to Consumer Devices and Beyond

The world is becoming well-accustomed to interacting with our devices via touchscreens. How many of us have sat at a desktop and instinctively tried to scroll with our finger only toRead More...

What Coding Standards Can Do for Critical Embedded Software Development

Reviews of faults and failures in high-reliability embedded systems ranging from medical devices to military systems show that all too frequently the source of the problem lies inRead More...

Pick the Right Operating System for Your Consumer Device

Innovative consumer electronics products have replaced business information technology systems as the major force driving the electronics industry. The explosive growth in this marketRead More...

Trends in Mobility and Their Implications for Digital Signage – Revisited

It can be said that digital signage is a twenty-first century technology that uses 1950s measurement methodologies to quantify viewer engagement habits. It can also be said thatRead More...

The Winows Embedded Legacy Continues with Windows Embedded 8 Standard

Extension Microcontroller Card with Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoC

An evaluation platform is fitted with a Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoC that incorporates a range of peripheral functions and consists of an ARM Cortex-A9 MPcore with on-chipRead More...

Developing Embedded Hybrid Code Using OpenCL

In recent years, the mechanism by which incremental computational performance has been achieved has shifted from clock speed to a proliferation of processing cores. This shift, beingRead More...

Linux or Android: Which Is Right for Your Next Design?

If your next device application will deploy a 32- or 64-bit processor and TCP/IP networking, chances are good that you are already considering either Linux or Android as yourRead More...

USB 3.0 Brings New Connection Capabilities to System Design

USB 3.0 has hit mass production. Not only is it mainstream in PCs, with support from Microsoft, Apple and Intel as a standard feature of mainstream products, it’s quickly migratingRead More...

Four Companies Team to Jumpstart x86 Developer Community for APUs

With the introduction of a small development kit, a group of four companies has launched GizmoSphere to foster innovation and development for x86-based embedded acceleratedRead More...

Processor Roadmap for the Coming Year

2013 is already shaping up as a banner year for embedded processors from 1W SoCs to quad and hex core machines with huge caches and innovative thermal solutions. The usual suspectsRead More...

Adding Secure Boot Capability to Embedded Processors

Security threats to embedded systems have escalated to an unprecedented level with routine reports of serious intrusions or compromise. A recent presentation by a Navy securityRead More...

Checking Rules for C: Assuring Reliability and Safety

At this point in the embedded industry, the C language has become not only the most widely used programming language, but almost the lingua franca of the whole computer world,Read More...

ARM Architecture Offers Challenges Along with Features to Help Meet Them

Embedded developers who create systems using the ARM architecture face challenges similar to developers who use other architectures. Some of these challenges involve initializingRead More...

Visualization Tool Enhancements Simplify Defect Detection

New enhancements to the CodeSonar software architecture visualization tool from Grammatech include a new tree map view designed to allow users to easily see the hierarchicalRead More...

Low-Power Development Tools Come with Supercapacitor-Charged Demo Board

Today’s highly integrated, high-performance and low-power processors demand accompanying tools that can enable configuration of the underlying silicon components to meet specializedRead More...

How Fast Can You Design an Embedded System with SoC FPGAs?

Major Updates to Leading Tools for Low-Power Renesas MCUs

A new version of the development tool suite for Renesas RL78 MCU adds a large amount of new functionality for code writing and debugging. Among the improvements to the IAR EmbeddedRead More...

What’s Going on in My Multicore System?

SequenceL: An Elegant and Efficient Approach to Exploiting the Power of Parallelism

In 2004 CPU providers made a major shift; rather than increasing the clock speed to increase the performance of each new chip generation, they began to add more processors cores toRead More...

Encryption Engine Secures ASIC-Powered Devices

A compact, fast cryptographic engine delivers high-performance security and extends secure connectivity for resource-constrained, small-footprint processors to low-cost, high-volumeRead More...

Standardizing APIs across Fabric Interconnects Speeds Development and Performance in Multifabric Systems

The parallel buses have served the market very well for a few decades with a number of tuning and other enhancements applied to them to improve their speeds and capabilities. In manyRead More...

Real-Time PC Development System for Software Radio Applications

A new PC development system is pre-configured to speed application development for the expansive family of Pentek Cobalt Virtex-6 and Onyx Virtex-7 FPGA PCI Express software radio andRead More...

Using OpenCL for Network Acceleration

Microprocessor designs are trending in favor of a higher number of cores per socket versus increased clock speed. Increasingly, more cores are being integrated on the same die to fullyRead More...

Software PLC Technology Available for Altera Cyclone V SoCs

LDRA Integration with Lauterbach TRACE32 Simplifies Code Analysis, Test and Certification

RTOS Adds New Security Features to Protect Embedded Connected Devices

Design Tool for ARM-based SmartFusion2 SoC FPGA Designs