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 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...

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...

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...

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 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 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...

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...

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...

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

OK Labs Claims Mathematically Verified Microkernel / Hypervisor Technology

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

Future Proofing Through Portable Software

Designing ASP-Type Devices: What Does it Take?

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

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

Windows Embedded POSReady 7: The right choice for Digital Signage