RTC Magazine

Newest Embedded Technology Used by Industry Leaders

Industrial USB to Four RS-232, RS-422 and RS-485 Serial Communication Ports A new serial communication adapter offers users the choice of four field selectable RS-232, RS-422, orRead 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...

LPC Bus-Legacy Lives On

Legacy buses and I/O appear to be on the chopping block. Large pin count parallel communications buses are being replaced by faster serial architectures. Examples include Serial ATARead More...

Products & Technology

Radio-via-Ethernet Board for Streaming Audio without a PC A ready-to-go answer for integrating an Internet radio solution that will play streaming audio without the need for aRead More...

And Not Even a Decent Funeral

With the recent surge in interest in all things vampire, either through the book and hit movie Twilight or the HBO series True Blood, this emphasis on the dead who continue to stalkRead More...

Standards: The Bedrock of the Small Form Factor Community

A common thread that runs through virtually all the significant embedded technologies of the past 20 years is their emergence from an independent industry standards organization.Read More...

Software Compatibility with the Flick of a Switch

Ahhh, software. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. Or so it seems during some projects. In this new world order of limited development budgets, it’s certainly the 800-poundRead More...

Latest Xeon Processors on New 6U cPCI Boards

One of the first product ranges to feature the quad core 2.13 GHz Intel Xeon processor L5518 or the dual core 2.0 GHz Intel Xeon processor L5508, is a new family of 6U CompactPCIRead More...

Products & Technology

High-Density AC-DC Adapters for Medical Applications A series of wall mount switching adapters, designed specifically for medical and information technology equipment (ITE)Read 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...

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...

The Incredible Shrinking Blade Server: New Possibilities beyond the Data Center

While blade servers have grown in popularity as a high-density, cost-efficient and space-saving alternative to rackmount servers in data centers and server farms, newer computingRead 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...

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...

Carrier Boards Enable Applications in PCI Express Environment

New Non-Volatile Memory Technologies Poised to Shake up System Design

Altera's 40-nm Arria II GX FPGAs Meet PCI-SIG Compliance for PCIe 2.0 Spec

2U Acceleration Platform Supports Eight PCIe x16 Gen 2 I/O Cards in 21” Deep Chassis

A 2UPCI Express acceleration platform supports up to eight PCIe x16 Gen 2 I/O cards. There are three versions of acceleration platforms that include either one or two PCIe x16 Gen 2Read More...

ExpressCard High-Speed Digitizer Captures Data in Two Modes

A wideband signal acquisition card for commercial laptop computers combines a compact, low-power form-factor with a 150 MHz sampling rate on two channels, supporting 14-bit resolutionRead More...

High-Resolution Digitizer Line Provides High Accuracy, Low Noise, High Performance

Three new PCI digitizers offer sampling rates of 10 MSample/s, 20 MSample/s and 40 MSample/s respectively. The newest members of the PCI-98x6 series from Adlink 98x6 family ofRead More...

Single-Slot PCIe x16 Octal Graphics Card for Mission-Critical Environments

Single-Slot PCIe x16 Octal Graphics Card for Mission-Critical Environments A PCI Express graphics card is capable of supporting eight DisplayPort or DVI Single-Link outputs fromRead More...

PCI Express XMC Module with Dual Channel 1 GS/s 12-bit Digitizer

An XMC I/O module features dual channels of 1 GSample/s 12-bit digitizing with a Virtex5 FPGA computing core, DRAM and SRAM memory, and eight lane PCI Express host interface. TheRead More...

PCI-Express Digitizer Capable of Sustained Recordings Over 1.2 GByte/s

PCI Express Digitizer Capable of Sustained Recordings over 1.2 Gbytes/s A new high-speed digitizer in the form of an advanced wideband and high dynamic range A/D board captures signalRead More...

Embedded Form Factors Harness Emerging Technologies to Enable Wireless Systems

Wireless connectivity is merging with technological advancements in silicon, signaling, mass storage and software to meet the high-performance, ultra-low-power requirements forRead More...

Fanless Box Computer—Ruggedness in Mobile and Extreme Apps

A new rugged box computer complies with the EN 50155 railway standard, fulfills IP67 and has an E1 approval from the German Federal Motor Transport Authority. The RC1 from Men MicroRead More...

SFFs: Adapt or Perish

To say that the small form factor x86 SBC market moves at glacial speed would be an overstatement. Even the slightest change to a connector pinout or location in a migration product isRead More...

PCI Express 48-Channel Digital I/O Card with Change of State Detection

PCI Express 48-Channel Digital I/O Card with Change of State Detection A 48-channel PCI Express (PCIe) card has been designed for use in a variety of digital I/O applications.Read More...

PCI Express Gen 1.x, 2.0 and 3.0 Decode Annotation Speeds Validation and Debug

PCI Express Gen 1.x, 2.0 and 3.0 Decode Annotation Speeds Validation and Debug PCI Express Decode Annotation, which is available on a wide range of oscilloscopes from LeCroy, providesRead More...

Toward a Unified Framework for Embedded Modules

In April of 2008, the Small Form Factor Special Interest Group (SFF-SIG) unveiled a new modular standard for stackable expansion of single board computers. The SFF-SIG’s new standard,Read More...

Have no Fear, Embedded World is Here!

The arrival of winter reminds us to make our annual pilgrimage to Nuremberg, Germany to witness the latest small form factor product introductions at the Embedded World show during theRead More...

Low-Cost PCI Express-Compliant FPGAs Enable a Plethora of Peripherals

FPGAs play an important role in embedded processing by enabling customized hardware for protocol bridging, signal processing acceleration and real-time embedded control. Now, twoRead More...

Multi-Channel, Configurable PCI-Express Digitizer with Two Virtex-5 FPGAs

An advanced PCIe-based wideband A/D board captures four synchronized channels at sampling rates up to 1.5 GHz, or two synchronized channels up to 3 GHz when interleaving the ADCRead More...

10Gb Ethernet PCI Express FPGA Accelerator Card

10 Gbit Ethernet PCI Express FPGA Accelerator Card A low-profile PCI Express FPGA accelerator card features a 10 Gbit Ethernet interface directly coupled to a Xilinx FPGA. TheRead More...

PCIe? USB? Sorting Out Two COM / SFF Design Decisions

Among all the bus types available in most COM specifications, only USB and PCI Express (PCIe) are well supported, high-level buses, with plug-and-play and excellent interoperability. ARead More...

What Do We Call the Whatchamacallit?

How is it that very smart people seem to have similar ideas at around the same time? In our industry, when such a thing happens we tend to think of a trend, or in other cases of someRead More...

PICMG 1.3 2U Butterfly Backplane for PCI Express Gen 2 System Designs

A 2U Butterfly Backplane for PICMG 1.3-based system designs boasts comprehensive PCI Express Gen 2 support in the smallest of spaces. Compared to competing custom solutions, the PICMGRead More...

PCI/104-Express SBC with Core2 Duo/Celeron M Processors

A PCI/104-Express single board computer is based on the Intel Core 2 Duo / Celeron M Small Form Factor (SFF) processors and the Intel GS45 Express (Cantiga) chipset. Based on theRead More...

LAN’s End is Just the Tip of the Iceberg

Device manufacturers and OEMs have been “trained” that processor and chipset vendors determine the life cycle of single board computers (SBCs) and computer-on-modules (COMs)—typicallyRead More...

Bigger Jobs in the Same Space

The PC/104 envelope continues to benefit from Moore’s Law, as CPU performance has reached a new plateau of 20 GIPS starting with Intel’s T7400 CPU and continued with the SP9300.Read More...

IEC60601-1 Compliant PCIe Medical LAN Card

An IEC60601-1-compliant PCIe Gigabit Ethernet card can be used for the direct network connection of conventional IT equipment to medical devices. With this card, expensive medicalRead More...

Protocol-Agnostic, Multi-Fabric Interconnect for Intel Embedded Computing Line

A new multi-fabric connectivity solution for Intel processors empowers companies to migrate to open solutions, future-proof their applications and guard their investment by ensuring aRead More...

Industry Insider

Intel Buys McAfee for Over $7 Billion In what turns out to be the biggest purchase in its history, Intel has acquired anti-virus software maker McAfee for $7.68 billion. The dealRead More...

System Area Network Speeds Data Transfer between Servers with PCI Express

The proliferation of the raw processing power of computers has resulted in system architectures where processing tasks are distributed and assigned to various processing elements inRead More...

Qseven Module Uses Atom Z510/Z530 and supports up to 4 PCIe x1 lanes

Built with Intel’s Atom Z510 (1.1 GHz) or Z530 (1.6 GHz) processor and Intel System Controller Hub (SCH) US15W, a new Qseven module supports onboard 1Gbyte or 2Gbyte DDR2 SDRAM,Read More...

Boundary Scan Platform Scanflex with new PXI Express Controllers

A new family of PXI Express controllers features TAP Transceivers, which are now integrated in the 1 slot/3U controllers. The new Scanflex boundary scan controllers (SFX Controller)Read More...

COM Solution Uses Latest Atom Embedded Processor Family

A new COM Express board is based on the new Intel Atom E6xxx Series processors, formerly code named Tunnel Creek.  The E6xx series is the first Intel Atom processor-basedRead More...

All Aboard! The PCI Express -- Generation 3

The PCI-SIG, an industry consortium that developed and enhanced PCI/PCI Express (PCIe) technology, is in the final stages of developing its third generation of the PCIe specification,Read More...

System on Chip (or Two) Coming to a Design Near You?

Are developments in silicon going to play havoc with this explosion of small form factor modules that has been recently sprouting like mushrooms in a moist cellar? With this issue,Read More...

PCIe-Based 2-Channel, 1.5 GHz Per Channel High-Speed Digitizers

A PCIe-based wideband A/D board captures two synchronized analog channels at sampling rates up to 1.5 GHz, or one channel up to 3 GHz when interleaving the ADC data. 1 Gbyte of onboardRead More...

Transient Recorders Merge High-speed, High-precision and Long Memories

A family of LAN-controlled transient recorders includes several high-speed modules that offer sampling speeds of 240 MS/s or 120 MS/s at 14-bit or 16-bit vertical resolution. The newRead More...

PCIe over Cable Goes Mainstream

In 2007 the PCI-SIG approved the PCI Express External Cabling Specification that defines how PCI Express can be implemented over a standard cable. This new capability allows the fullRead More...

Quest Continues for the “Sweet Spot” in Configurable ASIC/SoC Design

For some time now, there has been a quest underway among a number of semiconductor vendors. The “Holy Grail” of this particular quest is to devise the ideal piece of silicon thatRead More...

PCIe 1080p Frame Grabber Delivers Uncompressed Images and Video Streaming

A PCI Express frame grabber offers uncompressed image acquisition and video streaming in full 1080p HD. The HDV62 from Adlink Technology provides 1920x1080p resolution, progressiveRead More...

PCIe-Based 2-Channel, High-Speed Digitizers Hit 1.5 GHz per Channel

A new PCIe-based wideband A/D board captures two synchronized analog channels at sampling rates up to 1.5 GHz, or one channel at up to 3 GHz when interleaving the ADC data. 1 Gbyte ofRead More...

First PCI Express 3.0 Switches Start Sampling

What appear to be the industry’s first PCI Express 3.0 (PCIe Gen 3) switches have begun to become available as samples from PLX Technology.  Each of the six new Gen 3 switches isRead More...

SDK Targeted for Designs Using PCI Express 3.0 Switches

An upgraded and free software development kit (SDK) supports the PLX ExpressLane PCI Express (PCIe) Gen 3 switches. This suite of software tools works in conjunction with PLX’s on-chipRead More...

High-Resolution Signal Acquisition Module for Audio and Vibration Testing

A new 24-bit high-resolution dynamic signal acquisition module is specifically designed for audio testing, acoustic measurement and vibration analysis applications. The PCI-9527 fromRead More...

COM Express Module Boasts Quad-Core Processor, USB 3.0 and Digital Display Interfaces

Deterministic, Low Latency, High Speed Memory Sharing For Demanding Applications

A low-profile PCI Express reflective memory node card is designed for real-time applications such as simulation and training, industrial process control and data streaming andRead More...

Modernizing Legacy Modular Systems Design with CompactPCI Serial

Because CompactPCI is one of the most successful modular system standards, it’s no surprise that the standard has been continually adapted to newer specifications as technology andRead More...

Isolated PCI Express Serial Communication Family with Speeds up to 3 Mbps

A new family of isolated PCI Express serial communication cards features a selection of 4 or 2 ports of isolated, software selectable, RS-232, RS-422 and RS-485 serial protocols. 2 kVRead More...

High Density PXI RF Switches in Two Frequency Ranges

A new set of PXI RF switches supports up to 10 off SP4T RF switches in a single module and is available in two different versions based on a common switch design. The 40-755Read More...

VPX Boards Pair Virtex-5 FPGA with PCIe Interface

A new series of 3U VPX FPGA boards features a configurable Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA enhanced with multiple high-speed memory buffers and a high-throughput PCIe interface. Field I/O signalsRead More...

14-Bit PCIe Digitizer Offers High Data Throughput and High Dynamic Performance

A PCI Express digitizer provides 200 MS/s sampling rate of 14 bits of data across one channel. The PCIe-9842 from Adlink Technology is designed for applications such as light detectionRead More...

DSPs with PCI Express Interface Expand Embedded Connectivity Options

While PCI Express (PCIe) has become wildly successful throughout virtually all market segments, a few were slower to adopt this powerful serial interconnect standard. Wireless baseRead More...

14-Bit PCIe Digitizer Offers High Data Throughput and High Dynamic Performance

A PCI Express digitizer provides 200 MS/s sampling rate of 14 bits of data across one channel. The PCIe-9842 from Adlink Technology is designed for applications such as light detectionRead More...

3U OpenVPX PCI Express and Ethernet Hybrid Switch Offers up to Ten Times More Bandwidth

  A new 3U OpenVPX PCI Express and Ethernet hybrid switch delivers extremely high transfer rates in centralized VPX and OpenVPX platforms. With up to 4 x 6 Gen1/Gen2 PCIe backplaneRead More...

Low-Powered USB 3.0 to SATA Bridge Controller

A new Low-Power USB 3.0 to SATA bridge controller features a fully integrated 5V switching regulator. The Via Labs VL701 Low-Power USB 3.0 to SATA Bridge is a single-chip solution thatRead More...

PMC/XMC Carrier Card for Optimum Performance and Flexibility

A PCI Express PMC/XMC carrier card serves developers wanting to configure PMC and XMC mezzanine cards in high-performance servers and small form factor PCs. The SPR418A hybrid cardRead More...

Serial RapidIO Reaches a Crossroads with PCIe in Intel-Based DSP Designs

DSP systems designed for use in today’s signal processing applications require optimal bandwidth and reliability in rugged environments. To deliver the near real-time processing ofRead More...

When did Legacy become a 4-letter word?

Once upon a time, embedded systems engineers would anxiously scan data sheets for new embedded components and boards looking for those magical words “Backward Compatible” or “UpwardRead More...

CompactPCI Serial Challenges VPX as Embedded Shifts to Serial Point-to-Point Architectures

A considerable number of new serial-based standards have been created, which—unfortunately—were optimized for special markets or applications during their initial development. OnlyRead More...

MicroTCA Carrier Hub Family Supports Four Different High Speed Fabrics

MicroTCA Carrier Hub Family Supports Four Different High-Speed Fabrics A new line of modular carrier hubs (MCHs) in the AMC/MicroTCA form factor are aimed at fulfilling theRead More...

PLX Technology Expands PCI Express Gen3 Switch Family

Three new high-performance, feature-packed devices compliant with the PCI Express Gen3 r1.0 Specification are aimed at enabling  new, more powerful designs in servers, storage andRead More...

Steve Jobs

The first time I actually met Steve Jobs was back around 1978 or 1979 at a Regis McKenna reception. Regis McKenna was the premier Silicon Valley advertising and PR agency of the day.Read More...

A PCI-SIG Outlook on PCIe 4.0

PCI Express (PCIe) architecture has kept pace with advances in processor and memory subsystems for the past decade and continues to proliferate across the computer and communicationsRead More...

First in a Family of Virtex-7 FPGA SDR Modules for UAV, Radar and Communications

The first member of a new high-performance software defined radio module—the Onyx family from Pentek—is a 4-channel, 200 MHz A/D XMC module based on the Xilinx Virtex-7 FPGA family.Read More...

PCI Express Radar Acquisition Card

A new PCI Express-based primary radar acquisition card indicates the continued response to the growing adoption of the PCI Express bus as the primary motherboard-level interconnect onRead More...

Fast Serial Interconnects— Will They Bypass Embedded or Bring it Along?

It has long been a truism that a great deal of embedded technology has derived from things originally developed for the PC. A big factor in this has, of course, been cost. Once anRead More...

Avoid Bottlenecks Using PCI Express-Based Embedded Systems

“A good friend will help you move, but a trusted friend will help you move the bodies.” Fortunately, I haven’t any direct experience to substantiate this old quip, but I chuckle at theRead More...

The Fabric of the Cloud

With the rapid growth of the Internet of Things, with the proliferation of machine-to-machine (M2M) systems and with the growing need for embedded devices to make vast amounts of dataRead More...

Quad Serial FPDP Modules for High-Speed Digital Data Links

Two Quad Serial Front Panel Data Port (FPDP) modules with a Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGA provide four channels of serial communication with up to 1 Gbyte per second of aggregate data transferRead More...

PCIe as Blade-to-Blade Interconnect

In 2010, the Department of Energy released a specification for a high-density, liquid-cooled compute platform that can be powerful enough for high-performance computing (HPC)Read More...

PCI Express over Cable Middleware Maximizes Application Performance

System architects increasingly look to PCI Express over cable as a means of improving real-time system performance. The ability to partition systems with PCI Express over cable makesRead More...

Low Power AMD APU Extends Entire G-Series Availability through 2017

Embedded product designers are taking to the industry’s green challenge to design a broad range of next-generation applications for the industrial control, point-of-sale, medicalRead More...

PCI Express Gen3 Portfolio Adds 96-, 80-, 64-Lane Switches

A new trio of ultra-high lane count PCI Express (PCIe) Gen3 switches addresses cutting-edge markets like storage systems, high-end graphics and communications platforms. TheRead More...

Analog Servo Control System for PCI or PCIe

An FPGA-based 6-axis analog control system is targeted for computer numerical control (CNC), industrial automation retrofits, and OEM systems. The 7I77set from Mesa ElectronicsRead More...

FPGAs Drive Digital I/O Solutions

Digital I/O is unquestionably one of the most common requirements for real-time embedded systems, representing a vast assortment of interfaces and protocols. These devices connectRead More...

96-line PCI Express SUMIT Digital I/O Module Offers High Density and High Performance

A SUMIT-ISM-compatible 96-line digital I/O module is designed for high-speed interfacing. The PXM-UIO96-2 from WinSystems offers PCI Express expansion on a 90 x 96 mm PC/104-sizedRead More...

PCIe Card Instantiates the Next Generation Communications Platform from Intel

Data, like the universe, just keeps expanding at an ever greater rate, pushing out from the enterprise and rushing in tsunami-like from customers and a host of other entities. UserRead More...

Practical Implementation of PCI Express Gen3 across Optical Cabling

Fiber optic technology can provide a better alternative to copper coaxial cabling for PCI Express 3.0 (PCIe Gen3) inter-chassis connections. The serializer/deserializer (SERDES)Read More...

PCI Express Mini Carrier Card Brings SIM Power to CompactPCI

A robust PCI Express (PCIe) Mini Card carrier board  features two PCIe Mini Card slots as standard with USB and PCI Express connections as well as two SIM card slots. The F223 from MENRead More...

PCIe Quad-Port Switch Board Operates at 64 Gbit/s

A new PCIe x8 Gen 3 quad-port cable adapter operates as a switch board in I/O expansion applications to fan out the PCIe signal to up to four I/O devices like storage arrays and/orRead More...

What Else Can PCI Express Do?

PCI Express (PCIe) as a technology has made inroads into virtually every market segment—servers, storage, graphics, communications, consumer, embedded and wireless, to name a few.Read More...

PCI Express Frame Grabber Captures 8 Channels of NTSC/PAL Video and Audio

A new frame grabber is equipped with eight asynchronous input channels and a high-speed PCI Express x 1 interface. With the Model 812 PCI Express 8-Channel Frame Grabber from Sensoray,Read More...

PCI Express Encoder for Simultaneous Capture from 16 Video and 16 Audio Inputs

A 16-channel H.264 PCI Express encoder can provide multiple output streams for each input video channel. With the Model 819 from Sensoray, this means two H.264 streams at independentlyRead More...

2U Rackmount Network Server Based on New Intel Platform for Communications Infrastructure

A highly functional and modular 2U rackmount communication appliance offers a comprehensive solution for customers in the network security, communications and infrastructure market.Read More...

PCIe Network Board Based on Intel Platform for Communications Infrastructure

A new network acceleration board is an instantiation of the Intel platform for communications infrastructure, formerly codenamed “Crystal Forest.” The WIN SoNIC module from WinRead More...

PLX and Kontron Announce PCI Express Fabric Advance

PLX and Kontron have announced an advanced deployment of PCI Express (PCIe) technology as a backplane interconnect. Built around PLX ExpressLane PCIe 3.0 (Gen3) switches, Kontron’sRead More...

PXI Express Uncompressed HDMI Video and Audio Capture for Device Testing

A new PXI Express HDMI video and audio capture card enables integration of full single-card analog/digital video and digital audio input. The PXIe-HDV62A from Adlink TechnologyRead More...

Serial Fabrics: Making the Connection

2U RAID Array Is NEBS Certified for Telecom Applications

A new 2U RAID array has been certified to Network Equipment Building System (NEBS) Level 3. The 12-drive array from One Stop Systems supports up to 48 Tbyte data storage usingRead More...

Carrier Cards Interface XMC Mezzanine Modules to PCI Express Bus

PCI Express Fabrics Break Through I/O Limitations

Matching CPU and I/O performance is an ongoing challenge for evolving industrial embedded designs. High-performance data processing applications require greater and greaterRead More...

New Interconnect Fabric Trends Help Unlock Potential of High-Performance Embedded Computing

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

Bring Back the Stack