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Take Advantage Of Multicore Platforms
Multicore is everything these days, from laptops to servers. Getting started programming a multicore PC is as easy as downloading Intel’s Thread Building Blocks (see “Threads Make The Move To Open Source”). It’s just one of the many frameworks designed to take advantage of the multicore hardware that is readily available. Even C++ is making it easier ...
Phase-Change Technology Enters The Memory Market
Phase-change memory (PCM) is a new class of nonvolatile memory technology. Like most new technologies, it offers benefits to those who know where and when to apply it. To understand where PCM fits today and to appreciate its potential value, we need to evaluate its relative cost, reliability, and performance compared to incumbent technologies such as single-level cell (SLC) and multilevel cell (MLC) NAND flash, as well as system solutions...
Unmanned Systems North America 2009: Where The Robots Are
It was hot and muggy at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station’s Webster Field, where Curtis Ellezy of Engineering TV and I went to keep an eye out for robots that may have their eyes on you. The demonstrations were part of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International’s Unmanned Systems North America 2009 show in Washington, D.C. ROLLING ROBOTS There were lots of robots on wheels and tracks, and most were custom...
Military And Avionics Applications Demand Rugged Hardware
Not all military and avionic electronics need to be ruggedized, but unprotected systems would last only minutes in many of these environments. Thus, solutions such as rugged cases, conduction cooling, and highreliability connectors become mandatory design elements. Elma’s air transport rack (ATR) 6U VPX is a good example of the starting point for military rugged designs (Fig. 1). The...
Deeply Embedded Devices: The Internet Of Things
T he “Internet of things” is about connecting products that create, store, and consume data via the Internet. This allows processing to provide results that people can more easily use. The basic technical requirements to enable it are vastly different from the current treadmill of mainstream Internet-connectivity technology. Mainstream connectivity strives to constantly increase bandwidth, range, and features to counter dwindling margins and prepare for...
Dataplane Processing Unit More Flexible Than DSP
Baseband communications dataplane processing is one of the most demanding environments around. Tensilica’s ConnX Baseband Engine is designed to address this challenge (see the figure). Tensilica calls its architecture a dataplane processing unit (DPU), in contrast with CPUs and DSPs. The processor cores are based on Tensilica’s Extensa LX. The system includes one scalar core plus eight SIMD...
Support Will Have Android Showing Up In Embedded Apps
Android has lots of buzz, especially when it comes to smart phones. But it also will be showing up in embedded applications as the range of support expands. One of the leaders is Mentor Graphics. Its recent acquisition of Embedded Alley, a major Android supporter, was highlighted at this year’s DAC 2009 show. Mentor Graphics is looking to support smart-phone developers as well as anyone else interested in utilizing Android in an embedded application....
Develop Seamless Interconnection Among Multiple General-Purpose Boards
As the cost to create ASICs continues to climb, a board design featuring multiple, more generic ICs becomes attractive. But arriving at a standardized, high-speed board interconnect has proved difficult. The XMOS Link, as implemented in the XS1 family of programmable devices, can be used as a standard board interconnect for seamless connection between multiple devices to address the problem. In particular, an XMOS Link can be readily implemented in an...
7-in. LCD Panel Eases Integration
Reach Technology’s 7-in. Evervision LCD module builds on a wide 130° viewing angle color LCD and adds a 32-bit ARMbased SLCD5 controller with SD card memory support and a serial interface. The backlit display has a resolution of 800 by 600. Operating temperature ranges from –20°C to 70°C. Resistive touchscreen support is optional. Power requirements are 12 V dc and 900 mA. REACH TECHNOLOGY ...
USB-SATA Bridge Chip Breaks USB 3.0 Barrier
Fujitsu’s 65-nm MB86C30A USB 3.0-SATA Bridge chip looks to bring the full performance of SATA storage to USB. USB 3.0 specs up USB 2.0’s 480-Mbit/s transfer rate to 5-Gbit/s transfer. This translates into 300 Mbytes/s versus USB 2.0’s 37 Mbytes/s. This is also on par with SATA-II’s 3 Gbits/s with a typical throughput on the order of 260 Mbytes/s. This matching performance is key for external storage units. The chip also incorporates a 32-bit RISC processor and ...
1-GHz Cortex A8 Uses 3/4 W
Start with a standard processor core design. Highlight performance and power bottlenecks. Replace key logic with advanced clock gated logic. Significantly cut power requirements. Incorporate into popular multimedia devices. Profit. That’s Intrinsity’s plan. The company started with ARM’s Cortex A8 architecture with a 13-stage, in-order, dual-issue, superscalar microprocessor core and a global history-based branch prediction system (...
Expanding Telematics For The Masses
Its simple three-button interface has not changed since its earliest years, but OnStar is making changes to its services at a pace much like that of consumers upgrading their cell phones—and perhaps even quicker. Over time, OnStar has added infotainment system aspects including satellite radio, Bluetooth connectivity, turn-by-turn navigation, and Destination Download. These additional features as well as improved voice recognition, Stolen Vehicle Slowdown, tire pressure...
The Line Between Telematics And Infotainment Blurs Even Further
TTelematics and infotainment appear to be on a collision course within the automobile. The terms themselves have caused some confusion. Telematics refers to the combination of telecommunications and informatics, basically wireless communication. Infotainment indicates the combination of information and entertainment. Even the analysts can’t agree on what differentiates telematics and infotainment. “You call five different people, you are going...
The "Keys" To Securing A System
The standalone system has turned into an endangered species, making security an even more pressing issue among developers. This includes cell phones, Wi- Fi-enabled digital picture frames, and just about everything else. And when it comes to security, it helps to start with the basics. For starters, information can be exchanged as cleartext, authenticated, or encrypted (Fig. 1). Cleartext...
Connect The Dots Toward Efficient Serial-To-Ethernet Adapter Design
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, when the RS-232 serial protocol was being adapted to the address the demands of electronic terminals and personal computers, few could have imagined that it would become such a standard feature. Thousands of industrial devices were developed based on the RS-232 interface. But for electronic communications, the evolutionary process was already kicking into a higher gear. Today, Ethernet is a well-defined standard for local and...
DMA Engines Bring Multicast To PCI Express Systems
Multicast, a technique commonly used in networking systems, allows a given processing unit to send a single data stream to multiple destinations at the same time efficiently. Typically, the switch employed as the interconnect backbone implements the actual multicast replication function. Because it’s programmable, it can duplicate a given packet to any given device connected to the switch. For example, a server can send a video stream to multiple...
Do You Remember When Today’s MCUs Were Yesterday’s High Tech?
You never know what’s going to show up in your inbox. A recent note from Matt Miller, tooling engineering manager for Commercial Forged Products, spurred a look back. “I have been marveling at the proliferation of incredibly powerful and precise modules of incredible varieties that are available these days. The price is comparatively cheap and, whoa, the bang for the buck is big,” he wrote. “I’d be very interested to see someone do an objective ...
Use Sampled Data Compression In Your ISM Applications
Compression is ubiquitous in consumer electronics. Modern compression algorithms exploit the limitations of human hearing and vision to offer compression ratios from 4:1 for speech and more than 30:1 for video, generating “good enough” audio and video for consumers. While these applications have used compression for years, many industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) applications don’t use it. Many engineers in medical imaging, radar, sonar, test and...
Ray Tracing Poses A Database Problem
Ray tracing is the reason animated films look so good these days and why games still have a way to go when it comes to realism, even with powerful graphics processing units (GPUs). The problem for gamers is that GPUs are rasterization engines, and most games are tuned for that. Cinema-quality animated movies tend to be created using large “render farms” that are network clusters. Caustic Graphics is looking to literally change the landscape by replacing...
RF4CE And Other Wireless Tricks
Wireless design spans a wide range of technologies, including high-end software- defined radio, 802.11 Wi-Fi standards, and tiny 802.15.4-based systems that run off batteries for years or even scavenge power from local sources. Regardless of the technology, the resulting product must pass one or more RF-related approvals. In the U.S., designs must meet the standards of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The list of approval agencies gets longer when...
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