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Will virtualization save multicore? Will it be the answer to a really secure system? It might. Designed to run on a single core, virtual- machine hypervisors give developers multiple virtual cores. Developers don’t need to care about whether there are enough physical cores available from an application standpoint. Of course, with more cores, you get more run time for virtual cores. But this doesn’t change how the applications are written or how they ...

VIRTUALIZATION MOVES ONTO CUSTOM MICROCONTROLLER Developers using Atmel’s line of microcontrollers based on its ARM-based CAP architecture (see “Chip Twists ARM With Custom Logic” at www.electronicdesign. com, ED Online 15982) can now take advantage of Trango’s Hypervisor virtualization software. CAP’s FPGA-style logic is locked down at the factory before the chips ship, but Hypervisor works on these as well ...

VMM TARGETS HANDSETS VirtualLogix’s VLX for Mobile Handsets targets high-performance cell phones based on the ARM11. The platform can handle realtime operating-system (RTOS) clients as well as OSs such as Linux. The Eclipse-based VLX Developer supports the platform and includes platform configuration and monitoring tools. VIRTUALLOGIX • ...

HYPERVISOR GETS SECURE Green Hills Software’s Padded Cell Secure Hypervisor technology now delivers EAL6+ Common Criteria Security compliance. The technology runs atop Green Hills Software’s Integrity real-time operatingsystem separation kernel. The environment offers multilevel security, even providing trusted paths to shared keyboard and mouse interfaces as well as supoprt for multifactor authentication...

MICROCONTROLLER COMBINES LCD, TOUCHSCREEN SUPPORT Freescale’s Controller Continuum received another bump with the addition of the ColdFire MCF5227x LCD family of chips, based on the V2 core. A V3 version is available with a compatible but different peripheral complement, so the pinout isn’t the same. The MCF5227x includes an LCD controller that handles SVGA displays (800 by 600) and a resistive touchscreen...

VECTOR FLOATING-POINT UNIT SPEEDS ARM9 NXP’s 90-nm, 208-MHz LPC32x0 is based on ARM’s ARM926EJ-S core plus a vector floating-point (VFP) coprocessor. The chip has 256 kbytes of SRAM plus 32-kbyte instruction and data caches. It can handle off-chip SDR and DDR RAM, NAND flash, and an SD memory card interface. Peripherals include 10/100 Ethernet, full-speed USB OTG, a 24-bit LCD controller, and a threechannel, ...

MULTICORE VMM TAMES WINDOWS TenAsys’ new eVM hypervisor allows a range of operating systems including realtime operating systems to coexist with Windows on multicore processors. It takes advantage of the Intel VT virtualization hardware found in Intel chips such as the dual-core and quad-core Core 2 Duo to support platforms such as Linux, QNX, and VxWorks. It can handle multiple cores as well as multiple...

SECURE MCU DRIVES NETWORK APPLICATIONS Applied Micro Circuits’ 500-MHz PowerPC 440EPr incorporates floating-point support and a Turbo Security Engine to manage secure, high-performance network applications. It also can handle protocols like IPsec, STRP, and SSL. The 440EPr has dual Gig Ethernet ports, a 32-bit PCI interface, USB 2.0 host/device with integrated PHY, and a 32-bit DDR2 memory controller. It also...

A recent project for one of the exhibitors at the RoboDevelopment Conference and Expo 2007, held last October in San Jose, Calif., required our company to quickly develop a motion-control system for a tracked robot. This isn’t complicated by any means, using many development tools currently available. In this case, though, the design was implemented using a visual design tool that required no manual coding at all. The goal was simple, and only three...

Back in December, I decided to uninstall the anti-virus software on my desktop computer at home. The computer was taking several minutes to boot up, and when it was finally ready to go, everything ran slowly. Whenever I opened up an Excel file, I had to wait five or six seconds while the anti-virus program frisked it. And then there were the endless popups reminding me to perform hard-disk scans and update the software until I finally got sick of it...

The term virtual prototyping has a nice ring. But it confuses the issue when it’s mixed with virtual machines and virtual memory. All three present a warped sense of reality. Of course, the term simulation also cuts a wide swath. Still, simulation is probably a better definition of today’s discussion on processor simulation. The degree of detail associated with processor simulation can vary significantly. Most designers are familiar with ...

Trango Virtual Processors now supports Atmel’s CAP architecture, blending ARM-based cores with FPGA-style custom logic for production-time configuration. Trango’s Hypervisor runs operating systems in multiple secure virtual machines. It handles real-time operating systems in addition to rich operating environments such as Linux. Trango supplies Eclipse plugins that integrate the runtime platform with the Eclipse IDE. The Hypervisor runs on Atmel’s Starter and...

The Matlab/Simulink environment from the MathWorks gained additional multidomain support with SimScape, which allows designers to specify the physical nature of a system instead of the underlying mathematical equations that define the system. By doing so, Simulink can integrate the physical model into the designer’s domain. Further, SimScape converts models into C code using Matlab’s Real-Time Workshop so the simulation can run models in real time, allowing...

MapleSoft’s Grid Computing Toolbox enables distributed computing using Maple, a WYSIWYG math environment for solving complex mathematical problems and creating rich technical documents. With Toolbox, developers can take advantage of networks of processing nodes that can handle large parallel-processing chores faster. Maple and the Grid Computing Toolbox are integrated with MatLab and Simulink from the Mathworks as well as National Instruments’ LabVIEW. A grid...

A simulation that’s an exact copy of a physical device would be ideal. Barring that, developers can choose from a range of simulation techniques that can replicate a device, allowing details such as timing and physical characteristics to be tracked through simulations that simply execute a program with no real interfaces. Different simulation methodologies provide insight into different aspects of a system. Tradeoffs are normally required to keep the...

Virtutech's Simics 4.0 takes simulation to the next level by running complex, multisystem simulations on multiprocessor hosts. This takes advantage of the multicore server migration. The application programming interfaces (APIs) for integrating thirdparty models is now available, including an improved version of Virtutech’s Device Modeling Language (DML) with improved C/C++ and debugging support. Other enhancements include IPv6 and hot-plug support. The...

The transition to PCI Express (PCIe) continues with Pericom’s PIC9X95x PCIe to serial port bridge chips. Available in two-, four-, and eight-port versions, pricing starts at $5.30. The high-performance 16C950-compatible ports support synchronous rates up to 62.5 Mbits/s. A serial EEPROM interface provides startup configuration parameters. The chips are available in a plastic quad-flat package (PQFP) or a ball-grid array (BGA) package. Drivers for Linux and...

DigitalView's HE-1920 controls large, high-definition LCD thin-film transistor (TFT) displays in rugged industrial and military environments. It supports display resolutions up to 1920 by 1200. Also, it has a wide 25% tolerance for its supply voltage and locking connectors for DVI, VGA, and video inputs. It supports full-screen expansion, PIP, and a 16-bit ITU 605 bus, which lets developers create custom configurations. Pricing for the 179- by 120-mm board...

Encirq’s DeviceSQL 4.0 adds a number of features, including the SQL Probe Tool and the Remote DB Query Tool. Compression adapters can reduce storage requirements by 50%, while new MPHash Lite and MPAVL indexing options can increase system performance. Iterative search support makes in-memory operation more efficient. Encryption support can be applied to data and indices. ...

Freescale’s S08SG16/32 MCU is based on a 40-MHz HCS08 core with up to 32 kbytes of flash memory and 1 kbyte of RAM. It incorporates a local interconnect network (LIN) slave interface as well as SCI, SPI, and I2C with broadcast mode. The analog side has a 16-channel, 10-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with a built-in temperature sensor and an analog comparator that can run in power-down mode. It supports 2.7- to 5.5-V operation from –40°C to 125°C....