ESC 2010 Silicon Valley Wrap Up

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Lynuxworks LynxSecure multicore hypervisor

VIA Technologies ARTiGo A1100

Logic DLP LightCommander Development Kit

The Embedded Systems Conference looked pretty good this year. It was definitely busier and the word on the floor was more engineers and designers were looking for solutions for real projects. I saw at least a dozen new companies hawking their wares.

I'll try to give a flavor of the show in this article but check out our videos from the show as well as those on Engineering TV. We made so many it will be a while before they are all up but you can see what was on display and hear from the experts from dozens and dozens of companies. That list will be more extensive than what I have here since this is a quick memory dump. We have an extensive list of articles for ESC 2010 as well.

In general, there were a number of trends that continue to grow. One is the up take on modules. Keeping abreast of the latest technology is tough but customers are always clamoring for the more performance. Computer-on-modules (COM) address this well and there a a number of form factors out there. Even peripherals are moving to modules with standards such as FeaturePak.

Another area I'll hit on later is what I call Embedded Cloud Computing. This is a top to bottom solution for linking embedded devices to services that run in the cloud without needing a hoard of IT, embedded programmers, and so on.

There were a couple of neat things at the show as well. Logic and Texas Instruments are delivering a DLP (digital light processing) dev kit. DLP is found in rear projection HDTVs and many projectors. The DLP LightCommander Development Kit looks to make the DLP more accessible to developers.

As you may know, I like debugging and debuggers. IAR's new debugging tool targets power management. You need to see the video on this one. Pretty slick demo and very useful as well.

The following is not an exhaustive list of all I saw. As you can see from this list it was a rather busy show. Again, check out the videos. Almost all my meetings were video taped (ok, they used a hard disk) and will be ready for your viewing pleasure now or very soon there after. The vendor's websites will also have more info although you may have to search the news releases since this is the latest.