Don't expect the same old stuff at the 2007 Embedded Systems Conference, scheduled for April 1-5 at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, Calif. This year's show will be virtually bursting at the seams, with many vendors setting up shop outside the main exhibit hall. Vendors seem to be cautiously optimistic, now that issues like the European Union's Restrictions on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) are being addressed and the latest standards-based technologies like Serial ATA (SATA) and PCI Express are commonplace. In fact, this optimism has triggered the return of numerous exhibitors and attracted a host of new vendors.

Read more...

	ESC VIDEO
Lantronix Altium Avnet
	ESC NEWS
ESC 2007 San Jose: Day 1 Al Gore won’t show up for another day yet but the San Jose convention center is still buzzing with activity and quite a number of people running between technical sessions. There is some activity in the press room where I setup shop. I get to the show a little early so I can meet with the flood of vendors. Research Aims To Improve Dynamic Behavior Of Embedded Systems Embedded systems operate under increasingly dynamic conditions. They must support unpredictable interaction with users or with the environment... Light Sensor ICs Fortify LCD Backlighting The company’s family of analog and digital Ambient Light Sensor (ALS) ICs for controlling LED backlighting in LCD-equipped devices employ a proprietary trimming process... PoCL Frame Grabber Supports 64-bit Addressing The PCIe-CPL64 frame grabber supports the power over camera link (PoCL) standard and 64-bit applications... 45-nm Devices Invade Next-Gen Comm Systems Responding to demand from wireless infrastructure equipment manufacturers targeting advanced 3G and 4G systems, the company is quickly ramping up the availability... CompactPCI SBC Enlists Latest Dual-Core PowerPC The CPCI6200 CompactPCI single-board computer (SBC) supports an MPC8572 PowerQUICC III dual core processor that enables both asymmetric and symmetric... Virtualization Enhances Secure Networking Platform Heralded as a major enhancement to the company’s Platform for Secure Networking, additions that include secure virtualization and new reference platforms enable... Java Environment Packs Total Software Package For JTAG-Based Testing The company’s Java Board Test Environment consists of the free Eclipse development environment, using the latest Ganymede release, the latest JRE from Sun Microsystems... I/O Module Provides 16 TTL/LVTTL Digital I/Os Designed for expanding capabilities on Pico-ITXe single board computers, the Pico-I/O Model PICO-DIO16RO8 provides 16 TTL/LVTTL digital I/Os and eight form... USB Module Provides 96 Or 48 Digital I/Os Debuting as the company’s highest density USB module to date, the Model USB-DIO-96 includes 96 or 48 industrial strength TTL digital I/Os and is hot-pluggable... Board Adapts USB To Serial Comm Ports Embarking as the next-generation of serial communications adapters, the Model USB-FLEXCOM4 offers a choice of four field-selectable RS-232, RS-422, or RS-485 protocols per port... RISC SBC Offers Wealth Of I/O The SBC-R9 single-board computer (SBC) delivers RISC computing power combined with a comprehensive set of I/O in a compact footprint... Interface Standard Makes Next-Gen COMs More Reliable, Easier To Use The Small Form Factor Special Interest Group (SFF-SIG) unveils Computer On Module Interconnect Technology (COMIT), a unique form-factor independent, Computer-on-Module (COM) interface standard... Micro Battery Uses Ambient Energy To Power Wireless Sensors The Micro Power Module (MPM) from Infinite Power Solutions provides continual power to micro-systems such as embedded wireless sensors. Unlike other rechargeable battery solutions, this module can be combined with ambient energy harvesting to supply maintenance free... C/C++ Software Manages Code Verification, Reuse, And Error Prevention The Management Information System (MIS) from Programming Research Group (PRQA) provides management of C/C++ analysis to software developers. MIS is designed to improve code reuse and error prevention for development projects... CompactPCI Processor Blades Support Dual Independent Displays Designed for the industrial computing market, the cPCI-3965 and cPCI-6965 series of high-performance CompactPCI processor blades in 3U and 6U heights are based on the Santa Rosa platform and feature the Mobile Intel GME965 Express chipset... Actel Offers Free ARM Cortex-M1Training On Tuesday March 31 from 2:30 to 4:00 PM, Actel will be offering a free training session at the 2009 Embedded Systems Conference in the form of an in-depth, hands-on session showing designers... 802.11 b/g Radio Module Enlists Gainspan SoC Deemed the first RFM RF module to integrate the Gainspan GS1010 SoC, the WSN802G 2.4 GHz IEEE 802.11 b/g radio transceiver module enables OEMs to build low-power WLAN and sensor monitoring... Design Competition Seeks Green Solutions Using iDigi wireless development kits for their designs, contestants are challenged to develop green solutions for the company’s green design contest to promote the development of sustainable applications... Development Kits Speed Wireless Apps To Market Promising speedier development cycle, the three latest iDigi development kits employ the company’s iDigi platform, a platform as a service that reportedly makes it fast, easy, and inexpensive to develop wireless applications... 5V NOR Flash Augments Automotive/Embedded Designs Extending the company’s line of NOR flash memory, the Axcell M29F flash memory consists of 5V devices that suit both automotive and embedded applications... I/O Modules Add Greater Functionality For expanding the measurement communication capabilities of the company’s single-board RIO embedded control and data acquisition devices, the C Series consists of 15 I/O modules that... Software Opens LabVIEW FPGA To C Programmers A unique programming interface promises to make it easier for C/C++ developers to take advantage of the LabVIEW FPGA Module and FPGA-based hardware for embedded control and acquisition applications. With the C Interface to LabVIEW FPGA... Touch Screen Development Kit Packs HTML Compiler, Graphical OS For implementing interactive, touch-screen graphical user-interfaces (GUIs) in unique or legacy systems, the STK-480272C GEM development kit is based on the AGB75LC04 plug-and-play interactive Color GUI IC... Altera And National Semiconductor Double Team Automotive Video Apps Graphics interconnect solutions being jointly developed by Altera and National Semiconductor address the growing use of digital video in automotive infotainment and driver-assistance applications... WI-FI Sensor Module Enables Five-Year Battery Life The WSN802G 802.11 b/g sensor module is the company’s first RF module to integrate the GainSpan GS1010 system on chip, reportedly the lowest power Wi-Fi chip solution on the market today... SBC Revives Legacy EBX Market Hoping to extend viability of the EBX form factor for as long as 10 more years, the LittleBoard 735 EBX SBC based enlists Intel’s 1.6-GHz Atom N270 processor... SBC Sets Efficiency Standard As per the company, the CoreModule 730 represents the biggest architectural innovation in small form factor rugged SBCs since the PC/104 bus and, via ultra low power Intel Atom 1.1-GHz Z510 and 1.6-GHz Z530 processors... Tools Accelerate Multi-Processor SoC Designs The company has unveiled a suite of tools and methods that promise optimize the mapping of applications on embedded multiprocessor system-on-chip (MPSoC) platforms... Low Cost ARM Development Kit Need to get started developing on an ARM? For $99, iSystem AG has the package for you. The iF-DEV kit includes everything you need to get started. The small target board contains an ARM-based NXP LPC2138 microcontroller along with a USB-based JTAG debugger. Power to the target is provided by the JTAG’s USB interface. Fast Java Want fast Java programs? Then start with Aonix’s All-Java solution. It is especially good in hybrid environments that mix Java and C. In fact, replacing C code with Java executing in Aonix’s PERC Pico environment may actually result in significant performance advantages. Chasing D’bug Wind River had a lot on its tables, including new and improved debugging support for its Eclipse-based Workbench. Some of the enhancements in version 2.6.1 include expanded debug support for the 2.4 and 2.6 Linux kernels and Wind River’s Linux 1.4 along with faster edit, compile debug workflows. Cars And Whiteboxes Fujitsu delivers solutions to a wide variety of applications but two major ones are the automotive space and consumer appliances. It has quite a number of new announcements and products on display but I will just touch on a couple of the more interesting ones. Quad V, Quad Core, Hot Bike Intel’s big announcement at the show was its Quad-Core Intel Xeon Processor 5300 series, targeted at the embedded space and complete with long-term support. The E5335 and E5345 chips double the processor density of their older dual-core brethren. Fanless EBX Goes RoHS VersaLogic’s Python EBX single board computer draws less than 5W. The fanless motherboard sports a low power LX 800 processor from AMD. The board supports VersaLogic's new SPX expansion interface that allows users to add a wide-range of low-cost I/O options to the platform. It also supports stackable PC/104 Plus expansion. Mini-ITX Mobo Bundles HDTV Encoder Not surprisingly, VIA Technologies was showing off its plethora of Mini-ITX and Nano-ITX motherboards including the new 1.5GHz EPIA EX15000G and fanless 1GH EPIA EX10000EG. They both run the C7 x86-compatible processor along with the VIA CX700M2 chipset. ESC 2007 San Jose: Day 2 Al Gore was a big hit as the keynote speaker today at the Embedded Systems Conference. I took six pages of notes, but I doubt I’ll be able to present it as eloquently or humorously as former Vice President and “recovering politician” Gore did. Hopefully, CMP will post the presentation online. Photos and recording devices weren’t permitted.... Two ARMs, Two ARMs Actually that is two ARM high-speed buses (AHB) that are found in NXP’s new LPC2478 and LPC2470 microcontrollers. These ARM7-based solutions balance high performance peripherals with multiple buses allowing the processor and DMA to operate concurrently. Kicking Cortex The Stellaris LM3S811 is Luminary Micro’s midrange ARM Cortex microcontroller. Another 32-bit Core Goes On A Diet Putting out a new 32-bit microcontroller architecture is not something vendors do every day but last year Atmel introduced the AVR32 line of microcontrollers. The first version targeted the high end of the spectrum. At this year’s ESC, Atmel is working to fill in the other end of the spectrum. ZigBee For Under $5 Jennic is looking to make a splash with its JN5139 wireless microcontroller that can lead to wireless sensor network modules with a bill of materials (BOM) for well under $5. This includes also the cost of a high performance PCB antenna design and all support parts. The reference design they were showing off at ESC provides excellent RF performance with a range in excess of 1Km. 16-bit Microcontroller Packs 64 Kbytes of Flash in a 28-pin Packages Microchip’s dsPIC and PIC24 line of 16-bit microcontrollers has become every popular even as some concentrate on 8- and 32-bit product lines. Well, there are plenty of applications where 16-bit microcontrollers are the best solution and the latest from Microchip expands this area. A Small .NET Makes A Big Catch I’ve written about Microsoft’s new .NET Embedded platform before but it is now out of beta and shipping. Microsoft’s booth had the usual collection of related vendors but the number talking about this particular platform was impressive. Get Your Wireless Embedded Kits Here Kits and modules can give you a jump on the competition especially when you can get them ready to go from Digi. Their Digi JumpStart Kits can handle Linux, Windows CE Embedded 6.0 and NET+OS. NET+OS is now supported by the Eclipse-based Digi ESP integrated development environment (IDE). Long Life For COM Express The 2007 Embedded System Conference starts with technical session and lots of meetings for Technology Editor Bill Wong. Check out some of the products he saw on the first day.