Software Integration Makes Life Easier

Feb. 17, 2003

A number of companies now offer integrated software solutions, giving designers various options to meet time-to-market goals. Bundling integrated software packages is becoming more prevalent as developers try to cut corners to reduce...

William G. Wong

A number of companies now offer integrated software solutions, giving designers various options to meet time-to-market goals.

Bundling integrated software packages is becoming more prevalent as developers try to cut corners to reduce time-to-market. The trend is apparent in microcontrollers with the combination of Cygnal Integrated Products' (www.cygnal.com) C8051F124DK 8051-based development kit and CMX Systems' (www.cmx.com) CMX-MicroNet.

These combinations are old hat for outfits like Z-World (www.zworld.com) and Ubicom (www.ubicom.com). Z-World's RabbitCore development kits include all of the development tools, including a C compiler. Ubicom's IP2022 Advanced Wireless Kit adds software, such as a user interface generator and a firmware configuration tool, which gets developers up and running almost immediately.

Board and chip vendors aren't the only ones getting into the act. Major real-time operating-system (RTOS) vendors like Wind River (www.windriver.com) and Green Hills Software (www.ghs.com) have made major efforts to deliver integrated and tested solutions for large embedded projects. For example, Green Hills Software's TotalDeveloper targets groups of developers. This one-stop-shopping approach will benefit organizations that don't mix and match tools.

Wind River's Platforms line provides complete RTOS and tool suites for various environments, such as portable devices. The company's Board Support Package (BSP) resource center Web site lets developers quickly locate tools and a BSP using criteria like processor architecture, board vendor, or target market.

Hopefully, increased integration will lead to more, not fewer, choices.

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

You can send press releases for new products for possible coverage on the website. I am also interested in receiving contributed articles for publishing on our website. Use our template and send to me along with a signed release form.

Check out my blog, AltEmbedded on Electronic Design, as well as his latest articles on this site that are listed below.

You can visit my social media via these links:

I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence.