От: eg3.com Editorial Dept [info@eg3.com]
Отправлено: 16 марта 2005 г. 21:49
Кому: Michael Dolinsky
Тема: Embedded, DSP, Busses, SOC - eCLIPS Best of the Web ...


17 Mar 2005 - eg3.com e-clips
  www.eg3.com/eCLIPS - info@eg3.com

   embedded systems conference - special report...
The Embedded Systems Conference will return to San Jose, California, next Spring. But for those who made the treck up North to San Francisco, this year's show sported hundreds of exhibits, over 10,000 attendees, a new ' ACE ' awards ceremony for excellence in electronics, and a fabulous keynote from Dilbert creator, Scott Adams.

For our e-clips audience of 23,000+ subscribers, here is a 'special report' of the top news from the show. You can also browse all exhibitors as well as news releases online at eg3.com 's special ESC coverage, here .

Authored by: Jason McDonald, Senior Editor, and Yee-Jiun Lai, Editor. Comments to info@eg3.com .

contents:

  • fpgas : progress towards ease-of-use
  • board-level announcements : machine-to-machine & pc/104
  • eclipse and embedded software
  • embedded chips

JTAG Debugger Tantino XScale for Intel XScale Applications
The PXA255 XScale processor uses the v.5TE ARM architecture. With a CPU clock of up to 400 MHz, integrated cache for data and code and a multiplicity of peripheral modules, it is widely used in wireless and portable computing applications. Based on the Intel Media Processing Technology, it supports demanding, low power consumption audio and video decoder applications in Multimedia PDA and Smartphone applications.
    fpgas : progress towards ease-of-use

FPGAs have long been promised the 'next wave' of embedded computing. Not surprisingly, this Spring's show had many FGPA evaluation and production boards that showcased easy-to-use FPGA computing power. National Instruments' CompactRIO, for example, garnered a well-deserved EDN 'Innovation of the Year' award. CompactRIO harnesses the power of FPGAs to the symplicity of Labview as a programming environment. Full release, here .

Both Memec and Avnet made announcements of evaluation kits and/or seminar series designed to make FPGAs easy to use:

And on the practical side, SBS announced the newest member of its TS Series high-performance field programmable gate array (FPGA) computing line. Focused on ' Software Radio ,' the kit uses dual Altera Stratix EP1S80 FPGA computing devices. Software Radio is a hot topic both in the military and commercial space, and because of its intense computing needs, an ideal fit for programmable logic. Release, here .

    board-level announcements : machine-to-machine & pc/104
The show also displayed an impressive array of board vendors, especially in the PC/104 area. WinSystems , for example, threw down the hi-tech gauntlet, announcing its intention to become an important player in the 'machine-to-machine' communication marketplace. To this end, the Texas company announced their PC/104 GPS Receiver and Cellular Modem, which allows easy communication, location-fixing, and time synchronization. These are the nuts-and-bolts of accurate and useful machine-to-machine communication. Release, here ; for more information on 'machine-to-machine,' check out The Focal Point Group .

Both WinSystems and VersaLogic also built on the trend of providing easy-to-use board packages with supporting software. The former released support for Windows CE 5.0 (Release, here ), while the latter announced software development kits that include a free CompactFlash device and are optimized to make Windows XP easy-to-use on its popular Cobra Pentium M processor board. (More information, here .)

Competitors Kontron and Ampro went in a different direction by focusing on the PICMG standard, ' Com Express ,' designed to bring advanced PCI technology to small form factors. Kontron announcement here , and Ampro, here

   eclipse and embedded software
ESC was not a show for bold software announcements. Most of the show 'buzz' concerned the increasing adoption of the Eclipse framework. Wind River , for example, launched a new Eclipse 'project' to improve device software. Release here . Enea also announced that it is joining Eclipse as well. Release, here .

Other vendors had more practical announcements. With respect to Eclipse , Accelerated Technology, Mentor Graphics announced that their Nucleus® EDGE software development environment now supports Eclipse version 3.0. Release, here . QNX , long a leader in supporting Eclipse , announced their new QNX Platform Core Source Kit. The kit simplifies software debugging and troubleshooting by providing visibility into the source code for virtually all system libraries and OS facilities. Release, here . The company also broke new ground in enhancing 2d and 3d graphics for resource-constained embedded systems, joining the 'Khronos Group.' Release, here .

   embedded chips
Surprisingly, ESC was a fantastic show for chip announcements, perhaps because this show was the inaugural 'Microprocessor Summit.' AMD announced a commitment to product longevity, announcing that their Opteron family would be tailored for embedded systems and supported with the long product life cycles required by the industry. Release, here . Fujitsu introduced a new family of microcontrollers developed for network-enabled household appliances, i.e. 32-bit MCUs that incorporate a full range of networking security features, on-board ROM and RAM, and support for IPv6, the next-generation Internet protocol. Release here .

It was a great show for the 'PowerPC/PowerQUICC:'

On the support side, TimeSys announced its 'OnBoard Program,' designed to hasten Linux support for various chip architectures, including the PowerPC. Release here . And SBS announced its PowerPC-based V2S 6U VMEbus-based Single Board Computer (SBC) , targetted at high-end applications such as medical.

Atmel bolstered its ever-popular AVR® by announcing five new high performance, low power AVR Flash microcontrollers . The company also showcased its 'AVR Butterfly ,' development board. The low-cost kit is an excellent introduction to the AVR, available now from distribution. The company also released a low-cost ARM development kit. At $295.00, the AT91SAM7S Development Kit will fit the budgets of cost-sensitive microcontroller designs in applications like remote controls, interface panels and USB accessories. Release, here .

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