小眼睛的健康世界

Intel hosted Intelligent Systems Summit (IISS) 2012 at Taipei International Convention Center (TICC) on October 16th & 17th, 2012 for announcing a major industrial technology shift of embedded systems and industrial PC industry. The mainstream innovative solutions Intel brought in this technology forum include retail, transportation systems, healthcare, manufacturing, and tele-communication sectors.

Rick Dwyer, Vice President of Sales Marketing Group (SMG) Embedded System& General Manager of Embedded Sales Group (ESG) at Intel, gave the opening keynote speech for IISS. He highlighted the intelligent connected systems are all around us in every aspect of our daily life. Rick Dwyer simply cited several intuitive examples. For example, the intelligent vehicle system is able to sense the driver and passengers to provide instant traffic information services, and even preventing dangerous accidents. Another example is it can help the supermarket outlets stores to setup a quickly response of changing digital signage contents according to the different gender or age consumer preferences. This will enable users to enjoy a more personalized shopping experience and a better fit to the needs of people through today's smart, connected, secured and well managed embedded systems.

This kind of new invented forms of embedded systems (or called "intelligent system"), which targeting to fulfill user's needs, gradually transformed the traditional single-purpose and isolated electronic devices into one always internet connected, running cloud applications to gather information and getting assistance of expert systems made by various of Internet of Things websites. The entire new innovation architecture leads us to a new era of secure and full seamless integration to modern enterprise and telecommunication infrastructure.

Besides a greener, more energy-efficient processor chips, Intel technology provides key chipset solutions to integrate intelligent systems and applications, in order to response to the explosive increase of data transactions in the next 10 years. The solid ground for fitting rapid change of internet world will count on four key building blocks, noted by Rick Dwyer. They are secured, managed, connected and interoperated intelligent devices.

Internet of Things focus on exploring values of big data

Several major industrial research reports, coincidentally forecasted that there will be over 15 billion electronic devices connected to the Internet by 2015, where one-third of devices will be intelligent systems. The network consisted by those smart systems is often referred to as Internet of Things (IoT). It is estimated that the explosive growth of this type of business models is not only on behalf of the immense business opportunities, but also introducing many new lifestyle.

In order to simplify and accelerate the process of IoT deployment, Intel announced the intelligent system architecture (called Intel Intelligent Systems Framework). It is the combination of continuous development of interoperability solutions through a consistent and scalable design model, making each device have connected, well managed, as well as secured development environment.

Intel Intelligent Systems Framework will help to shorten development time through a series of hardware and software integration. The most important contribution is to build a standardized and opened platform to help system integrators or application developers easily generating the various solutions. With these solutions, the IoT can explore the values from analyzing the massive amount of information gathering for smart devices.

In the real world, these applications implement the use of analysis of big data covered from different manufacturing industries. The benefits will help enterprises to improve efficiency and productivity. Even more, it helps to create a variety of services that can generate good profits and provide consumers with new and exciting experience.

Another vivid example in the case of modern urban shopping district, chain stores and outlets, the digital signage network will automatically adjust the effective price strategy and promote product contents when the weather report forecasts to have coming rainstorm. These applications will make you turn your life becoming extremely convenient.

Over the next 10 years, Intel outlines a blueprint of future intelligent systems in IISS. There will be a more than 15 billion intelligent devices, 35 Trillion Gigabyte the amount of data storage and analysis, as well as a US$ 3 trillion market created.

IDG News Service - Texas Instruments has partnered with AllGo Embedded Systems to announce a reference design that will allow Android 4.0 tablets to be built for under US$70, the companies announced Wednesday.

The Etab reference design is for a basic Embedded System tablet and employs an aging processor. It calls for a 7-inch capacitive touch screen and is based on TI's Sitara AM335x chip with an 800MHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor. TI announced its first Cortex-A8 chip in 2006.

The $70 cost includes the chip, plastic casing, battery, screen, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and applies when the parts are bought in 100,000-unit quantities.

The reference design is aimed at hardware developers that want to build a custom tablet, or those building embedded hardware for enterprises, such as a bar-code scanners, biometrics devices and control panels.

The tablet design could also be used in the education sector, said Libo He, business development manager at TI.

The design will allow companies to build a tablet in as little as three months, TI and AllGo said.

TI and AllGo are selling the reference design along with a prototype tablet for $999. That includes the hardware layout, schematics, drivers and design, TI's He said.

Hardware makers could potentially turn to Chinese manufacturers and buy Cortex-A8 tablets for less than $70 per unit in volume. But He said paying $999 for the reference design is a good deal because customers also get support and the ability to customize their tablet for specific needs.

Customers also get advice where to buy parts to achieve the low-price point, He said.

Tablets can be harder to build than PCs, with their tightly integrated parts. The costs to build an Etab tablet compare favorably will some Cortex-A8 alternatives, including the Galaxy Tab, which was released in late 2010 and cost $205 to build, according to IHS iSuppli.

Some inexpensive ARM-based boards are also available, including the $35 Raspberry Pi PC, which does not include the outer case. Raspberry Pi Foundation has open-sourced the PC design, publishing the layout, design and schematics for use by enthusiasts.

Like many of those ARM-based boards, the Cortex-A8 processor in the Etab is getting long in the tooth. Many of today's name-brand tablets run the faster Cortex-A9 processor. The Google Nexus 10 tablet introduced this week has the latest Cortex-A15 processor.

TI's chips are used in products including the $199 Amazon Kindle Fire HD. However, TI said recently it would switch its attention with application processors to embedded products.

A new version of IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM announced at ARM TechCon optimizes the compiler boosting execution speed 10 percent, extends integrations, and adds user friendly options.

Santa Clara, CA, November 01, 2012 --(PR.com)-- IAR Embedded System® today announced a new version of its world-leading development tool suite, IAR Embedded Workbench® for ARM® version 6.50. The new version adds expanded integration and new functionality. In addition, enhancements to the optimization technology in the powerful IAR C/C++ Compiler result in even faster code execution.

To make it easy for developers to use device configuration tools alongside IAR Embedded Workbench, IAR Systems has implemented new functionality for adding project connections. Automated integration with Freescale’s Processor Expert Software, Infineon’s DAVE™ code generator, and other device configuration tools enables developers to import files or file packages generated by the tools. IAR Embedded Workbench automatically detects changes in the generated file set.

Providing fast and compact code, the IAR C/C++ Compiler performs multiple levels of optimizations for code size and execution speed, such as loop unrolling and function inlining. The operations performed are global as well as core- and target-specific. By further advancing its compiler technology, IAR Systems has improved the already outstanding results of industry-standard benchmarks by more than 10 percent.

A new display of source browser call graph enables developers to easily navigate through the function call hierarchy. Developers can choose to display all possible calls to or from a selected function with the calls listed in a dedicated Call Graph window. This added functionality provides a good overview of function calls, making it easier to see the relationships between different parts of the application.

In addition, the latest version includes a new License Management System (LMS) that adds features such as commuter licenses, automatic license activation and support for virtual servers. The new LMS makes it easy for customers to administer and manage licenses.

About IAR Embedded Workbench

IAR Embedded Workbench is a complete set of C/C++ compiler and debugger tools with support for all ARM cores, including ARM7/9/11 and ARM Cortex™-M0, Cortex-M0+, Cortex-M1, Cortex-M3, Cortex-M4, Cortex-R4, Cortex-R5, Cortex-R7, Cortex-A5, Cortex-A7, Cortex-A8, Cortex-A9 and Cortex-A15.

Version 6.50 of IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM will be available for customers on November 9, 2012. Visit www.iar.com/ewarm for additional product information.

Editor's Note: IAR Systems, IAR Embedded Workbench, C-SPY, visualSTATE, The Code to Success, IAR KickStart Kit, I-jet, IAR and the logotype of IAR Systems are trademarks or registered trademarks owned by IAR Systems AB. All other products are trademarks of their respective owners.

Editor Contacts
Janice Hughes, Public Relations
Hughes Communications, Inc.
Mobile: (705) 774-8686
E-mail: janice@hughescom.net

Angie Hatfield, Public Relations
Hughes Communications, Inc.
Mobile: (425) 941-2895
E-mail: angie@hughescom.net

IAR Systems Contact
Fredrik Medin, Marketing Director
IAR Systems
Tel: +46 18 16 78 00
E-mail: fredrik.medin@iar.com

About IAR Systems

IAR Systems is the world’s leading supplier of software tools for developing embedded systems applications. The software enables over 14,000 large and small companies to develop premium products based on 8-, 16- and 32-bit microcontrollers, mainly in the areas of industrial automation, medical devices, consumer electronics, telecommunication, and automotive products. IAR Systems has an extensive network of partners and cooperates with the world’s leading semiconductor vendors. IAR Systems Group AB is listed on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm. For more information, please visit www.iar.com

This is a roundup of news or activities in the past few days that may be of interest to people. 

Cadence has announced several verification projects using Verification IP (VIP) for ARM® AMBA® protocols, one of the industry's most widely used verification solutions for the AMBA protocol family. Leading customers, including CEVA, Faraday and HiSilicon have reduced their verification schedules. Cadence has worked closely with ARM to ensure its VIP solutions support ARM CoreLink™ CCI-400 Cache Coherent Interconnect and CoreLink NIC-400 Network Interconnect using the AMBA 4 protocols.

Imperas has released its models of the ARM Cortex-A15, Cortex-R4, Cortex-R4F and ARM1176 processor cores. These models are now available from Open Virtual Platforms™ (OVP™). Support from OVP includes example virtual platforms incorporating the cores, with the processor core models also supported in Imperas’ advanced software development tools. 

LDRA has integrated their tool suite with IBM Rational Rhapsody providing a workflow from model-driven development to test and verification of software. IBM Rational Rhapsody is a UML-based modeling and code-generation tool. Thanks to this integration, developers can access the LDRA tool suite from within the Rhapsody platform to ensure that their generated code complies with industry standards, follows best-practice programming guidelines and is fully tested. 

Proton Digital Systems has announced that Sanjay Srivastava has joined its Board of Directors as Executive Chairman. In this role, Sanjay will focus on driving strategic initiatives for Proton. Prior to this appointment, Sanjay was CEO of Denali and most recently SVP of IP at Cadence Design. While at Denali, Sanjay sold the business to Cadence for $315 million. Proton Digital Systems provides LDPC-based Flash Read Channel IP that drives increased endurance and longevity of Flash Memory. 

Mentor Graphics has announced that its Mentor® Embedded Sourcery™ CodeBench product supports code generation for the Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (QTI) Hexagon™ DSP architecture for control and signal processing. Mentor Graphics is the first vendor to provide a commercially supported GNU toolchain for the Hexagon DSP architecture, supporting a wide range of embedded applications, including microcontroller, signal processing and control applications, along with commercial services to support this product offering. Each Qualcomm Snapdragon processor contains multiple Hexagon DSPs, providing programmable resources for real-time modem and multimedia functions such as gaming, media and user interfaces.

Forte Design Systems has released a new version of its Cynthesizer™ SystemC high-level synthesis. Enhancements, including increased performance and capacity, have been made across the entire tool suite. The latest features include new modeling style support, expanded optimization and analysis capabilities, integration with third-party tools and improvements to CynWare™ intellectual property cores.

XYALIS and KALRAY say that XYALIS GTstyle has successfully addressed the advanced dummy fill challenges of KALRAY's MPPA-256 manycore processor, designed using 28nm process. With its complex process rules from both analog parts requiring dedicated dummy fill procedures and large digital areas with timing and race condition constraints, KALRAY's most advanced manycore processor was a challenging with respect to the layout finishing.

According to the latest NPD DisplaySearch, flat panel display (FPD) manufacturing equipment spending fell 69% Y/Y in 2012 to $3.8 billion—making 2012 the weakest year in history for FPD equipment makers. Despite the challenges facing the FPD industry, including slow demand growth as TV and PC markets mature, 2013 offers hope of significantly improved conditions.

eSilicon is now offering memory compilers targeting the networking and computing markets in TSMC's 28nm and 40nm technologies. eSilicon’s eFlex™ and eFlexCAM™ embedded memory products include ternary content addressable memories (TCAMs) and multi-port register files. These products increase bandwidth with parallel processing for packet forwarding and classification in internet routers as well as in other applications that require high-speed table lookup.  eSilicon’s 28HPM TCAMs can provide performance of up to 1.6 billion searches per second (BSPS) under typical operating conditions and a latency of 1-2 clock cycles. TCAM performance is 800 million searches per second (MSPS) under worst operating conditions.

Jasper Design Automation has two new property synthesis Apps as part of the family of JasperGold Apps. The JasperGold® Structural Property Synthesis (SPS) App is used to detect and eliminate common functional design errors and ensure that code is clean before validation starts. JasperGold’s Behavioral Property Synthesis (BPS) App accelerates verification closure by leveraging both RTL and simulation information to find and fill coverage holes, thereby increasing functional coverage and raising the overall assertion density. Both Apps support SystemVerilog and VHDL languages for maximum flexibility.

Mentor Graphics has announced its next generation Embedded Sourcery™ CodeBench and Sourcery Analyzer products. Developers can now accelerate system debugging, including multiple Linux applications concurrently, by quickly and easily visualizing and analyzing complex software systems. When combining the Sourcery CodeBench and Sourcery Analyzer products, embedded developers get proven, customizable end-to-end development tools that include automatic performance analysis and efficient multi-process debugging to increase productivity.

Space Codesign Systems has version 2.4 of its SpaceStudio™ ESL hardware/software co-design software for SoC embedded systems development. Version 2.4 introduces support for AMP in multiprocessor-based designs in an environment that carries out automated hardware software partitioning. Now, engineers can explore their design options with modern multicore architectures such as the dual-core ARM® Cortex™-A9 processor featured in the latest Xilinx® and Altera® flagship FPGA’s. 

Synopsys has announced that its next-generation Embedded System Discovery™ Verification IP (VIP) for the ARM® AMBA® 4 AXI4™ protocol now offers a Performance Checker capability. This capability enables system-on-chip (SoC) verification teams to analyze and validate SoC performance using metrics established during the system architecture definition process, speeding up the debug of SoC performance bottlenecks.

Uniquify has relocated its corporate headquarters from Santa Clara to San Jose, Calif., to accommodate its rapid growth. The new corporate headquarters is located at 2030 Fortune Drive, Suite 200, San Jose, Calif. 95131. Phone: (408) 235-8810. FAX: (408) 904-7349. Email: info@uniquify.com.

Cadence has announced the tapeout of a 14-nanometer test-chip featuring an ARM Cortex®-M0 processor implemented using IBM’s FinFET process technology. The successful tapeout is the result of close collaboration between the three technology leaders as they teamed to build an ecosystem to address the new challenges from design through manufacturing inherent in a 14-nanometer FinFET-based design flow.

ARM announced the new ARM® Cortex™-A50 processor series based upon the ARMv8 architecture. The series initially includes the Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57 processors and introduces a new, energy-efficient 64-bit processing technology, as well as extending existing 32-bit processing. AEM hopes that this enables their partners to create system-on-chips that address diverse markets, from smartphones through to high-performance servers.

Synopsys has released a new version of their Synopsys Synplify Pro® and Synplify® Premier FPGA synthesis tools. The 2012.09 Synplify releases include new multiple error isolation and incremental fix capabilities. They have added support for Achronix Speedster 22i HD FPGAs and improved the flow with XilinxVivado.

Elliptic Technologies has partnered with Trusted Logic Mobility to create a content protection technology provided through the tight integration of tVault™ HDCP 2.1 with the Trusted Foundations™ security solution on Android tablets. The solution leverages hardware enforced security based on the ARM ® TrustZone® secure hardware architecture, trusted execution environments (TEE) and targets applications such as HD Video-on-Demand, Over-The-Top and IPTV.

Similarly, Xilinx has announced solutions that further extend the Zynq™-7000 All Programmable SoC's use within trusted systems with hardware and software technologies, including on-chip decryption, authentication, ARM TrustZone® architecture, commercial and open source hypervisors, IP cores, and development boards. Collectively, these technologies offered by Xilinx, Xilinx Alliance Program members and the ARM Connected Community® enable systems that must address secure boot, separation and isolation of independent software stacks, information assurance, and Anti-Tamper.

Digital Core Design has introduced the DT8051. They believe that this is the world’s most powerful tiny 8051 available on the market. The complete system with peripherals and the DoCD debugger use 6650 ASIC gates, while the standalone CPU utilizes less than 3k gates.

Meanwhile Cortus has released what they claim to be the world’s smallest 32-bit microcontroller IP core – the APS1. The APS1 has a 32-bit architecture with 16 general purpose registers. The gate count starts at about 6800 gates. In the TSMC 90 nm technology this can be as small as 0.03 mm2 (Dolphin SESAME-HD library).

Exciting software development opportunities exist within this wireless communications specialist based in Cambridge. They seek high calibre Embedded Software or Firmware Engineers for new wireless development projects. You will be developing very low level software in C which will drive the hardware for their market leading radio communications systems.

You will have a very good technical degree (or equiv.), be fully competent in C programming within an embedded / firmware environment with a real appreciation for developing software at the hardware level. Any exposure or a keen interest in RF design is a bonus.

Excellent salary on offer as is a bonus and full benefits package. You will be working in a superb environment surrounded by like-minded Engineers with real opportunities for career advancement.

For more information please Embedded System contact Adrian Wagstaff on 01189 881141 or send an email to adrian.wagstaff@ic-software.com

Key Skills: Software, Firmware, Embedded, C, RF, Analogue, Matlab, WiFi, WLAN, Radio

IC Software - your first contact for Embedded, DSP & Software jobs.