New on Embedded.com

Exclusives

Jeff Parsons, Raima

Building a C++ interface for your embedded DBMS

Zulki Khan, NexLogic Technologies

Assuring PCB reliability by building in additional tolerances

Michael Yu, Nexlogic Technologies

Taking on the 0.3 mm ultra-fine pitch device challenge in PCB design

Highlights

The price of tools

UDP and the embedded wireless Internet of Things

Where are the jobs?

Editor's Note

Bernard Cole Site Editor Embedded.com

Reports on the dismal state of the economy are still rolling in, including Future Horizon's prediction of 1% growth in global chip sales in 2012 , a precipitous drop from their earlier prediction of a 9% growth. Given the market conditions and the uncertain new job prospects that result, it would be wise to read “Where are the jobs? “, in which Junko Yoshida promotes the EETimes Silicon60 report on startups and the jobs they create.

Despite the gloomy market news, tech companies are forging ahead with new breakthroughs for embedded developers to consider, In particular, IMECrolled out a range of technology building blocks including a 11 nm nonvolativle Resistive RAM, a single chip ultrawideband wireless device, and an SiGE-based a pizeoresistive pressure senso r.

A number of product introductions that should help in your present design projects, include: Altera's Arria 5 FPGA/dual core ARM Cortex A9combo, Plessey's electric potential sensor, Micron/Samsung's hybrid DRAM/Logic combo, Memoir's programmable memory IP , Mentor's Sourcery Codebench IDE, and Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 mobile processor

But the news that could change the way embedded systems are designed is the agreement between IBM and Crocus that may allow the creation of completely nonvolatile SoCs with Crocus's magnetic logic and IBMs magneto-resistive MRAMs. Such a development would make it possible to save the complete state of a system without loss of information, changing significantly how we think about low power, reliability and security.

Jack Ganssle's column this week is “The price of tools “. Also check out my column “UDP and the embedded wireless Internet of Things . ”

Design How Tos

Building a C++ interface for your embedded DBMS

In this Product How-To article, Raima's Jeff Parsons describes the procedures he went through to build a C++ interface for the company's RDM Embedded 10.1 DBMS.

Assuring PCB reliability by building in additional tolerances

In many cases, developers of high reliability PCBs overlook key steps at in their design, fabrication, and assembly in order to save time and money, and get a project out the door on time. Here's how to achieve all three and still achieve high reliability through attention to board tolerances.

Taking on the 0.3 mm ultra-fine pitch device challenge in PCB design

To deal with the printed circuit board design challenges of nextgen nanometer circuits and the demanding packaging constraints of small footprint mobile & embedded apps, Nexlogic's Michael Yu thinks the answer boils down to carefully crafted PCB design, fabrication, and assembly guidelines.

The importance of sustainability in design engineering

Carbon, energy, water, and waste data embedded during the design phase has more to it than simply good environmental stewardship. Design engineers can use global standards and trends in sustainability to get electronics projects off the ground, and drive accelerated development.

Agile hardware development – nonsense or necessity?

Software developers have largely accepted methodologies, such as Agile development, but there is nothing comparable in the hardware domain…

Minimizing yield fallout by avoiding over and under at-speed testing

In this article the authors discuss the problems associated with SoC at-speed testing such as over-testing and under-testing, which affect yield, and provide suggestions on how to overcome them.

Validating your GNU platform toolchain: tips and techniques

Open-source tools for your open-source Android/Linux platform.

Addressing the new challenges of ASIC/SoC prototyping with FPGAs

This article considers various solutions that can be used for functional SoC verification and software development; in particular S2C's FPGA-based hardware prototyping platforms are discussed.

Design security yields secure FPGAs for mil/aero applications

Developing secure FPGA platforms requires understanding methods of attack and designing in countermeasures that guard against tampering.

Meet the SERDES challenge: Design a high-speed serial backplane

Having high-frequency design tools resident on a VNA streamlines design and addresses the SERDES challenge.

Call for Abstracts, ESC Silicon Valley

Click here for Call for Abstracts.

Calling all embedded systems engineers! Teach other engineers about embedded systems design techniques at the Embedded Systems Conference, Silicon Valley 2012. Click here to see the ESC SV 2012 tracks . September 30th is the submission deadline.

Product News

TI launches PLC dev kit and PLC data concentrator for Smart Grid apps

TI has introduced the new PLC Development Kit (TMDSPLCKIT-V3) and the PLC data concentrator reference demo on the Smart Grid Infrastructure (SGI) evaluation platform.

TI SIMPLE SWITCHER nano modules and nano regulators pack powerful punch in small space

Texas Instruments Incorporated has introduced four new SIMPLE SWITCHER power management integrated circuits for space-constrained point-of-load designs in industrial, communications and automotive applications.

Startup Memoir Systems makes memory performance programmable

Memoir Systems offers intellectual property (IP) to wrap around standard memory products in order to boost performance.

STMicro transistors aim for wireless systems

STMicroelectronics has announced the LET family of RF power transistors for applications such as government communications, private mobile radio as used by emergency services, and L-band satellite uplink equipment.

Capacitive sensor conditioning IC raises the bar on accuracy, linearity, and temperature

This low power capacitive sensor conditioning IC from ZMD supports broad range of sensor type and gives engineers cost-efficient component option for sensor designs.

Offline LED driver dims to zero-light intensity without flicker

Universal input (90VAC to 265VAC) lets the MAX16841 LED dimmer from Maxim Integrated Products operate with international dimmer models, which saves design time and costs.

Audio SoC debuts with ARM technology

Nuvoton Technology's latest ChipCorder device brings 32-bit ARM Cortex performance to wide range of industrial, consumer audio applications.

Mentor's new Sourcery CodeBench IDE is based on GNU toolchain

Sourcery CodeBench from Mentor Graphics Corporation is a next-generation integrated development environment (IDE) based on the open source GNU toolchain.

Fujitsu selects Wind River FAST for Android testing

Fujitsu Limited is using Wind River Framework for Automated Software Testing (FAST) to test its next-generation Android smartphones for software quality, performance, and compliance.

Cypress CapSense Express provides 4 x 4 matrix system for keypad apps

The CY8CMBR2016 controller from Cypress Semiconductor Corp. enables designers to implement capacitive matrix button systems of up to 4 x 4 buttons without having to write firmware or learn new software tools.