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Exclusives

Bill Graham, Wind River

Best practices: Improving embedded operating system security

Paul Anderson, GrammaTech Inc.

Fixing concurrency defects in multicore design

Sanjay Kumar Wadhwa, Freescale Semiconductor India Pvt. Ltd

High frequency synchronizer design with programmable mean-time-between-failure capabilities

Highlights

Multicore madness

SPI, shoelaces and the future of wireless sensor design

RTI extends publish-subscribe DDS from Mil/Aero into commercial mainstream

Editor's Note

Bernard Cole Site Editor Embedded.com

RTI announced this week that it is expanding into the commercial sector with its new Connext family of tools for publish-subscribe based Data Distribution Service applications in industrial and medical . Other exciting embedded news and product intros include Intel's Cave Creek network processor, an integrated wireless LTC chip from Renesas, TI's five-in-one WiLink wireless radio chip, MediaTek's low end Android development platform, MPEG's nextgen video coding spec, Elliptic's iVault security architecture , Micron's lower power DDR3 DRAM, Kontron's smart M2M industrial platform, and Atmel's LCD TV LED driver.

My Editor's Top Picks this week are “Improving embedded OS security” by Bill Graham, and “High Frequency synchronizer design with programmable MTBF capabilities” by Sanjay Wadhwa. Other technically gritty design topics on Embedded.com this week include dealing with multicore concurrency defects, power supply calibration, wireless M2M network design, and narrowband power line communication. Graham's article , in particular, has a lot of tips about security to keep in mind.

The piece de resistance this week, though, is “Multicore Madness ,” in which Jack Ganssle discusses additional misgivings he has about the use of multicores in embedded systems. If you want to talk it over with him, he will be conducting some classes at ESC Design West , March 26-29 in San Jose, Ca. Early bird deadline for registration is tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 17, for conference passes.

You can save up to $300 on passes if you sign up now, and don't forget that All Access Pass holders will receive a free 10 inch Android tablet . In addition to the traditional spring Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) and exhibition, there will be six complimentary events: the Blackhat and Android Summits, DesignMed, Designing with LEDs, the Multicore Devcon, and Sensors in Embedded Design.

Design How Tos

Best practices: Improving embedded operating system security

Bill Graham reviews some of the security best practices that embedded systems need to pay attention to in their designs, particularly those requiring the use of real time embedded operating systems (RTOS)in mission and safety critical systems used in industrial and medical devices.

High frequency synchronizer design with programmable mean-time-between-failure capabilities

The author describes a high frequency synchronizer circuit with programmable mean-time-between-failure (MTBF) cababilities that is well suited for high frequency clock gating and input signal synchronization applications.

Fixing concurrency defects in multicore design

There are compelling reasons to move to multicore processor designs, but doing so introduces the risk of concurrency defects in the software. Apparently innocent code can harbor nasty multithreading bugs that are notoriously difficult to diagnose and eliminate when they occur. Paul Anderson of GrammaTech offers methods to avoid these problems.

User Interface—The next battlefield–Part 1

Here's a two-part series on user interface (UI), now an important part of the personality of the device. Here's how to build an emotional tie between your product and your consumer.

Narrowband PLC and the power line medium

In this article, Semitech Semiconctor explains that the next few years will determine whether narrowband power line communication (N-PLC) becomes a reliable mainstream technology of the smart grid.

Calibrate a power supply with a digital potentiometer

Understand how to configure, size, and use the digital pot in this common situation

Design networks for wireless M2M applications

Star networks present unique challenges, from managing the number of end nodes, ensuring connectivity, and balancing data from and to the source point. They can benefit from a simpler, more effective solution.

Platform-level electrical systems development for aerospace

In recent years, fatal airplane crashes have brought to light wiring-related failures and alerted regulators to the critical nature of aircraft wiring. In this context, Mentor Graphics Corp. suggests a platform-level process approach.

Next-generation home networking: It's all about cable companies and the set-top box

In order to retain and grow their subscriber base, cable companies and service providers are now taking the lead to deliver the long promised smart, automated home. ZigBee Rf4CE powered remote controls and set-top boxes are the new gateways for controlling home entertainment and smart applications.

SIGNAL CHAIN BASICS #62: Design your own simple I2C industrial interface isolator

Understand how you can build these galvanically isolated circuits with minimal components

Embedded Systems Bookshelf

Excerpts

Embedded Books Reading Room
Bernard Cole's favorite links to book excerpts.

Reviews

Engineer's Bookshelf
Airport fiction blows. A look at books other engineers are reading and why you should read them, too. Recommend and write a review yourself. E-mail Brian Fuller.

Jack Ganssle's Bookshelf
A list of book reviews by Jack Ganssle, contributing technical editor of Embedded Systems Design and Embedded.com.

Max's Cool Beans
Clive “Max” Maxfield, the editor on Programmable Logic DesignLine, often writes about interesting books.

Product News

Kontron announces deployable industrial temp-rated platform for smart M2M applications

Kontron's new ready-to-deploy Machine-to-Machine (M2M) hardware platform, the KontronKM2M806XT, is targeted for applications that must operate in extended temperatures and industrial environments.

Atmel LED Driver enhances LCD TV picture quality, eliminates 3D ghosting

Atmel Corporation has a new family of high-performance 16-string LED drivers with integrated timing algorithms that improve picture quality of LCD TVs by eliminating 3D ghosting and flickering effects.

Resistor-programmed switching regulator IC goes rail-to-rail down 0V, easily paralleled with siblings for more current

Easy-to-use synchronous buck LTC3600 from Linear Technology delivers 0 to 15V/1.5A

Compact gate drive IC simplifies hybrid, EV power train design

High output current drives inverter stage IGBTs and MOSFETs.

Micron launches lower power DDR3 DRAM

Memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc. (Boise, Idaho) has launched a lower power version of the DDR3 type of DRAM under the label DDR3Lm with 2- and 4-Gbit capacity memories.

IR PWM controllers deliver smallest footprint

IR's small digital PWM controllers meet Intel VR12 and VR12.5, and AMD SVI1 and SVI2 specifications, and support multiphase designs from 1 to 8 phases.

Elliptic unveils tVault security architecture for trusted execution environments

tVault Security Architecture from Elliptic Technologies is the company's flagship technology, enabling end-to-end security in connected devices.

News

RTI extends publish-subscribe DDS from Mil/Aero into commercial mainstream

With Connext tool suite, Real-Time Innovations's new strategy is to extend its publish-subscribe Distributed Data Service product line beyond Aerospace and Defense to a variety of industrial and commercial applications and beyond device designers to IT systems developers.

Update: New chip propels Intel into data plane

Intel is sampling Cave Creek, a chip that paired with the latest Xeon aims to win sockets from the likes of Cavium, Freescale and NetLogic in packet processing.

Updated: Renesas rolls integrated LTE chip

Renesas Mobile announced it aims to ship before the end of the year an integrated LTE applications processor, competing with a Qualcomm part slated to ship in June.

TI announces five radio combo chip

Texas Instruments has announced the next generation of its WiLink combo chips, the WiLink 8.0 product family; a collection of 45-nanometer single-chip offerings integrating up to five radios on the same piece of silicon.

Marvell licenses VeriSilicon DSP cores

Marvell Technology Group signed a licensing agreement for VeriSilicon Holdings' ZSP G3 intellectual property cores, including the dual-MAC ZSP800M and ZSP880M synthesizable DSP cores. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Next-gen video codec hits milestone

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