New on Embedded.com

Exclusives

Rajiv Mittal, Abhishek Mahajan and Sorabh Sachdeva, Freescale Semiconductor

Minimize leakage power in embedded SoC designs with Multi-Vt cells

Mirit Fromovich, Pete Heller, and Yoav Lurie, Cadence

Get control of ARM system cache coherency with ACE verification

Highlights

Birthday Week

Disappearance of embedded design as we know it?

Editor's Note

Bernard Cole Site Editor Embedded.com

This week the embedded market is showing the effects of continuing national debt problems in Europe and new, self-induced ones in the United States. Microchip is seeing softer demand, MIPS has disappointing quarterly results , Atmel and On Semi sales targets have fallen short and Cisco’s profits are sagging . In addition, IC Insights is lowering its 2011 chip growth forecast due to the weak economy.

Despite the bad news, embedded companies continue to roll out new products, with Microchip launching a PIC32 GUI development ki t, TI introducing a contactless NFC transceiver, NI adding a multicore module to its CompactRIO , and SmartBear releasing a peer review tool.

If you think the best strategy is to keep your head down and plow ahead with your next product design there are a number of technical articles in this issue which may help. In addition to my Editor’s Top Picks – “Managing ARM system cache coherency” and “Minimize leakage in embedded SoC designs ” – article topics include generating C code automatically, PID controller design and prototyping, and troubleshooting RFI EMC problems .

Be sure to read “Birthday Week , ” by Jack Ganssle, his retrospective celebration of the invention of the IBM PC and World Wide Web, as well as “Disappearance of embedded design as we know it? ” my thoughts on the future of this market segment.

Design How Tos

Get control of ARM system cache coherency with ACE verification

In this Product How-Two article, the Cadence authors describe how to use the company's Verification IP solutions framework to implement ARM's AMBA 4 Coherency Extensions (ACE) in embedded SoCs

Minimize leakage power in embedded SoC designs with Multi-Vt cells

The authors describe the use of a multithreshold voltage (Multi-Vt) flow technique that does not require embedded SoC architecture changes and allows a designer to decide when to use Low-Vt cells, which have better timing but higher leakage power, and when to use High-Vt cells which have lower leakage but worse timing.

Open Embedded: An alternative way to build embedded Linux distributions

Nick Lethaby and Denys Dmytriyenko of Texas Instruments provide an overview of the key elements of the Open Embedded Linux (OE) build environment and show how to use them to build and customize Linux distributions.

Automatically generate C code

Speed up designs by using an automated process that generates C code from MATLAB algorithms.

Making embedded processing development easy

Over the next six weeks, we'll introduce you to considerations to aid with embedded processor design. This series is derived from the expertise of embedded processor software experts from Texas Instruments (TI) and is meant to provide an objective view of easing software design.

Rapid Design and Protoyping of Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) Controllers

Model-based design can speed design, tuning, test, and implementation of PID controllers for industrial applications.

Use LED lighting to improve user interfaces in appliances

LEDs, both low-power indicators as well as high-power Lights, can enable an advanced User Interface as well as a high-end look-and-feel for today's smart appliances.

Paralleling of IGBTs and diodes of one power module can push power capability

Understand how this architecture can enhance power and thermal performance

Use an SoC for cost-effective 3D

SoC devices will play an essential role in the universal 3D glasses market as they provide the ability to migrate from the traditional fixed function device to fully configurable devices.

EMC Basics #9: Troubleshooting RFI EMC problems

Understand how to approach the increasingly common RF-based causes of EMC

Is your probing setup good enough to measure DDR3 Signal Integrity?

DDD3 memory interface speeds have been going up steadily and are now approaching 2000 Mbps data rates. DDR4 is also nearly round the corner [6]. At these high data rates, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get good probing solutions which allow performing Signal Integrity characterization. High speed characterization is considered important for silicon based product development cycle. It is needed to understand the limitations of the current generation of DDR interface designs and to gear up our designs for next generations of DDR.

Data security in cloud computing – Part 3: Cloud data protection methods

Part 3 of an excerpt from the book “Securing the Cloud: Cloud Computer Security Techniques and Tactics” briefly reviews data protection methods and any unique aspects that may apply when they are deployed in a cloud.

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

Microchip launches PIC32 board for GUI Development w/o external graphics controller

Microchip Technology Inc.'s new AC164144 PIC32 board is a low-cost, controllerless, graphics PICtail Plus daughter board that enables the development of graphics applications without an external graphics controller.

GE announces micro-holographic storage that supports 500GB disk at Blu-ray speed

The micro-holographic material can support on one disc the same storage capacity as 20 standard Blu-ray discs

Power switches feature current sensing for auto apps

International Rectifier designed its latest high-side intelligent power switches with accurate current-sensing and built-in protection circuits for automotive applications.

TI's new TRF7970A NFC enables faster, easier data transfers

Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) touts their new TRF7970A contactless near field communication transceiver (NFC) as being the lowest power NFC in the industry.

Lanner's newest fanless in-vehicle computer sports dual core Intal Atom, GPS, multiple I/Os

The LEC-5510 in-vehicle computer from Lanner Electronics is designed to be used in all mobile land vehicles, including: construction equipment, semis, cabs, vans, trains and buses.

Multicore module joins the ranks of CompactRIO

National Instruments has expanded its NI reconfigurable I/O (RIO) platform with the addition of the first multicore NI CompactRIO systems and smallest NI single-board RIO devices

Lauterbach TRACE32 now supports MIPS32 M14K

Lauterbach TRACE32 debuggers now support MPS Technologies' MIPS32 M14K andM14Kc processor cores.

SmartBear releases peer review tool to coordinate hardware/software design

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