New on Embedded.com

Exclusives

Juan Gonzales, Darren Etheridge, and Niclas Anderberg, Texas Instruments

Understanding Android's strengths and weaknesses

Highlights

From light bulbs to computers

Editor's Note

Bernard Cole Site Editor Embedded.com

As always, ESC Boston was bursting with rich resources for learning, new product introductions, and news of technology advances. The most interesting news included AMD's embedded graphics processor, , Qualcomm's making Snapdragon available for developers , and Cypress'snew PSoC design tool s.

Products introduced included TI's new 6LoWPAN sub-1GHz solutions, BSquare's Snapdragon development board , LDRA's Simulink code analysis tools , Cypress's Gen 4 touchscreen controllers, and Green Hills Multi IDE enhancements .

Technical content in the classes at ESC was rich and challenging. For a taste, read “Beyond Make files” by Mike Shal and “Real-Time Kernels in medical device development“ by Matt Gordon.

The October Issue of ESD Magazine is ready for delivery. First available on line is “Understanding Android's strengths and weaknesses” by TI's Juan Gonzales, Darren Etheride, and Niclas Anderberg. Columns from that issue include “From light bulbs to computers” by Jack Ganssle and “Estimation interruptis” by Jack Crenshaw, Part Two in a series on estate estimation.

Now that ESC Boston is over, we're already getting cranked up for the next Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose. If you want to participate, read Chris Ciufo's Call for Abstracts in his #include column.

Design How Tos

Understanding Android's strengths and weaknesses

Here are techniques for exploiting Android's strengths and managing its limitations, especially in hard real-time, mission-critical systems.

Transporting bugs with virtual checkpoints

Developers can overcome the issues of reliable bug reproduction and communication of the target state using virtual platform checkpoints. By such mechanisms, any bug can be captured, communicated, and reproduced any number of times, in any location.

In-target embedded software test automation and quality

Meeting the challenge is to find automated in-target software testing tools that can be easily integrated into developers' embedded development environments.

The “Big Thaw” – An Agile Process for Software Certification

To deal with a problem in software certification known as the “Big Freeze” (where all components and tools are frozen in place once a workable design has been achieved) the authors use the “Big Thaw”: continuous monitoring of all activities affected by a change, to keep all artifacts up to date and to preserve the complete system's certifiability.

A new approach to hardware design project management

In which we discover how Methodics has enhanced its ProjectIC solution to address a new wave of needs in complex IC environments…

APIdeology: Application Programming Interface best practices

Best practices in the development and maintenance of application programming interfaces (APIs) dictate that software interfaces do not change once they have been released, with the exception of adding new entry points. So, it's important to design concise, extensible interfaces that can be adapted to survive in an evolving hardware/software ecosystem.

Real-Time Kernels in medical device development (ESC-214)

Micrium's Matt Gordon provides an introduction to real-time kernels with a particular focus on what embedded developers of medical devices will need to know to begin writing multi-task applications.

Beyond MakeFles – Building large-scale C projects (ESC-200)

In this article, Mike Shal, who is teaching a class (ESC-200) at ESC Boston, takes you through the history and processes involved in building C-language make files and discusses why “make” fails its basic promise and what you can do about it.

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

ESC – BSQUARE's DragonBoard for Android dev board features Qualcomm's Snapdragon APQ8060 processor

DragonBoard from BSQUARE Corporation is an Android development platform based on Qualcomm Incorporated's Snapdragon APQ8060 processor.

ESC – Express Logic's NetX achieves near wire speed on Freescale Kinetis processor

Express Logic, Inc.'s NetX TCP/IP stack has achieved 94 Mbps, or 94% wire speed, on Freescale's ARM Cortex-M4-based Kinetis processor, which has a 100-Mbps Ethernet port that enables transfers at up to wire speed.

ESC – LDRA and MathWorks integrate LDRA tool suite with Simulink

LDRA and MathWorks have integrated the LDRA tool suite with Simulink modelling tools. The integration offers independent verification and full traceability of all artifacts – whether requirements, model elements, or tests – throughout all phases of the lifecycle.

ESC – #Parasoft C/C++test has multiple new features

Parasoft Corporation has announced a new release of #Parasoft C/C++test for C and C++ development.

Atmel and Redpine Signals enable ultra-low power 802.11n Wi-Fi for AVR and ARM-based MCUs

Atmel Corporation and Redpine Signals have announced that 802.11n Wi-Fi can be implemented for all Atmel AVR and ARM-based microcontrollers (MCUs) using Redpine Signals' Connect-io-n and n-Link modules, designed to make it easy to integrate Wi-Fi capability for a variety of embedded systems in building automation, metering, digital audio and medical applications.

Cypress Gen4 touchscreen controllers deliver high SNR, fast refresh, zero display noise

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. has introduced a new Gen4 family of TrueTouch touchscreen controllers. According to the company, the Gen4 family delivers the world's highest Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) in real world applications and is the first and only touchscreen IC that delivers built-in 10V Tx to drive the touch panel at 10V.

ESC – Green Hills releases new versions of MULTI Version 6 and Green Hills Compiler Version 2012

Green Hills Software has announced major new releases of its MULTI integrated development environment (IDE) and Green Hills Compiler toolchain. MULTI IDE version 6 and Green Hills Compiler version 2012 are now delivered as stand-alone products that can be independently upgraded.

TI's new 6LoWPAN sub-1GHz solutions deliver mesh wireless Internet connectivity

Texas Instruments Incorporated has introduced new sub-1 GHz 6LoWPAN solutions, aimed at providing a gateway for remote, low-cost wireless sensors to connect to the Internet and a wireless extension of wired IPv6 infrastructures.

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