Embedded system engineering magazine 2005.09

<Written by> Dick Selwood </W>

SEPTEMBER: time for everyone to spring back into activity after the late summer bank holiday. And all sorts of good things are happening to make you forget the gloom of abandoning the beach for bench.

Firstly, Green Hills and Wind River have kissed and made up. Or at least they are no longer squabbling and Wind River is going to resume supplying VxWorks in object code to Green Hills, for Green Hills to use with its Multi integrated development environment. The argument didn’t finish up in court and

We have a new buzzword – Device Software Optimisation (DSO). As far as we can gather, what

they all mean is the development (and optimisation) of software for embedded systems

there is apparently no cash exchanged.

However that brings us to another reason for happiness: we have a new buzzword – Device Software Optimisation (DSO). Both Wind River and Green Hills are using the term, and eclipse is running a programme called the Device Software Development Project. As far as we can gather, what

they all mean is the development (and optimisation/optimization) of software for embedded systems. Leading analysts in this area, VDC, seem to think that this is a good thing, and suggests that we might see the DSO conference taking over from the Embedded System Conference.

That is probably not going to happen immediately, and we currently have no plans to change ESS to DSOS. And that is another reason to welcome the autumn: ESS is now only a few weeks away (19 and 20 October at the NEC Birmingham) It is shaping up to being the best ever. On the exhibition floor around 70 exhibitors are already signed up, and new this year is IEE FPGA Developer Zone with Xilinx, Altera, Actel, Lattice Semiconductor, Synplicity, Nallatech, LSI Logic, running in parallel with IEE FPGA Developer Forum. The exhibition theatre programme, with free presentations from leaders in different areas, is nearly finished and offers some very interesting topics. Alongside the exhibition, the conference programmes cover a wide range of topics for the embedded system engineer or device software optimiser. Our preview, later in this issue, covers all the highlights, and you can update yourself, and book you conference tickets or register for the free exhibition on the ESS web site. (www.edaexhibitions.com/ess

A day at ESS will bring you up to speed with all that is new and exciting in the embedded world, so you really can’t afford to miss it. See you in Birmingham! </End>

Face for robots

The Philips iCat, a plug-and-play desktop robot capable of mechanically rendering facial expressions, is being made available at a ‘no profit’ price to universities and research laboratories for research purposes only.

38 cm tall, it is equipped with 11 RC servos and 2 DC motors that control different parts of the face, such as the eyebrows, eyes, eyelids, mouth and head position, to generate many different facial expressions - happy, surprised, angry, sad - needed to make the human-robot interactions social.

As well as a loudspeaker, a camera is installed in iCat's head, each foot contains a microphone and touch sensors and multi-color LEDs are installed in the feet and ears to sense whether the user touches the robot and to communicate further information. The OPPR development software contains the iCat edition of Philips robot animation editor and engine.

www.research.philips.com

NetBSD toaster

Technologic Systems has implemented a functional NetBSD controlled toaster.

It uses a rugged embedded TS-7200 singleboard computers housed inside the empty space of a standard 2 slice toaster half a centimetre away from an 800 watt burner element. The toaster's internal circuit boards are routed through the CPU board allowing the UNIX-like OS,

NetBSD, complete control over the toaster's features. The system has a 4 line LCD, USB keyboard, 10/100 Ethernet port and a RS232 serial port for the external console. It even has USB speakers (through the built-in USB hub on the keyboard) so that it will play MP3's while toasting.

www.netbsd.org

www.embeddedARM.com

Guide to embedded software

Industry pioneer Colin Walls, has written a book, (Embedded Software: The Works) to help embedded design engineers to rise to the challenge of creating software for today’s faster, more efficient and more powerful microprocessors.

Based on a quarter century of design experience, and drawing on other well-known designers in the embedded systems field, it offers seasoned perspectives on everything from exotic memories to USB software.

A CD-ROM contains source code for the realworld examples, PowerPoint slides to create training seminars or classes and various productrelated spec sheets. Colin is also speaking at ESS, on the subject of Building an Entire Embedded System in UML. All proceeds from this book will be donated to LINC Fund, a non-profit organization concerned with leukaemia patients and those undergoing intensive chemotherapy.

www.embeddedsoftwareworks.com

Details of the Cell

IBM, SONY AND TOSHIBA have released technical details of the Cell Broadband Engine architecture, including the Cell Broadband Engine architecture, the Synergistic Processor Unit Instruction Set architecture (SPU ISA) and the Synergistic Processor Unit C/C++ language extensions, application binary interface, and assembly language specifications

The partners hope that this will stimulate the creation of Cell-based applications and establish a thriving community of interest and innovation around Cell, allowing all interested parties to rapidly evaluate and utilize Cell technology.

www.ibm.com/developerworks

http://cell.scei.co.jp

New versions of ARC cores

ARC has released new versions of the configurable ARC 700 processor cores with improved performance in both Dhrystone MIPS (DMIPS) and frequency.

They incorporate RTL improvements in the core's execution pipeline and other critical paths and support high performance standard cell and memory libraries. The flagship ARC 750D core now offers a clock frequency of up to 533 MHz and a Dhrystone DMIPS performance of 813 on a 0.13µm process.

www.ARC.com

Microcontroller for PKE

Microchip is sampling a Flash, 8-bit PIC microcontroller with a 3-channel, low frequency (LF) transponder analog front end and an integrated KEELOQ cryptographic peripheral in a 20-pin SSOP package.

The PIC16F639 is designed for range of security and other general-purpose applications, including automotive Passive Keyless Entry (PKE) systems and Tyre Pressure Monitoring (TPM) systems, property and identity authentication systems, and security systems such as electronic locks, remote security sensors, etc.

KEELOQ technology is based on a proprietary, non-linear encryption algorithm that creates a

unique transmission on every use, rendering code capture and resend schemes useless. A complete PIC16F639-based Passive Keyless Entry Reference Design is expected to be available in September.

www.microchip.com/keeloq

Class D amplifiers

Nippon Precision Circuits (NPC) is now shipping two Class D amplifiers for mobile phone and portable audio applications, the stereo SM6802AB and the compact SM6801AB mono amplifier.

Both are in QFN packages. They have selectable dynamic range compression function (DRC), which automatically tracks the input level in real time and optimises the output to give the best possible sound quality and a pin selectable equaliser function that corrects the frequency characteristics of different speaker types. These features produce high quality sound even from small PC board mounted speakers in systems such as Cellular Phones, PDAs, and MP3 players.

www.npc.co.jp/en

SILICON LABS has entered the frequency control market with the Si530 and Si550 families of oscillators (XOs) and voltage-con- trolled oscillators (VCXOs) for applications up to 1.4 GHz, including the industry’s first quad frequency XO and VCXO devices.

Both families use the company’s DSPLL technology, developed to simplify the clock multiplication and jitter attenuation circuitry required in high-speed telecommunication applications. It replaces multiple discrete PLL components with a single IC that integrates DSP circuitry and an ultra low jitter voltagecontrolled oscillator. Optimising this has allowed Silicon Laboratories to move frequency control and tuning from a complex resonator to a single CMOS IC. This gives, the company claims, frequency stability over time and temperature that is more than two times better than traditional high-frequency, low-jitter oscillators and up to tenfold

improvement in initial frequency accuracy when compared to designs based on traditional high-frequency SAW or crystal resonators. It also eliminates the complex processing steps needed to frequency tune SAW and crystal-based implementations, reducing lead-times from eight weeks to one.

They are likely to be used in applications such as networking equipment, base stations, test and measurement equipment, storage area networks and video systems.

www.silabs.com