Embedded system engineering magazine 2005.10

Editorial

Editor:

Dick Selwood

E-mail: ese@edaltd.co.uk

Tel: 01962 853781

Consulting Editor:

Martin Whitbread

E-mail: ese@edaltd.co.uk

Managing Editor:

Andrew Porter

E-mail: ese@edaltd.co.uk

Publisher:

Martyn Day

E-mail: ese@edaltd.co.uk

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Stuart Wilkes

E-mail: stuart@edaltd.co.uk

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E D A

P U B L I C A T I O N S

Embedded System Engineering

October 2005

Next Issue: The highlights of ESS2005, programmable logic, and an IP buyers guide.

</Contents>

ESE Magazine October 05

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Editorial comment:

Untangling an embedded web

<Written by> Dick Selwood </W>

WHEN YOU READ THIS, ESS will be in full swing, or even over. Exhibitors, conference speakers and visitors will all be milling around in the NEC for an update on all that’s new in embedded. If you haven’t made it to Birmingham this year, all the highlights will be in the next issue.

Meanwhile life goes on elsewhere in the embedded seem to be a lot of blurring of boundaries. This is caused, in Moore’s Law. For example, FPGAs, previously considered expensive for embedded applications are making a

At the moment you can’t have an FPGA that is cheap fast quently get two out of three. And when you get big, you power; FPGAS now have gate counts that mean that, even troller, there is plenty of real estate to carry out other processors. The big manufacturers are all taking different Processor architectures are springing up all over the SoC/ASIC is coming under severe pressure. The processor leaf out of the FPGA book and are designing configurable

That middle ground between FPGA and ASIC, the bravely promoted, but somehow it looks rather like a coming from al directions. Doubtless LSI Logic and others and explain how the structured ASIC has nothing to fear.

These large programmable devices need designing and this are emerging. The big EDA companies are having to take ticularly as the big ASICs are not as common as they were. are not used to the pricing models that seem acceptable in of NRE is measured in millions.

Another converging area is that of the real time language deal of positioning talk from marketing teams, (What is real Is your hard real time my slightly soft real time?) But there is a main stream, with determined teams pushing to get Linux, real time. And the boundary between open source and (apart from “proprietary is what you pay for.”) MontaVista Wind River is embracing, or consuming, eclipse and Green Linux.

Yet another being

worlds, tools ple, are

ucts are a are very short

The

be expanding, interface same interface

used to design it.

So, these are some of the threads to be tugged at ESS to see what unravels. I will report back to you what does unravel and what became even more tangled. <Ends>

</News - Industry>

ESE Magazine October 05\

Industry

PC/104 Design Contest

THE PC/104 CONSORTIUM’S Fourth Annual Embedded Design Contest is accepting entries. The contest is for designs using PC/104, PC/104Plus, PCI-104, EPCI, or EBX technology in three categories: Commercial for Industrial/ Medical/Transportation/Other, Commercial for Military/Aerospace, Research Project.

The winners of each category will be flown to San Jose, California for the awards ceremony at the 2006 Embedded Systems Conference. The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2006.

www.pc104.org/contest/ contest_2006.html

Arcom giveaway

THIS SUMMER Arcom has given away over £3,000 in prizes to web site visitors. Prizes included Intel PXA270 based HP2415 Ipaqs, U2 special edition iPods and Arcom 256Mb USB memory sticks.

www.arcom.com

Green Hills in Boeing 787

GREEN HILLS’ INTEGRITY-178B operating system has been selected for multiple flight-critical systems to be deployed aboard the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, including flight control electronics, which includes the autopilot and the fly-by-wire, the surveillance system, which warns the pilot about traffic, collision avoidance, terrain, and weather and the vibration and health monitoring systems for the jet engines

www.ghs.com

New research centre

IMEC, the Belgian R&D institute and TNO, from the Netherlands have established The Holst Centre, a new research centre.

It will be at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, the Netherlands and will initially have 75 staff. IMEC will lead a wireless autonomous transducer solutions initiative and a system-in-foil research and development initiative will be managed by TNO.

The centre is named after Gilles Holst, a Dutch pioneer in research and development and first director of Philips Research.

www.imec.be

For a more detailed look at these stories please visit

www.esemagazine.co.uk

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<News - Chips>

ESE Magazine October 05

Chips

MicroPak Hi-Speed

USB 2.0 switch

FAIRCHILD SEMICONDUCTOR’S FSUSB23 is a single-port USB 2.0 “HiSpeed” (480 Mbps) analogue switch in a MicroPak chip scale package (CSP).

It is designed for cell phone use, with packaging at 1.6 mm x 2.1 mm, power consumption less than 1uA and bandwidth up to 720 MHz. Additional applications for the FSUSB23 include PDAs, MP3 players, digital cameras and laptops, while a 16-terminal DQFN package is for notebooks and other larger portable applications.

www.fairchildsemi.com

Stereo codec

CIRRUS LOGIC has introduced the CS4270 codec. It is designed for entryand mid-level applications such as set-top boxes, digital television, DVD recorders, audio/video receivers, music instruments and automotive audio systems.

A multi-bit Delta Sigma architecture provides high quality analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog data conversion with 24-bit resolution at any standard digital audio sampling rate up to 216 kHz.

www.cirrus.com

Ultra-low power CMOS logic

PHILIPS has introduced its family of Advanced Ultra-low Power (AUP) CMOS logic, with more than 55 new products available in two package options, PicoGate and MicroPak. They are designed to extend battery life in devices such as cell phones, PDAs, digital still cameras and video players.

The family has single, dual and triple gate functions housed in a 5-, 6-, and 8-pin packaging. Translation functions enable designers to easily interface between different voltage systems. The newest MicroPak technology provides 0.35mm lead spacing.

www.philips.com/logic

For a more detailed look at these stories please visit

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Lead free AMD / Spansion Compatible NOR Gate Flash with a price advantage!

<News - Chips>

ESE Magazine October 05

Microcontrollers

MagnaChip has launched a family of 8 bit flash MCUs, with 4K, 16K, 24K and 48K flash memory versions.

They are designed for white goods, such as air conditioners, washing machines and microwave ovens and are in a wide range of package types from 16 pin to 64 pin. In System Programming is through UARTS, and they support 10bit ADC.

MagnaChip is distributed in the UK by recent start-up Adaptive Silicon Ltd.

www.adaptivesilicon.co.uk

Ultrasound front end

Analog Devices is introducing a quad variable gain amplifier (VGA) and two quad analogue-to-digital converters (ADCs) to improve image quality in advanced medical ultrasound equipment. The new components, while available separately, together provide a complete, optimised analogue front end.

ADI claims that the front end increases dynamic range and image resolution in ultrasound equipment, and reduces package size, perchannel power consumption and bill of materials costs.

The AD8334 quad VGA has a 101-dB SNR at 5 MHz and an input-noise voltage level of only 0.74 nV/rtHz. The 12-bit AD9228 and 10-bit AD9219 quad ADCs are available in both 40and 65-MSPS speed grades and achieve a 70-dB SNR and 82-dB spurious free dynamic range.

www.analog.com

Ethernet transceivers

National Semiconductor has introduced the PHYTER family of application-specific 10/100 physical layer Ethernet transceivers.

The PHYTER commercial (DP83848C) trans-

The PHYTER extreme (DP83848YB) transceiver provides Ethernet connectivity up to 150 meters of cable reach in extreme temperature environments. National guarantees that every unit shipped is IEEE 802.3u specification-com- pliant from -40° C to 125° C. It is for networking components in harsh factory and system environments, such as engine blocks or motor controls.

www.national.com

Single chip for batteries and power

TI has announced a high-performance power conversion IC with "smart charging" capability that incorporates all essential power transistors onto a single device.

The TPS65800 power management unit integrates several power control building blocks, including two synchronous step-down DC/DC converters with integrated FETs, one boost DC/DC converter for white LED display backlight, an RGB LED driver, seven linear regulators (LDOs), a high-performance analog-to- digital data converter, SIM card and RTC power supplies and an I2C communications interface that allows full programmability of the TPS65800. In addition to the power regulation blocks, the device applies TI's linear charge and system power path management technology for Li-ion batteries using integrated charge FETs.

It can power the system while independently charging a one-cell Li-ion battery from either a

High res image sensor

MICRON has launched a 5-megapixel and a 3.1-megapixel CMOS image sensor. The 5- megapixel sensor is designed for use in either digital still camera or camera phone applications, while the 3.1-megapixel sensor is specifically for camera phones.

They are equipped with Micron’s proprietary DigitalClarity technology, which outputs sharp, clear and vibrant images while extending a device’s battery life. The sensors use a 2.2

USB or AC/DC wall adapter power source - without any external power components. Advanced battery management technology intelligently charges the battery and accurately measures its capacity.

www.ti.com

TouchWake For

WirelessUSB

Cypress has added a new feature to its WirelessUSB radio-on-a-chip devices that instantly wakes a peripheral from sleep mode when a user touches the device.

TouchWake extends battery life by allowing a WirelessUSB peripheral to enter an ultra-low- power sleep mode immediately after usage, and offers the ease and responsiveness of a wired peripheral with its instant wake capability.

This replaces a motion sensor, a button or a switch to wake a peripheral from sleep mode.

www.cypress.com

4 million-gate rad-tolerant FPGA

Actel’s RTAX4000S is a four million gate antifuse-based FPGA for space applications requiring high gate counts. These include satellite payload systems, such as data processing applications in communications, and earth observation and scientific satellites.

They have four million system gates (500K ASIC gates), an I/O count of 840 and 540 Kb of embedded memory and embedded RAM with error detection and correction

A packaged version of the RTAX4000S that is not flight worthy will be available for customers to test and validate their designs.

www.actel.com

microns square pixel size, for small form factor. The MT9P001 is a 5-megapixel, 1/2.5- inch optical format and shoots 12 fps at full resolution. An on-chip, 12-bit ADC delivers high quality raw image output. The MT9T012 is 3.1-megapixel, 1/3.2-inch optical format that shoots 15 fps at full resolution and up to

30 fps in preview mode.

www.microntechnology.com