QNX Software Systems Featured White Paper: OS Partitioning for Embedded Systems

Embedded systems need to be secure, connected, and upgradable; they must also deliver fast, predictable response times under all operating scenarios, including failure conditions and system upgrades. With guaranteed CPU cycles, Adaptive Partitioning addresses these challenges even when the system experiences a heavy processing load or a denial-of-service attack. Download this white paper today!

The promise of FPGAs for practical embedded design took a great step forward last year when Australian EDA vendor Altium announced Altium Designer 6.0. This exciting product promises to integrate board- and FPGA-level system design, embedded software development for FPGA-based and discrete processors, and PCB layout, editing and manufacturing within a single design environment. The bottom line is that Altium hopes to bring FPGA design to the masses, and to unify this design with PCB layout. Release here.

The major FPGA vendors themselves are of course eager to make FPGAs easy-to-use, and the compliment (or complaint) is often made that they provide 'free' tools themselves. For example,

• Xilinx provides tools such as 'Platform Studio (optimized for embedded design) and System Generator for DSP (optimized for DSP);
• Altera provides Quartus II, with two specific platforms of interest - 'SOPC Builder' (for embedded, IP-based design) and 'DSP Builder' (for DSP); and
• Quicklogic competes with its Quickworks integrated development environment.

In each case, the good and bad news is the same: the tools are tightly coupled to the hardware. No surprise that each vendor attempts to 'lock you in' to their specific products! This works great if you begin your design already in love with Altera or Xilinx, but not so great if you would rather postpone your FPGA choice until later in the design methodology.

Is this the cart before the horse? Altium thinks so, and its new 'Designer 6.0' hopes to allow designers the flexibility of approaching the design from a more system level, and choosing the FPGA vendor at a later phase (not to mention being more easily able to switch FPGAs as well). Mentor Graphics agrees, and that leading EDA powerhouse seeks to make FPGA design both easy-to-use and independent of any particular hardware. Details here

Other interesting FPGA development tools include:

• Parallax Stratix SmartPack - development boards for Altera's Cyclone and Stratix designed to make these FPGAs both easy-to-develop and deployable in real products;
• Impulse C™ - a product which allows C-language algorithms and applications to be compiled and optimized for use with FPGAs;
• Celoxica System Design Tools - software tools designed to move easily from C to FPGA designs, including one specifically for 'Software-Defined Radio'; and
• Active HDL from Aldec, designed for both FPGA and ASIC design and verification.

Texas Instruments' Devcon, just concluded in Dallas, projected three important developments for DSP and communications designers. The first was a major enhancement to TI's DaVinci™ Technology. Unfortunately the development boards are not readily available today, so we will postpone the discussion until shipments begin. (Check out DaVinci anyway, especially if you are interested in the future of 'digital video' in areas such as surveillance or video telephony.)

The second, and most important, practical news story out of TI Devcon was the steady growth in RapidIO technology, in this case Serial RapidIO or sRIO. Texas Instruments set the stage by announcing TMS320C6455 digital signal processor (DSP) evaluation modules (EVM) and TMS320C6455 DSP starter kits (DSK), both with a Serial RapidIO (sRIO) bus interface (Release here). Xilinx followed with sRIO high-speed interoperable interfaces for the latest TI DSPs (Release here.)

And RapidIO powerhouse Tundra announced the Tundra Tsi578 Serial RapidIO Switch, which builds on the success of its 568A™ Serial RapidIO Switch (already in production). This is set to expand RapidIO further into AdvancedTCA and MicroTCA. Tsi578 release, here.

Most intriguingly, Tundra with support from all major RapidIO partners, announced plans for the first RapidIO 'Interoperability Lab.' The RIOLAB will ultimately be vendor independent, along the lines of (or ultimately perhaps part of) the New Hampshire Interoperability Lab. The bottom line is to create a systematic, transparent source for the complex testing and certification of RapidIO products. Full details here.

(conference, 4 stars) - 3/6/2006, Munich

DATE - Design Automation and Test Europe
The Conference addresses all aspects of research and development of technologies for the design and test of electronics-based products. It encompasses therefore not only the whole food-chain of the electronics industry from integrated circuits through multi-chip modules and printed-circuit boards to complete systems, but it also covers design tools, design and test issues at all relevant levels of abstraction.

(conference, 4 stars) - 3/6/2006, San Diego

O'Reilly 'Emerging Technologies Conference'
'Hackers and other lead users are a great early warning system if you want to think about the future of technology,' contends Tim O'Reilly, founder and president of O'Reilly & Associates. Learning from hackers and showcasing what alpha geeks are playing with now is the premise behind the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference.

(conference, 4 stars) - 3/7/2006, San Francisco

Intel Developer Forum
Intel Developer Forum is THE event for Intel-based design, both embedded and non-embedded. Meet with vendors, attend technical sessions, and network with other ee's focused on the Intel Architectures.

(conference, 4 stars) - 3/14/2006, San Jose

VON Conference & Expo
Spring VON brings together all the players in the converging communications landscape, to map out the future. With 350+ speakers across 4 days, and breakout sessions brimming with insights and answers to your strategic and technical questions - Spring VON is where you can position yourself to profit from the next wave of the communications revolution.

(conference, 4 stars) - 3/21/2006, Santa Clara

Multicore Expo
The industry's first conference event dedicated to delivering real developer solutions for multicore and multiprocessing designs Designers will understand and tackle the challenges of multiprocessor, multicore, and multithreading implementations Presentations will provide an in-depth and practical approach to designing multicore solutions using commercially-available hardware and software tools. Don't miss this opportunity to...

(conference, 5 stars) - 3/27/2006, Santa Clara

PCB Design Conference
PCB Design Conferences is devoted exclusively to PCB design issues. Topics include: High Speed * EMC * PCB Design Techniques * Design For Manufacture * Design Engineering * Data Transfer * PCB Materials * Manufacturing Technology * Packaging Technology * Career Development * PCB Routers * 2D Field Solvers * New PCB Materials High Speed Design For Manufacture.

(conference, 5 stars) - 3/29/2006, Amsterdam

GSPx & International Signal Processing Conference
The focus of the second annual vertical event in TV to Mobile Terminals is the technology and implementation of video broadcasting technology and the elements involved in it. The event will feature tutorials as well as industry paper presentations describing real-life implementations of DVB-H, MediaFLO, ISDB-T, DMB, and 3G.