Free Webinar - The Future of BIOS for Embedded Systems

Why develop a new platform with 20 year-old BIOS technology? Learn how the Intel® Platform Innovation Framework for EFI technology is being implemented to provide significant benefits to embedded systems development team worldwide. The industry is transitioning rapidly away from legacy BIOS to this modern modular and industry standard approach. Join us to learn how your projects and customers can benefit!

"EDA Machismo" might cause some to pride themselves on mastery of RTL, Verilog, or VHDL, but others realize that the future lies in higher level "system" design tools, such as SystemC or ESL. Still others already look beyond these constructs to even easier "system-level" tools. Mentor Graphics, for example, has expanded their successful Catapult® product line with Catapult SL (System Level), the first high-level synthesis tool to automatically create high-performance multi-block subsystems from pure sequential ANSI C++. The product goes beyond SystemC by making it possible to go from ANSI C++ to hardware. Pure ANSI C++ is devoid of hardware constructs, which thus allows the Catapult tools to create RTL for both ASIC and FPGA technologies. Release here.

Another company expanding the market is BlueSpec. Their focus is control-centric (as opposed to algorithm-centric). In May the company announced ESL Synthesis Extensions for SystemC. This adds two key enhancements in the areas of concurrency and communications: atomic transactions, or rules; and automated, formal interface contracts, or interface methods. Bluespec thus elevates the description and synthesis of control and complex datapaths for SystemC-based designers. The product hopes to move SystemC from being just another transaction level modeling (TLM) language with almost no ties to RTL (except algorithmic synthesis) to an accurate modeling language with full hardware architecture and implementation support. Full release here.

Finally, a third group of vendors is pushing the envelope of "system design" with technologies for "virtual prototyping." At the recent DAC show, for example, ARM announced RealView System Generator, a tool that enables users to rapidly create and deploy complete virtual prototypes constructed from a library of ARM processors and key peripherals, such as the LCD, keyboard and communication interfaces typically found in consumer electronics devices. The hope is to speed hardware/software co-design by allowing software designers to construct and benefit from 'virtual prototypes' of electronic systems (and subsystems), far earlier in the design process than is the case with current techniques. Release here. Interestingly, Synopsys recently acquired Virtio, a leader in virtualization technology. Other companies to watch in the "virtualization" space include VaST, Virtutech, and CoWare.

A much cheaper and more fun way to spend July in Orlando is not to go to Disney World but to attend the annual Freescale Technology Forum (FTF) It's a great window on Freescale's technologies and visions for the future. One theme this year: seamlessly migrating from 8- to 32-bit architectures, pin-for-pin. The company announced the intriguing ColdFire® V1. "The 68K/ColdFire V1 core is Freescale's next step in delivering the Controller Continuum, our roadmap for 8-bit and 32-bit product compatibility that will give designers the ability to move effortlessly between 8-bit and 32-bit microcontrollers," said Mike McCourt, vice president and general manager of Freescale's Microcontroller Division. "Our next-generation products based on the V1 core will provide 32-bit performance with 8-bit ease-of-use at 16-bit prices." Release here.

That ColdFire deployment may be in the future, but many companies are already on board with ColdFire. Mentor Graphics, for example, announced that its Eclipse-powered EDGE integrated development environment (IDE) and debugger now support the ColdFire family. Release here. And Green Hills Software expanded its new µ-velOSity RTOS to a wide range of Freescale architectures, including ColdFire. Release here.

Another big theme at FTF was the rebirth of the PowerPC now christened Power.org. The new consortium, joined by Freescale, hopes to kick-start the PowerPC ecosystem with new licensees and new tools. Release here. In this vein, Freescale has developed an innovative, multicore processor architecture that handles control/data plane and application-aware content processing, deep packet inspection, pattern matching, network admission control and encryption acceleration -- all at multi-Gigabit speeds. Read more about the PowerQUICC III™, here.

As for the related "multi-core" trend, Freescale garnered key support from Wind River Systems, which announced multiprocessing solutions for the Freescale MPC8641D dual core processor, here, and from QNX, which successfully demonstrated an operating system that enables legacy and multi-core optimized applications to run simultaneously on the Freescale MPC8641D dual-core processor, here. Green Hills announced support with its TimeMachine Tool Suite for all PowerQUICC I, II, and III family processors, here.

(conference, 4 stars) - 8/7/2006, New York Marriott Marquis

SpeachTEK Conference
Mega site - of both a conference and a major publication on Speech technology. SpeechTEK is the annual worldwide gathering of the minds and markets in speech technology. It is a once-a-year opportunity to meet and interact with the global network of vendors and enterprise customers who are developing and implementing speech solutions.

(conference, 4 stars) - 8/8/2006, Santa Clara

VoIP Developers' Conference
TMC is proud to announce the VoIP Developer Conference, an event dedicated to teaching conferees how to take advantage of all types of development in the IP telephony space. This is the one event that every developer in the communications space needs to attend in order to learn the state of the market as well as the future of VoIP and the development opportunities it affords them.

(conference, 5 stars) - 8/8/2006, Austin

National Instruments Week
Each year engineers and scientists from around the world gather at NIWeek to learn about technologies in computer-based measurement and automation, receive technical training, meet NI engineers, and share experiences with colleagues.

(seminar, 4 stars) - 8/17/2006, Boston

RapidIO Design Summits
The RapidIOŽ Trade Association announced its Global Design Summits schedule for Fall 2006 spanning North America and Asia. Designed for engineers and engineering managers, these complimentary events will focus on Serial RapidIO technology, interoperability, applications and designs. Key members of the RapidIO eco-system are expected to lead the programs including Freescale Semiconductor, Integrated Device Technology (IDT), Jennic, Mercury...

(conference, 4 stars) - 8/20/2006, Stanford

HOT Chips
HOT Chips 18 brings together designers and architects of high-performance chips, software, and systems. Presentations focus on up-to-the-minute real developments. This symposium is the primary forum for engineers and researchers to highlight their leading-edge designs. Three full days of tutorials and technical sessions will keep you on top of the industry.

(conference, 4 stars) - 9/11/2006, Boston

VON Conference & Expo
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.