First European 1Gb/s Internet

Zon Multimedia in Portugal is planning to launch a 1Gbit/s Internet service in September, reports Julian Clover at Cable TV Europe and other sources.
This is a phenomenal rise in speeds, and will put pressure on other providers across Europe who have been talking about 100Mbit/s, which Zon launched in January.
The system, which runs over cable, has already been field tested.
These speeds will drive a whole new class of Internet connected services and devices over the next two to three years.

Linux and Nucleus for Marvell Sheeva chip

Mentor Graphics has developed a combined open-source Linux and Nucleus operating system (OS) solution for the Marvell Sheeva MV78200 Dual-core Embedded Processor.
This dual operating system support was co-developed by Mentor and Marvell for low power devices such as network controllers, switches and routers, high-performance storage, enterprise printers, DVRs, NVRs and video surveillance, and high-volume SMB gateways.

“Our collaboration with Mentor Graphics’ embedded systems team has allowed Marvell to address the multi-OS needs of our customers using dual-core processors,” said Dr Simon Milner, vice president and general manager of the Enterprise Business Unit, Consumer and Communications Business Group at Marvell Semiconductor. “The performance and real time qualities of Mentor’s Nucleus OS complement the power and flexibility of Linux, while their tools and services give our mutual customers a boost in product development.”

The MV78200 is a dual-core, high-performance, low-power, highly-integrated processor with the Marvell Sheeva CPU cores. Built on Marvell’s innovative Discovery system controller platform, the MV78200 is a complete System-on-Chip (SoC) solution, optimized for low power operation and ideally suited to a wide range of applications ranging from sophisticated routers, switches and wireless base stations to high-volume laser printer applications. Developers can use the dual OSs to manage separate functional requirements, yet allow them to easily and reliably communicate with each other. Mentor’s Nucleus OS is a fast, scalable and deterministic OS that can be used for operational tasks such as those required in printing drums and ink coverage for enterprise printers, whereas the Linux OS would be used for user interaction and communication.

China chip market booms

China's IC market is expected to reach $100.1 billion in 2013 and represent over one-third (35%) of the worldwide IC market, up from only 14 in 2003 (Figure 1) according to IC Insights Mid-Year Update to The McClean Report.
In 2001, the Asia-Pacific IC market (which includes China, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, etc.) first surpassed the Americas segment (the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America) and became the leading IC-consuming market.
In 2008, the Asia-Pacific IC market was $111.2 billion, and, for the first time ever, was larger than the Americas, European, and Japanese IC markets combined!
The tremendous growth of the Asia-Pacific IC market over the past few years mirrors the trend toward increasing electronic system production in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in China. In general, regional IC market growth is typically closely matched to the growth of regional electronic system production.
With more of the world's electronic systems forecast to be produced in Asia-Pacific (non-Japan), and China in particular, IC Insights believes that Asia-Pacific IC market growth will continue to significantly outpace total IC market growth for at least the next five years.
In 2009, China and Taiwan together are expected to represent about 75% of the IC market in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2013, IC Insights forecasts that the China and Taiwan IC market together will reach about $139 billion and represent almost 80% of the total Asia-Pacific IC market and almost half (48%) of the worldwide IC market!
In 2008, China's IC market increased 5% to $56.2 billion as compared to a 6% decline for the total worldwide IC market. Although China's IC market is forecast to decline by 8% in 2009, this performance would still be much better than the 17% drop expected for the total IC market. Moreover, the Chinese IC market is forecast to have a 2008-2013 CAGR of 12%, double the 6% forecast for the worldwide IC market during this same time.

High speed 64Gbyte memory cards emerge

Looking back even a couple of years, the prospect of using a 64Gbyte memory card for storage would seem fantastic, but Toshiba is planning to ship such cards, using the latest SDXC standard, to OEMs in November.
The new SDXC and 32Gbyte and 16Gbyte SDHC Memory Cards are the world’s first memory cards compliant with the SD Memory Card Standard Ver. 3.00, UHS104, which brings a new level of high speed read and write speeds to NAND flash based memory cards: a maximum write speed of 35MByte per second, and a read speed of 60MByte per second. For example, it would be possible to download 2.4GB video data in only 70 seconds.
SDXC Memory Card is the next-generation SD Memory Card standard defined by the SD Association in April 2009, in order to meet the ever-growing demand for high-capacity memory media, offering higher transfer rates for content rich storage applications. The new SDXC Memory Card Standard applies to cards with capacities over 32GB and up to 2Terabytes compared to the SDHC standard, which applies to cards with capacities from 4GB to 32GB. Like the move from SD to SDHC, the new cards are only compatible with SDXC readers, not existing SDHC systems.
UHS 104 is the new ultra high speed interface that delivers data at a rate of 104MB/ sec. It is the highest standard in the new SD Memory Card Standard Ver. 3.00.

Wireless test and virtualisation for LabView 2009

National Instruments has launched its the latest version of the LabView graphical system design software platform for test, control and embedded system development. LabVIEW 2009 simplifies the development challenges of complex test systems with new tools that streamline the software engineering process for the development, deployment and maintenance of critical test software. It uses parallel programming features such as virtualisation technology that increase the performance for multicore-enabled test applications and offers LabVIEW FPGA compiler improvements to simplify field-programmable gate array (FPGA) reconfigurable I/O (RIO) development. In addition, LabVIEW provides new solutions for testing systems based on wireless standards such as WLAN, WiMAX, GPS and MIMO using a common hardware platform.

“In today’s challenging economic climate, engineers and scientists are being asked to complete their projects with fewer resources and in less time,” said Dr. James Truchard, President, CEO and Cofounder of National Instruments. “With LabVIEW 2009, test engineers can develop complex and mission-critical applications faster while improving their overall test system performance.”

Streamline Test Software Validation
LabVIEW 2009 features new tools for software engineering and code validation that make it possible for engineers and scientists to easily meet the regulatory and software engineering requirements of complex test systems. With the new version of LabVIEW, engineers and scientists can trace the implementation of test system requirements to virtual instrument (VI) programs and easily monitor low-level details about the execution of critical VIs for quick application monitoring and debugging. In addition, LabVIEW 2009 can automate the functional testing of each VI to guarantee that the VIs meet all necessary specifications. These new software engineering tools complement existing LabVIEW features for large application development and help engineers and scientists create high-quality test systems.
Improve Parallel System Development
With LabVIEW 2009, engineers and scientists can easily develop applications that take advantage of inherently parallel technologies such as FPGAs and multicore processors. Virtualisation technology makes it possible to run multiple OSs side by side on the same multicore processing hardware to build more efficient systems. Using new NI Real-Time Hypervisor software, engineers and scientists can run Windows XP and LabVIEW Real-Time OSs side by side on the same PXI embedded controller and partition the processor cores among the two OSs for more efficient use of system resources.
The LabVIEW 2009 FPGA Module also further reduces the time required to program FPGA RIO devices by providing early compile feedback and critical path highlighting during compilation and simulation on a development computer. This helps engineers and scientists make early FPGA resource usage estimates and better debug timing violations. They also can further reduce development time by simulating the behavior of an FPGA on a development computer instead of compiling to the FPGA.
Test More Wireless Devices and Standards
LabVIEW 2009 improves the performance of radio frequency (RF) and wireless test by taking advantage of multicore processors. For example, engineers and scientists can use LabVIEW and off-the-shelf multicore processors to increase the speed of wireless measurements such as spectral masks and error vector magnitude used in WLAN test. The recently released NI WLAN Measurement Suite for LabVIEW guarantees compliance with IEEE 802.11 a/b/g standards and performs measurements more than five times faster than traditional box instruments. With software-defined instrumentation using LabVIEW, engineers and scientists can implement the same measurement platform to generate, analyse and simulate nearly any wireless standard or custom protocol. In addition to the WLAN Measurement Suite, the recently released WiMAX, GPS and MIMO tools for LabVIEW help engineers and scientists increase their performance when testing multiple standards using a common PXI hardware platform.

Google data on spring cleaning solar panels

Google has been looking at whether it should clean its solar panels, and d'uh, finds that the efficiency rises dramatically when it does! However, there are also some interesting slides on the data they collected.

Ever since we assembled a 1.6 MW solar panel installation at our headquarters in Mountain View in 2007, we've been wondering, "Does cleaning the solar panels make them more effective?" We thought it might, but we needed to be sure. So we analyzed the mountains of data that we collect about the energy that these panels produce — after rain, after cleaning and at different times of the year.

We have two different sets of solar panels on our campus — completely flat ones installed on carports, and rooftop ones that are tilted.

Since the carport solar panels have no tilt, rain doesn't do a good job of rinsing off the dirt they collect. (Also, our carports are situated across from a sand field, which doesn't help the situation.) We cleaned these panels for the first time after they had been in operation for 15 months, and their energy output doubled overnight. When we cleaned them again eight months later, their output instantly increased by 36 percent. In fact, we found that cleaning these panels is the #1 way to maximize the energy they produce. As a result, we've added the carport solar panels to our spring cleaning checklist.

The rooftop solar panels are a different story. Our data indicates that rain does a sufficient job of cleaning the tilted solar panels. Some dirt does accumulate in the corners, but the resulting reduction in energy output is fairly small — and cleaning tilted panels does not significantly increase their energy production. So for now, we'll let Mother Nature take care of cleaning our rooftop panels.

Accumulated dirt in the corners of a rooftop solar panel

We've also been crunching numbers on dollars-and-cents; the more energy our panels produce, the sooner we'll be paid back by our solar investment. Our analysis now predicts that Google's system will pay for itself in about six and a half years, which is even better than we initially expected.

If you want to learn more about our solar study, check out these slides showing the effects that seasonality, tilt, dirt, particulate matter, rain and cleaning have on Google's solar energy output. We hope you solar panel owners out there can tailor our analysis to the specifics of your own installation to produce some extra energy of your own!

Printable electronics centre sees £20m boost

The Printable Electronics Technology Centre (Petec) near Durham, UK, is to get £20 million to expand its facility and services. The centre, at NETPark in Sedgfield, will receive £12 million from the UK Government’s Advanced Manufacturing strategy, and £8 million from the Regional Development Agency – One North East.
The funding will add new equipment for prototyping applications in:
* printable photovoltaics
* ultra-efficient lighting
* printable flexible displays
* new intelligent packaging

The new investment will also result in:
* 500m2 of new hi-tech equipment space for large-area application and production of pilot product manufacturing
* The development of new applications and knowledge which will attract new companies to the UK
* New private sector investment into novel lighting and solar energy harvesting applications
* Key technology applications in wide-area displays, photovoltaic generation, novel lighting and smart packaging by stimulating collaborations with new companies and linking with academia
* The development of a regional and UK-wide display, lighting and photovoltaic supply chain
* The work on Photovoltaic Cells and energy-efficient Organic Solid State lighting is also further investment in the North East’s new low-carbon industries, following announcements this month in projects covering wave power, biofuels, electric vehicles and industrial biotechnology
In the next four years it is estimated that this investment will stimulate the creation of up to 250 jobs in the North East and up to 1,500 jobs nationally.

"One North East has been investing in PETEC for some time now, having identified printable electronics as one of the emerging industries that can drive the region’s economy forward," said Alan Welby, Director of Strategy at One North East. "The groundbreaking research and development work that has been taking place in Sedgefield is fast approaching a stage where it can become an area of major industrial growth and job creation for North East England."

Reconfigurable computing sees giant launch

With 96 high end FPGAs and 26 quad-core Nehalem Xeon processors, the world's largest and most powerful reconfigurable computer has been launched at the University of Florida.
Novo-G uses 96 Altera Stratix-III E260 devices, each with 768 18x18 multipliers, 254K logic elements and 204K registers, with 4.25GB of memory attached. These are housed in 24 GiDEL ProcStar-III quad-FPGA boards and supported by the 26 quad-core processors, 20Gb/s non-blocking DDR InfiniBand, GigE, and 576GB total RAM.

“Construction has been completed on the new Novo-G machine and it is now ready to support a variety of research experiments in CHREC for various projects and participants,” said Dr. Alan D. George, Professor of ECE and Director of the NSF Centre for High-performance Reconfigurable Computing (CHREC) at the University of Florida. “Novo-G is believed to be the most powerful reconfigurable computer in the known world, certainly at least the academic/research community and the FPGAs featured in Novo-G are among the most powerful available today.”

“Although Novo-G may at first sound like it only serves as a research machine in the HPC realm of reconfigurable computing (RC), in reality it supports equally well the HPEC (embedded) realm of RC,” he said. “The boards featured in Novo-G (GiDEL ProcStar-III) are themselves originally marketed and intended as embedded processing boards, each with four big FPGAs with many attached memory banks plus various other supporting devices. We happen to be putting and using more of them in a single machine than anyone has attempted before and researchers can focus on issues with a single FPGA, a set of two, three, or four FPGAs on a single board with fast streaming pipes between, or many FPGAs (up to 96) spanning multiple boards, as their needs require. Thus, Novo-G will be supporting RC research projects that span the HPC and HPEC sides.

Novo-G will support a variety of tools, including vendor tools as well as various CHREC tools for formulation, design, translation, and execution. At the device level, Novo-G of course supports applications design with VHDL and Verilog, but also several high level ESL programming languages.

“We have successfully ported the Impulse-C tool to this platform, the Altera FP Compiler is already in use in our work, and efforts are in progress to do the same for Mitrion-C, all with help from the board and associated tool vendors,” said Dr George “Efforts are in the works to port our CHREC performance tool (ReCAP) and its debug/verification sidekick to Novo-G, and our folks on RCML, Intermediate Fabrics, etc. also have plans for Novo-G.”

CHREC research equipment features a broad assortment of high-end FPGAs, accelerator boards, servers, clusters, and scalable systems. RC resources include those from AlphaData (boards), Altera (devices, boards, tools), Celoxica (boards), Cray (machines), DRC (machine, module), GiDEL (boards, tools), Nallatech (boards, cluster, tools), Pico Computing (boards), SGI (machines), SRC (machines), Tilera (GFE board), Xilinx (devices, boards, tools), and XtremeData (machines, modules).

Quad DAC with EEPROM for portable apps

Microchip has developed the industry’s first 12bit Quad Digital-to-Analogue Converter (DAC) to include non-volatile EEPROM, enabling the DAC’s configuration to be loaded automatically during power-up. The low power of the device targets portable consumer applications such as personal media players, digital cameras and GPS devices as well as industrial and automotive.
The on-board EEPROM, coupled with an internal voltage reference, four-channel architecture and rail-to-rail precision output amplifier, enables the MCP4728 to significantly reduce the size and component cost in a variety of battery powered and power-constrained applications.
Through the integrated I2CM serial interface, designers can configure the MCP4728 input codes, configuration bits and I2C address bits. This configuration information is stored in the non-volatile EEPROM and therefore retained after power is removed, making it available immediately after power is reapplied and reconfiguring the DAC during power-up.
The architecture of the MCP4728 also allows each of the four channels to be individually shut down, reducing power consumption to as low as 40nA and helping designers to meet or exceed cost and size requirements while providing the resolution and low power consumption that today’s battery powered and power-constrained applications require. These include consumer (personal media players, digital cameras and GPS devices); medical; industrial; appliance, and automotive (LED lamps and alarm/security systems) devices.
The $15 MCP4728 Evaluation Board is available to help designers quickly evaluate the MCP4728 DAC in their applications, and the DAC is sampling now in a 10-pin MSOP package.

Semiconductor market sunshine

Following four consecutive quarters of reductions, global inventories of chips have declined to appropriate levels, says market researcher iSuppli, clearing the way for stockpile rebuilding and higher sales in the second half of the year.
After declining by 2.2 percent and 6.6 percent in the third and fourth quarters of 2008, inventories at global semiconductor manufacturers plunged by 15.1 percent in the first quarter, followed by a moderate 1.5 percent in the second quarter. At the end of the second quarter, iSuppli preliminarily estimates that inventories fell to $24.9 billion, down from the recent peak of $32.6 billion in the second quarter of 2008.

“Falling demand in the first half of 2009 prompted a swift inventory correction among chip suppliers,” said Carlo Ciriello, financial analyst for iSuppli Corp. “Companies dialed down utilization levels and cleared swaths of inventory by reducing Average Selling Prices (ASPs) in anticipation of continued depressed demand. Furthermore, semiconductor suppliers cut costs in an effort at right-sizing to better reflect the economics of smaller end markets.”

This is another positive sign after increasing utilisation levels at foundries such as TSMC.
The semiconductor inventory reduction effort was not limited to chip suppliers, with other segments of the electronics supply chain following suit. These segments include storage product makers, mobile handset OEMs, Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) providers and distributors.
iSuppli forecasts that second-half inventories will increase modestly in unison with sequential revenue increases for the global semiconductor industry. After an 18.8 percent decline in the first quarter of 2009 and a 7.1 sequential increase in the second quarter, global semiconductor revenue will rise in the second half, in line with financial guidance from Intel Corp. and other chipmakers. Global semiconductor revenue will increase by a vigorous 10.4 percent in the third quarter and by 4.9 percent in the fourth, iSuppli predicts.
Semiconductor inventories will rise by 5.5 percent in the third quarter and by 1 percent in the fourth to end the year at $26.5 billion, still an appropriate level for the demand, iSuppli predicts.

“Despite the more optimistic outlook, corporations remain apprehensive about the second half, consistently noting fragile demand,” Ciriello said. “Market values have declined, and the tradeoff between raising prices and maintaining market share has commanded more management attention than usual. However, anticipating longer-term end-demand has proven difficult,” Ciriello said. “Thus, a self-inflicted oversupply situation with too much inventory build would be akin to applying frost to blossoming green shoots.”

Energy harvesting made simple

Energy harvesting is a very interesting concept but hasn't yet made it into the mainstream. This is despite some quite compelling technology developments and key researchers such as TI's Gene Frantz looking closely at it.
Part of the problem as been putting together all the bits to make it work, to take the power modules that convert vibration or temperature differences into power for a sensor. Another problem is that this power source tends to be intermittent and a capacitor or other storage can be needed. Then you need very low power electronics to make it work properly.
All in all, a bit of a challenge, but now low power wireless microcontroller and module maker Jennic in Sheffield has developed a demonstration platform that solves all these issues.
This platform combines a sensor with a 32bit controller and standards-based low power wireless link to send signals without batteries, eliminating the potential maintenance overheads of conventional battery power by harvesting energy from sustainable sources.
This appeals to applications that don't usually take up new technology quickly such as Energy and Environmental Management, Building Management, Process Control, Condition Monitoring, Logistics and Asset Tracking, but having a ready-made platform allows sensors to be quickly and easily developed and deployed. Using energy harvesting means the sensors - usually temperature - can be easily deployed without wires and without having to have a costly maintenance schedule to go and replace the batteries.

“Harvesting energy from sustainable sources presents designers with the ultimate power challenge: the energy supplied is not necessarily continuous and is available at relatively low levels,” said Jimi Simpson, Jennic Product Marketing. “This means that every element of the design, from the sensor to the microcontroller, must be considered and managed to achieve the highest levels of power efficiency.”

For the platform, Jennic has worked with other technology suppliers:
- Micropelt for thermogeneration, converting temperature gradients into electrical energy;
- Cymbet, an expert in energy storage and solar power conversion;
- AdaptivEnergy, for harvesting mechanical energy, such as impulse, shock, vibration and footfall, using piezo-based DC power supplies and
- Powercast, for RF energy harvesting. 
Jennic has developed an ultra low power sensor solution based on its JN5139 and JN5148 wireless microcontrollers that interfaces to each harvesting source to obtain the power needed to make periodic sensor measurements and transmission of the same over the wireless network to a central controller.
The 32-bit RISC processor in Jennic’s wireless microcontrollers provides the processing capability to implement a software-controlled charge-and-fire energy management process, in which the microcontroller periodically wakes to measure energy levels, and then measures and transmits data when sufficient energy is available.
“The JN5148 wireless microcontroller undoubtedly sets the benchmark for ultra-low power IEEE802.15.4 based wireless in energy harvesting; featuring sleep current levels of <1µA, an active transmission current of 15mA and a receive current of 18mA,” said Simpson. “This ultra-low current consumption enables the JN5148 to use the smallest of energy stores including super capacitors and rechargeable cells to allow the lowest cost BOM.”

USB3 deal for ARC

Chip designer Initio is to use the ARC600 configurable core for a family of USB 3.0 and solid state drive (SSD) controllers. The ARC600 core, developed by ARC International of the UK, will be embedded within USB 3.0 bridge controllers and SSD controllers to provide a Serial ATA2 to USB 3.0 Bridge and/or individual SATA2 and USB 3.0 outputs, replacing an 8051 core. The ARC600 also has the advantage of occupying the same silicon area and operating at the same level of power as the 8051 it replaces.
The USB 3.0 (SuperSpeed USB) market is expected to begin shipping as discrete silicon this year with broad deployment of SuperSpeed USB-enabled products expected in 2010 according to market research firm In-Stat. The interface will target applications requiring high rates and volumes of data transfer, such as external storage, consumer electronics, and communications devices with increasing amounts of storage. The replacement potential for USB 3.0 is enormous. In-Stat counts more than 2.6 billion USB-enabled devices shipped in 2007 and expects annual shipment growth of USB-enabled devices through 2012 to be 8.3 percent. SSD unit shipments will also enjoy strong growth. IDC predicts a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 76 percent from 2007-2012.
"We're extremely pleased with the performance of the ARC 600 in our USB 3.0 chip design," said Jui Liang CEO at Initio Corp. "The core provides just the right silicon area and power consumption for the solid state disk controller and USB 3.0 application. It has more than enough processing power to handle the 5.0 Gbit/s data rate of USB 3.0 as well as the more complex USB 3.0 control logic."
Initio is a leading ASIC supplier for storage applications with offices in Taiwan, USA, and China. Initio's product lines including interconnect bridge controllers for USB, Firewire 400/800, eSATA, SATA 1.5G/3G, and SSD controllers.

Multicore move for GE Fanuc

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms is to use Freescale’s multicore QorIQ processors in forthcoming products. QorIQ processors feature up to eight cores for maximum performance, and allow GE Fanuc to develop new platforms that will be form-, fit- and function compatible with their PowerPC predecessors and enable existing customers to take advantage of exciting new levels of performance at minimal cost. These new platforms will also allow lower power consumption and heat dissipation per unit of performance.
The QorIQ technology will be used in GE Fanuc’s VME-based, 3U VPX-based, 6U VPX-based and 3U CompactPCI-based families of single board computers. Support for both the eight core P4080 QorIQ processor and the dual core P2020 processor is also planned. All products based on QorIQ technology will be available in five ruggedization levels – including full conduction cooling over the -40°C to +85°C range - to meet the demanding requirements of military customers.
“We have been developing Power Architecture products since the early 1990s,” said Peter Cavill, General Manager, Military & Aerospace Products, GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms. “Since then, we have followed up with a growing family of Power Architecture platforms that have enabled our customers to take advantage of the latest processing technologies, keeping their systems at the leading edge of performance with minimum integration effort, and minimizing long term cost of ownership.”
“One of the QorIQ-based products we will introduce will be pin-compatible with the PPC2A – a product we announced in 1997,” he continued. “That’s a powerful demonstration of how we help protect our customers against obsolescence. We expect that this new generation of single board computers will also provide compelling price/performance advantages for new customers.”
The P4080 processor is rated at less than 30 watts and combines eight Power Architecture e500mc cores operating at frequencies up to 1.5 GHz. The P2020 core operates at up to 1.2GHz and Freescale believes this is ideal for applications that have tight thermal constraints.

Multicore TVs: LG signs ARM

LG Electronics, one of the world’s largest digital TV brands, has licensed multicore processor and graphics technology from ARM for its next generation of digital TVs.
LG will use the ARM11 MPCore multicore processor to target a range of platforms with the same architecture simply by implementing single or multiple SMP cores. It will also use ARM Mali-200 and Mali-400 MP graphics processors for 1080p resolution displays for home cinema experience that includes high-definition graphics, whilst vastly improving the browsing experience on DTV user interfaces.
This will also be used to support a full Web 2.0 experience from their DTVs with Adobe and Open source software platforms and the emergence of tru2way technology for interactive cable services, including video-on-demand, voting and polling, games, and e-commerce without the need for a separate set-top box. Additionally, manufacturers are striving to build intelligent AV processing and develop home devices that are more energy efficient.

“By licensing ARM technologies, LG Electronics will be able to offer a future-proofed premium-quality digital TV experience for today’s connected home,” said Seung-Jong Choi, research fellow of Digital TV Lab, LG Electronics. “The connected home relies on technology that is fully functional and that guarantees a high-quality, energy efficient multimedia experience. With Web 2.0 requirements moving into a connected and high definition home, LG Electronics has selected the ARM architecture to guarantee longevity for our own technology.”

The market proven ARM11 MPCore synthesizable multicore processor provides a scalable solution that addresses the requirements of multiple designs. Devices can be configured to contain between one and four processors delivering up to an aggregate 5000 Dhrystone MIPS of performance at 1GHz while providing existing software portability across single CPU and multi-CPU designs. The ARM11 MPCore processor provides the memory throughput required of data intensive applications while delivering greater performance at lower frequencies than comparable single processor designs, so offering significant cost savings to system designers. The ARM11 MPCore processor also simplifies otherwise complex multiprocessor design, reducing time-to-market and total design cost.
The Mali GPU family scales from Mali-55, the world’s smallest OpenGL ES graphics processor to Mali-400 MP, the highest-performance embedded multicore GPU IP on the market which supports complex applications at up to 1080p high-definition resolution, thereby addressing the widest range of performance points for all embedded graphics needs. This diverse offering enables ARM to lead in conformance to numerous open standards and confirms the company’s unique position as a world-class supplier of the complete range of hardware and software graphics IP, enabling application developers and device manufacturers to create competitive and cutting-edge designs.
Mali graphics processors deliver stunning 2D and 3D graphics providing 4x and 16x full scene anti-aliasing (FSAA) without any noticeable drop in performance. In addition to providing content developers with the state-of-the-art programmable features in OpenGL ES 2.0, Mali products also support 2D scalable vector graphics through OpenVG for improved text, navigation, UI and web-browsing experiences.

New LCD technology for dramatically lower power

Sharp has developed a new LCD screen that is claims reduces power consumption by 130 times by adding memory to the column drivers.
The Memory LCD black and white screen is based on the company's proprietary Continuous Grain Silicon technology. Each pixel is equipped with memory circuitry to save the image information uploaded to the display so the image information has to be rewritten only in the pixels whereas the content has changed in comparison to the previous picture frame.
With common LCDs the microcontroller has to rewrite the complete screen content from frame to frame at a rate of 50 to 60 Hz even though most of the image content remains the same. The 1.35in Memory LCD consumes about 15 µW in operation whereas a standard LCD of comparable size needs about 2 mW to render an image.
This new type of LCD als does not need polarisers, as it uses a special liquid crystal material where the image is generated by the status of the pixel just changing from black to white with a reflectivity of 50%.
Due to the low power consumption, small solar cells can provide enough electricity to drive Memory LCDs. The new type of display is therefore an ideal solution for small size portable applications such as wrist watches, pulse meter and other fitness devices, price tags, etc. Such systems can even be designed as no-battery applications using solar cells as power supply.

Touch screen chip maker licenses ARM M0

Melfas, a Korean chipmaker, has licensed ARM's Coretex M-0 32bit core to upgrade from its 8bit 8051 core in a capacitive-sensing touch input chip.
Melfas has many years’ expertise in designing turnkey touch screen module solutions including controller IC, circuitry, driver software, and patterned ITO panel with window lens and test system. It has shipped over 40 million controller ICs since 2006. According to market research firm, DisplaySearch, the total touch screen module market will grow from $3.6 billion in 2008 to $9 billion by 2015, with a CAGR of 14 per cent.

"Our engineers were already familiar with the Keil software development tools, which support both 8051 and ARM Cortex-M0 processor-based devices," said D.J. Min, VP Engineering, Melfas. "We were able to quickly and easily evaluate the new processor using our existing 8051 code base. The results demonstrated that we could halve the flash memory requirement using the Cortex-M0 processor, and reduce the MHz requirement by 5x, saving power.”

The deal is a good one for ARM as it drives high volume royalties.

“The use of touch screen controllers in products ranging from mobile phones, personal media players, digital cameras, navigation devices, to home appliances is rapidly increasing. The Cortex-M0 processor’s energy efficiency and small size make it particularly suited for these applications,” said Eric Schorn, VP marketing, Processor Division, ARM. “The agreement with Melfas is a further endorsement of the Cortex-M family of low power processors and ARM physical IP, and demonstrates ARM’s low power leadership.”

The Cortex-M0 processor is the lowest power and smallest 32-bit ARM processor. It offers an optimal blend of ultra low-power, energy efficiency and low gate count, with binary upwards compatibility with the higher performance ARM Cortex-M3. This makes it an ideal next step for embedded applications that outgrow legacy 8-bit microcontrollers, skipping the need for 16-bit devices.
Based in Seoul, Korea, Melfas was set up in 2000 with a mission to make electronics friendly and smart. Melfas developed its first semiconductor fingerprint sensor in 2003 and its first touch sensor chip in 2005, and early this year announced it had shipped 40 million touch sensor chips.

Satellite M2M from Digi deal

Digi International has entered the market for satellite machine-to-machine (M2M) links with the $3m acquistion of the assets of Indian company MobiApps.
MobiApps employs 63 people in India, Singapore, and the US with a vast majority based in its India headquarters in Bangalore with a strong technology and product position using the Orbcomm satellite system.

"Our wireless M2M customers are increasingly asking for satellite as a communications option to complete their coverage model," said Joe Dunsmore, Chairman, President, and CEO of Digi. "We’re looking forward to moving MobiApps products into Digi’s strong global sales and distribution network. We believe satellite M2M will be a high growth opportunity for the foreseeable future."

MobiApps recently introduced a new generation of products based on its own custom designed and patented mixed signal ASIC chip, which dramatically reduces the complexity and improves performance of satellite M2M system solutions such as fleet management, marine vessel tracking, container tracking, agricultural monitoring, energy management, and remote field service applications.
Digi expects to immediately functionally integrate MobiApps with current MobiApps CEO Taroon Kamdar facilitating the integration process with the Digi management team over the next several months.

USB3.0 shipment starts

NEC Electronics starts shipping the industry's first Universal Serial Bus (USB) host controller (part number µPD720200) for the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 standard (see TI below, which ships at the end of the year).
The µPD720200 device is a host controller for PCs and other digital devices, and is based on the new version of the SuperSpeed USB standard that supports transfer speeds of up to 5Gbit/s. This aims the part not only at PCs but also digital TVs and DVD recorders, transferring 25 GBytes of video content on a blu-ray disc in 70s, compared to 14 minutes to transfer the same content when using the high-speed USB 2.0 with 480 Mbit/s transfer.
Perhaps surprisingly, NEC has been leading in USB chips, shipping the world's first USB 2.0-compliant host controller in 2000.
NEC Electronics expects the market for USB 3.0 to begin a rapid expansion, with monthly production expected to reach approximately 1,000,000 units in September 2009. It intends to market the $15 µPD720200 controller aggressively, and to offer a range of related products by incorporating USB 3.0 communications as an IP (intellectual property) core function in various application specific ICs.

Intel buys Wind River

Intel is making a serious play into the truly embedded market with a $884m deal to buy real time operating system (RTOS) company Wind River Systems.
The board of directors of Wind River has unanimously approved the transaction which is expected to close this summer and then Wind River will report into Intel's Software and Services Group, headed by Renee James.
This is a key part of Intel's strategy to grow its processor and software presence outside the traditional PC and server market segments into embedded systems and mobile handheld devices, and Wind River is already a close partner with Intel, making use of its hardware virtualisation technology.
Wind River will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel and continue with its current business model.
"This acquisition will bring us complementary, market-leading software assets and an incredibly talented group of people to help us continue to grow our embedded systems and mobile device capabilities," said James at Intel. "Wind River has thousands of customers in a wide range of markets, and now both companies will be better positioned to meet growth opportunities in these areas."
"As a wholly owned subsidiary, Wind River will more tightly align its software expertise to Intel's platforms to speed the pace of progress and software innovation," said Ken Klein, Wind River Chairman, president and CEO. "We remain committed to continuing to provide leading solutions across multiple hardware architectures and delivering the same world-class support to which our customers have grown accustomed."
The acquisition will deliver to Intel robust software capabilities in embedded systems and mobile devices, from in-car "info-tainment" systems and other automotive areas, networking equipment, aerospace and defence to energy and thousands of other devices.

Netbooks - the next generation

Freescale has been working on new form factors for the next generation of netbooks - story and more pictures at The PortableMultiMedia blog

Android moves into home equipment

MIPS Technologies has ported Google's Android operating system to its processor cores, aiming to drive the software, and Web applications, into more areas such as digital TV and set top boxes.
With Android and the open source development community around it, developers can easily and quickly create new applications and OEMs can leverage the growing set of applications for their devices, says MIPS. With the MIPS ecosystem around Android, OEMs will be able to quickly optimize Android for their specific platforms.

"In the future, almost every consumer device will be connected to the Internet and its wide array of content," said Rich Wawrzyniak, senior analyst for ASIC and SoC at Semico Research Corporation. "Leveraging Android to quickly and easily bring new and innovative applications and user interfaces to devices beyond the mobile phone is a very appealing proposition for consumers. Android also removes applications from their ties to specific hardware systems and opens the market for companies like MIPS Technologies to move into new market segments. I can understand why MIPS’ partners and licensees are excited about Android on MIPS. It is a potential game changer."

MIPS Technologies is establishing development tools and system integration partnerships with service providers to help its licensees with porting, integration, and testing. Partnerships initially include those with Embedded Alley and Viosoft.
Embedded Alley, a leading provider of embedded Linux solutions, is offering support for SoC implementations from MIPS Technologies’ licensees. The Embedded Alley Development System for Android-based Devices includes processor and board support as well as a version of the Android Dalvik virtual machine (VM) optimized for the MIPS instruction set and CPU cores; extending the Android bionic library, linker and other software infrastructure for the MIPS architecture; and providing integration and testing board support industry-specific device drivers, CODECs and other middleware. Embedded Alley is already enabling Android on devices built with the Alchemy Processor family from RMI—providing an Android-ready Linux kernel for RMI Au1250 and the Embedded Alley Development System for Alchemy reference platforms.

“Embedded Alley and MIPS Technologies have been working closely to deliver value to our mutual customers,” said Matthew Locke, COO, Embedded Alley. “Following the success of Android in the mobile phone market, many companies have been looking at the potential of Android beyond mobile handsets, but it just wasn’t clear how to make Android a reality for other types of devices. Embedded Alley, together with MIPS -- a strong leader in the digital home marketplace -- has determined what it will take, and we are making it happen. We are enabling OEMs and developers to create new Android-based designs."

Viosoft Corporation is a key partner for MIPS based software development tools. Viosoft’s Arriba tools deliver comprehensive support for single and multi-core platforms. The tools support Android, and are available today.

“The MIPS architecture has consistently delivered high-performance Linux platforms with low power consumption, making it ideal for VM-based environments such as Android,” said Art Lee, vice president of business development, Viosoft Corporation. “To enable the porting, debugging and deployment of the Android platform on MIPS, Viosoft provides a set of unique and very powerful tools that dramatically reduce development time, risk and costs. Working closely with MIPS Technologies, we are focused on helping OEMs quickly and easily bring their Android platforms to market.”

USB3.0 test chip from TI

Texas Instruments has developed a new 5Gbit/s transceiver test chip designed to the USB3.0 specification version 1.0 as part of the SuperSpeed USB promoters group. The new transceiver is capable of driving and receiving signals over 4m USB3.0 cables to ensure data integrity. This transceiver will be demonstrated at the USB Developers Conference in Tokyo, Japan on May 21-22.
The new SuperSpeed USB transceiver, with intellectual property (IP) for a digital controller from design tool vendor Synopsys, tested successfully at the USB-IF SuperSpeed Peripheral Interoperability Lab.

“Demonstrating interoperability between Synopsys’ DesignWare SuperSpeed USB digital controller and TI’s USB transceiver gives designers confidence that the IP functions successfully in a real-world system environment,” said John Koeter, vice president of marketing for the Solutions Group at Synopsys. “Synopsys and TI are working together to help advance new technology into the market quickly, while minimizing risk and speeding time-to-market.”

The test chip includes an integrated spread spectrum PLL, support for multiple input reference frequencies: 20 MHz, 25 MHz, 30 MHz and 40 MHz, PIPE3 and ULPI compliant interfaces and programmable transmitter pre-emphasis. These save system cost by eliminating the need for an external spread spectrum clocking device and give interoperability across a wide selection of ASIC / FPGA platforms eases designs by allowing designers to work with the same USB device, regardless of the processor platform.

The first of TI's SuperSpeed USB family of devices, the TUSB1310, SuperSpeed USB transceiver, will sample by the end of the year with volume production in the first quarter of 2010


USB3.0

The most obvious change in SuperSpeed USB versus USB 2.0 high-speed is the over 10X speed increase from 480 Mbps to 5 Gbps. There are many applications for which the USB connection is becoming the bottleneck and, as with the introduction of USB 2.0 high-speed, SuperSpeed USB will inspire the creative minds in the industry to develop new, emerging applications and end-equipment that will benefit from the higher performance. The 5Gbit/s data rate should provide headroom for the next 5 years.

In addition to the increase in speed, the physical layer electrical signaling has changed from the simple two-wire system to a dual-simplex data path. This is done over a completely different set of connections than the existing USB 2.0 two-wire interface, which remains untouched. In addition, it was mandatory that the any changes in the electrical signaling scheme NOT drive the need for a new forma factor plug or receptacle on the host, and if possible, on the peripheral as well. In order to minimize the risk, the promoters group determined that creating the new signaling scheme to be very similar to PCI Express could meet the goals. This also allows the connection to retain sideband functionality without additional wires and allow for receiver termination for connect/disconnect detection.

One of the other key changes was to focus on improving the power efficiency of the bus. This is ideal for extending the battery life for portable devices, whether hosts (notebook PCs) or peripherals. The specification defines excellent power characteristics, especially for idle links. Both Upstream and Downstream ports can initiate lower power states of the link. There is also local power management control using multiple link power states defined to further improve the power use efficiency. In addition, another power saving method was to eliminate all polling of devices.

Motorola launches high speed M2M modem

Motorola has launched a high speed Machine-to-Machine (M2M) modem that uses the HSPA protocol for 3.5G connectivity. The HSPA series of modules is comprised of the H24-Global, providing tri-band HSPA connectivity (850/1900/2100MHz); H24-Single (2100MHz); and H24-NA (850/1700/1900MHz).
The new H24 module provides HSUPA/HSDPA connectivity at 5.76Mbit/s upstream and 7.2Mbit/s downstream, enabling true mobile broadband for next generation M2M solutions like automotive infotainment systems, fixed-wireless terminals, telemetry, and advanced security systems featuring real-time video surveillance. The H24 also has on-board GPS capabilities making it the ideal solution for location-based applications. In addition, the H24 includes receiver diversity for optimal performance under harsh network conditions as well as FOTA (firmware over the air), to ensure maximum reliability.
The H24 is built in the same compact form factor as the rest of the Motorola "24" family of wireless modules to provide flexibility with a single design solution. As the entire H24 series includes quad-band GSM/GPRS and EDGE connectivity, customers can easily add HSPA connectivity to their existing G24 GSM-based solution by integrating the H24.

"The H24 HSPA module enables the M2M industry to take advantage of global 3.5G network deployment," said Shamai Wasserman, vice president, Motorola Israel & Director of Motorola Wireless Modules business unit. "The addition of 3.5G HSPA technology to the "24" family of wireless modules expands on Motorola's commitment to supporting all air interfaces with a single form factor."

Ultrasound cost reduction technology

Texas Instruments (TI) is targetting the low cost, portable ultrasound equipment market with an embedded processor software toolkit to encourage more flexible ultrasound equipment in clinics rather than just in hospitals. This is the first in a family of products to help manufacturers quickly and easily develop ultrasound applications on the improved processing power of TI’s C64x+ DSP platforms.
The Embedded Processor Software Toolkit (STK) for medical diagnostic ultrasound makes use of the performance, flexibility and power consumption of TI’s C64x+ architecture to shorten the development time of an ultrasound system by providing optimized implementations of commonly used processing blocks.
TI is also offering the TMS320C6455 DSP Starter Kit (DSK) for medical imaging, a low-cost development platform which provides manufacturers with an easy-to-use solution for evaluating DSP algorithms, reducing medical imaging product development time.
The C64x+ kit contains:
* Optimized software modules of common ultrasound processing
blocks
* Complete source code for all modules affords developers full
visibility and enables module customization and differentiation.
* Well defined APIs simplify development by abstracting modules and
enabling easy integration into existing systems.
* Complete benchmarks allow for quick and easy evaluation of module
implementation and comparisons to other architectures.
* Full test benches provide assurance of module functionality while
aiding in evaluation and development. Custom test vectors can easily be
added to check functional and cycle performance for any input.
* Full documentation of each optimized module provides coding
illustrations on computational optimization methods for the C64x+ core
which can be used as a model to optimize other code modules.
* One year of support and release patches include up-to-date releases
and support by TI’s applications team over the next 12 months.

"Over the next few years, we anticipate a significant shift in medical
imaging applications from traditional imaging modalities limited to
basic diagnostic functions to a new ecosystem comprised of small form
factor, highly accurate portable devices, ” said Susie Inouye, research
director and president, Databeans. “It is clear that manufacturers
seeking to design more flexible, affordable and portable ultrasound
equipment can benefit from the low power, high-performance and flexible
programmability of TI’s digital signal processors.”

Altera and National get closer on automotive

Altera has teamed up with National Semiconductor on the transmission, processing and display of digital data in automotive applications in a first step to closer cooperation.
The two have developed a reference design for graphics interconnect to run digital video in automotive infotainment and driver-assistance applications, using Altera's low-cost Cyclone 3 FPGAs and National's FPD-Link 2 embedded clock serialiser/deserialiser (SERDES). This should provide higher bandwidth over longer range with less cabling and lower electromagnetic interference (EMI), as well as increased reliability and lower system costs.
This reference design shows the transmission of a digital video bitstream over a 10-meter CAT6 cable to National's DS90C124 FPD-Link 2 deserializer. The deserializer output interfaces directly to a Cyclone 2 FPGA, which processes the incoming signals and sends the resulting video to a display.

"National has a proven track record for enabling the high-speed data link between video source and sink in automotive applications," said Erroll Dietz, vice president of National's High-Speed Product Division. "Our expertise in mixed-signal IC design, video transport, signal integrity and automotive qualification processes has made National's FPD-Link 2 SERDES products the first choice among major OEMs and tier-1 suppliers for point-to-point data transfer. Altera's proficiency in embedded digital video processing is a natural complement to National's FPD-Link II SERDES. Our shared customers are well positioned to benefit from our strategic collaboration, which is fueled by strong growth in embedded video for infotainment and driver-assist applications."

"This work with National represents the first in a multi-step collaboration between the two companies to facilitate the routing of high-resolution digital video within automotive applications," said Michael Samuelian, director of Altera's automotive and industrial business unit. "Our experience in processing automotive video, graphics and human-machine interfaces combined with National's widely deployed FPD-Link 2 SERDES family delivers automotive manufacturers a proven solution for deploying digital video in their next-generation vehicles."

Wind River Linux runs on FPGA processor

This is an interesting move - Wind River's Linux is now available on Altera's Nios II embedded processor which can sit in low cost FPGAs.

Wind River's Linux solution for the Nios II processor is based on Linux 2.6 kernel technology, the GNU 4 tool chain and the Eclipse-based Wind River Workbench Development Suite, customised for the Nios II instruction set, the processor architecture and the custom instructions feature that can be implemented in the FPGA fabric to increase system performance.

"Together, Altera and Wind River have brought Linux support to the Nios II embedded processor on FPGAs," said Mike Langlois, general manager of networking solutions at Wind River. "Our customers can leverage a flexible hardware and software solution to create and bring to market faster, highly differentiated systems. The fact that the Nios II processor can run on all of Altera's FPGAs and HardCopy ASICs to enable a broad spectrum of solutions is well-matched to the needs of our customers who are looking to differentiate on price and performance."

A reference design based on the low cost Cyclone III FPGA provides a fully timing-constrained and performance-optimized processor subsystem design with a Nios II/f core and a number of common system peripherals such as Ethernet, timer and UART. A matching board support package (BSP) and a pre-built Linux kernel for this hardware platform give application developers a familiar and stable environment to jumpstart their application development effort. The same processor system reference design can target any FPGA or HardCopy ASIC in Altera's product portfolio.

"As more customers adopt FPGA platforms to create product differentiation in ever bigger and more sophisticated systems, their software development needs increase and evolve," said Danny Biran, senior vice president of product and corporate marketing at Altera. "Our relationship with Wind River provides us with a partner who can support the broad and diverse needs of our global customers, and whose breath and depth of software expertise complements our hardware expertise."

The Linux distribution, a Nios II/f-based processor-system reference design, and a BSP for the Altera Cyclone III FPGA Development Kit are available from Wind River.

Wittenstein moves open source to microcontrollers...

Wittenstein High Integrity Systems has launched a fully integrated version of its OpenRTOS kernel with USB and FAT file system capability to reduce development times.

The real time OS, based on the FreeRTOS but with support, is designed to run efficiently on the new generation of small and medium 32bit microcontrollers, with the initial release supporting the NXP LPC2xxx, ARM 7 and Freescale Coldfire V2 architectures. The product shortens development time for applications using USB or flash memory considerably.

OpenRTOS CONNECT is a high performance middleware platform based on, and compatible with, FreeRTOS, the world’s favourite open-source microcontroller RTOS, which has a large, rapidly growing embedded developer community. Users are able control costs, developing projects on the free kernel and migrating to OpenRTOS later in the development cycle. OpenRTOS is commercially licensed and supported, easy to use, memory efficient and optimised for 32-bit controllers.

It provides a full featured FAT 12/16/32 based, DOS compatible file system designed for embedded applications requiring PC compatible media, for example SD and other common flash based devices. A lightweight file system version is also available for configurations with limited resources. The USB host, device and class drivers support all four USB transfer types and enables the development of embedded applications fully compliant with USB 1.1 and USB 2.0.

... as it ports SafeRTOS to highly integrated Luminary controller

Wittenstein High Integrity Systems has ported its SafeRTOS embedded kernel to the Luminary Micro Stellaris ARM Cortex-M3™-based microcontrollers, including the new highly integrated LM3S9000 series.
The release by Wittenstein enables high integrity application development on the ‘most integrated’ embedded microcontrollers on the market. The product greatly reduces the time and risk associated with obtaining FDA510(k) and IEC61508 certification through Wittenstein’s Design Assurance Pack.
Developed specifically for applications such as medical and industrial devices, SafeRTOS has been independently certified by TÜV SÜD, as having been developed in compliance with IEC61508 SIL3, and uses a compiler independent methodology.
SafeRTOS, a finalist at the Elektra Awards 2008 Embedded Product of the Year, was originally developed from the popular and robust open source kernel, FreeRTOS. Migration from FreeRTOS to SafeRTOS enables costs to be controlled during development.
Luminary Micro’s Chief Marketing Officer Jean Anne Booth said, “Stellaris microcontrollers are widely used in medical and industrial devices, and we are seeing a growing demand for certification in these markets. The launch by Wittenstein vastly simplifies what can otherwise be a complex task.”
Discussing the forthcoming announcement, FreeRTOS creator and Wittenstein’s Head of Innovation, Richard Barry, said, “Luminary is an exciting innovator in the ARM space and we are delighted about this early collaboration on the new flagship Stellaris microcontrollers.”

OpenVPX looks to overcome interoperability issues

An alliance of defence prime contractors and embedded computing systems suppliers has opened membership to its Technical Working Group to form the OpenVPX Industry Working Group.

The group was set up to tackle system-level interoperability issues associated with the VPX (VITA 46) family of specifications. VPX is one of the 'successor' specifications to VME and VME64 but unlike these is still suffering from interoperability issues between different manufacturers.

Although the group is hosted by Mercury Computer Systems, one of the leading users and developers of VPX, any COTS defense contractor or embedded computing supplier that is in good standing with the VITA Standards Organization (VSO), and is committed to the OpenVPX Industry Working Group’s mission and aggressive schedule for completion of a system specification, is invited to apply for membership to the Technical Working Group.


The VPX (VITA 46) roadmap


“The overwhelming response to this initiative exceeded our expectations, and we’re delighted to open enrollment to the Technical Working Group,” said Ian Dunn, CTO, Mercury Computer Systems.

“The Boeing Company supports the OpenVPX initiative as part of our ongoing efforts to work with the industry to develop standards that promote the interoperability of systems and assemblies,” said Jim Robles, Boeing Senior Technical Fellow. “We welcome the opportunity to work with LSIs and vendors of VPX products in this effort."

“GE Fanuc has long been committed to the VPX architecture and to its potential to revolutionize military embedded computing, and we very much welcome this initiative that will lower the risk of adoption of VPX systems, expand the market and accelerate deployment,” said Jim Berlin, CTO, Embedded Systems, GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms. “We’re looking forward to building on the charter set at our first meeting, and moving ahead to complete a system specification in order to provide the necessary top-down, system-level design guidance.”

Once the OpenVPX system specification is transitioned into VITA, the Working Group will disband.

Portable Multimedia blog starts

The embedded blog has been static for too long, and will be starting up again soon with regular input on the embedded market but with a sharper focus on embedded hardware technology.
At the same time a new blog has spun out to cover the portable multimedia market, taking the embedded hardware and software for portable systems from mobile phones to portable Internet devices and the middleware that makes them run, and adding the applications and operator perspective for a more complete, vertical analysis.
Please have a look at the beta of the PortableMultimediaBlog and let me know what you think, and keep coming back for the latest news and analysis for the embedded market here at the Embedded Blog.

Pansonic shows 150in plasma screen

It's the Consumer Electronics Show again, and this year Panasonic is pushing the size of its HD plasma screen to 150inches! It is also likely to be selling fro roughly the same price (£50,000) as last year's 103in version. But this is going to need some high class content, or be viewed from quite a long way away!

Fuel cells and virtual network computing show polar bears

Photo: © R & C Buchanan
Virtual Network Computing (VNC) embedded technology from a company in Cambridge has been used to control and maintain a network of remote cameras in Canada to track the movement and behaviour of polar bears.
The project used an IP-based network system of digital microwave links to transmit images across the tundra from Cape Churchill cameras to the remote town of Churchill, which was in turn connected to the control centre in Alaska via the Internet. The work also involved a Tundra Buggy that fed live Polar Bear Cam streaming video through a 45MB wireless link to the town of Churchill and then to the National Geographic website.
The system was set up by SeeMore Wildlife Systems that specializes in remote wildlife monitoring solutions, to help researchers from Polar Bears International researchers from the University of Florida to film the dwindling number of polar bears as they prepared to head off to the Arctic for the winter.
"As the cameras were unmanned and powered by methanol fuel cells, it would have been virtually impossible to keep the system running without using VNC," said wildlife filmmaker Daniel Zatz of SeeMore Wildlife Systems. "VNC provided full control and monitoring of the camera network and remote PC server in Churchill from the relative warmth and luxury of project HQ in Alaska."
One of the benefits of realVNC is that it works with virtually any platform or operating system across any network, using just a simple downloadable interface or through a browser. This meant that Zatz and his team could log in, manage the network and download images directly from a PC, Mac or even handheld device.
The VNC technology comes from RealVNC in Cambridge which was originally developed in the AT&T labs in the City under Porf Andy Hopper. With over 100 million software downloads, VNC is a de facto standard for remote control and has been used widely in hundreds of different products and applications, from helpdesks to virtualization.
RealVNC has broadened the scope for VNC software by founding Adventiq to design semiconductors and software for sending keyboard, video and mouse (KVM) signals via IP networks market. Products containing Adventiq chips and embedded VNC software are already on the market.

Handheld projectors start emerging

The problem of displaying information from ever smaller devices has been a major headache fro several years. Micromachined technology such as Texas Instruments' Digital Light Processor (DLP) have driven down the size of projectors to just-about-handheld (see previous stories) and now a new venture is tackling the same market.
Microvision of Redmond, Washington has developed a prototype of a truly handheld, battery powered projector (right) for mobile phones and personal media players that goes on show at the CES consumer electronics show next week (Jan 7th), although production is planned for the end of the year.
Code-named SHOW, Microvision's pico projector uses a single micromachined mirror (rather than TI's array of mirrors) and laser scanning to get the size down to 7mm thick and keep the power down. The images projected can range anywhere from 12 inches (30 cm) to 100 inches (2.5 m) in size depending upon the projection distance and are always in focus. The production version of the device is expected to offer approximately 2.5 hours of continuous battery life, sufficient to watch a full-length movie without a need for recharging.
Microvision says that SHOW can project a widescreen, WVGA (848 X 480 pixels), DVD quality image, compared to other miniature projectors that typically only offer QVGA resolution (320 x 240 pixels). The technology is already being used for a head-up display in development for cars.
"While mobile multi-media subscription services are on the rise, handset manufacturers, content providers and service providers view tiny cell phone displays as a barrier to stronger consumer adoption of their products and services,” said Alexander Tokman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Microvision. "SHOW is a significant milestone for Microvision and is proof that our technology is maturing according to plan and is close to being market-ready. Microvision's low-profile and low-power design, supported by leading supply chain partners, is very attractive to numerous mobile handset device manufactures, carriers and content providers. We believe that this milestone is meaningful not only for our company but for the industry at large," he said.

Shake up in the set top box business

Philips has sold its set top box and connectivity business to Pace Micro Technology of the UK in a move that will help Pace achieve the scale that it needs to compete effectively in global markets. The company has been struggling in recent years, although it has a stream of contracts from the US.
The deal also includes the connectivity business, and Pace has been a leader in this area aiming to integrate the connectivity around the home into the set top box to help maintain margins and prevent the business moving to low cost Chinese suppliers.
Philips agreed in principle to divest the STB and CS businesses to Pace in exchange for 70 million Pace shares. The proposed transaction is subject to approvals from Pace shareholders, the relevant regulatory authorities and Philips' workers council. After completion, Philips will become a 23% shareholder in the combined business, representing a market value of around £60m.
The outcome of the transaction will result in a combination of strengths of two leading players in the industry, creating one of the largest set-top-box players in the world at a time when the shift from analogue to digital TV is rapidly increasing. Commenting on the sale, Philippe Alcaras, Business Unit leader Philips Home Networks said: "We feel that the rapidly changing dynamics of the markets in which the STB and CS businesses operate will inevitably culminate in further industry consolidation. By striking a deal with Pace now, we gain the first-mover advantage and it shows Philips' determination to secure a leading role for our businesses, and make them even more relevant to our customers and technology partners."
The two businesses had estimated sales of EUR 425 million in 2007 and employed 335 people, predominantly based in France, who would transfer to Pace as part of the transaction. The remainder of Home Networks, Home Communications, which includes Internet Telephony and Home Telephony (DECT), will become part of the Peripherals & Accessories unit within Philips' Consumer Lifestyle sector.

It’s the tools, stupid! Microchip moves to 32bit with MIPS

Low cost microcontroller maker Microchip is moving to 32bits using the M4K architecture from MIPS Technologies.

This is a key move for both Microchip, whose PIC 8bit and 16bit microcontrollers are used in millions of places, and for MIPS, that has been missed in the early coverage of the story.

The key is the tools environment. Microchip gets a ready made ecosystem of debuggers and simulators, all of which are much more important in the 32bit space as the point of going to 32bits is to use off the shelf operating systems and readily available protocol stacks etc. These are all available for MIPS already, which is a stunning advantage for Microchip.

But there is also a huge benefit for MIPS, as there is now a tremendous potential installed base of designers who want to use Microchip controllers. This will work in two ways – it encourages and further strengthens the ecosystem and tool development as there are now hundreds of thousands of potential customers for the third party embedded software developers and for the tool vendors. Suddenly the MIPS ecosystem is now hugely viable. That plays into MIPS’ system on chip market, as a successful Microchip design can go to a single chip custom ASIC chip or semi-custom ASSP chip without changing the application software, providing an easier route to lower costs and higher volumes.

Microchip is using the M4K low end variant of the MIPS architecture which was announced last week along with a wide range of analogue peripherals to go around the core from MIPS' earlier acquisition of ChipIdea.

Industry comment to follow……

Plastic TV comes to the market

Sony is reported to be ready to launch the world's first TV based on OLED light emitting plastic polymer technology at the beginning of December in Japan.
The value is that it is thin - just 3mmm thick. The problem is that it is small and expensive - only 11 inches and Y20,000, or just under £1000 (and even then the suggestion is that this is a loss). So it will fit a niche market where light and thin really, really matters - so as a panel on high end consumer systems of all sorts, in luxury kitchens, on portable equipment, that sort of thing. The trouble is to drive enough volume to get the price down and to get the size of the panels up so that it is truly a consumer proposition - and that means above 20in for that same £1000 price point (even for PC monitors it needs to be 17in). That will be a struggle, even for Sony, and a lot more investment required.

A digital instrument for the 21st century

What would an instrument designed for digital music look like? That question has been bothering Japanese media artist Toshio Iwai since 1985, and his vision has finally come true with the worldwide launch in the UK of Tenori-On.
This is a 16 x 16 grid of buttons lit by white LEDs that produces a range of 253 synthesized 'voices', half from Yamaha's existing synthesisers and half specially developed for the system. The basic array plots pitch vs time, but there are 16 layers for different, complex ways to manipulate sounds and the array also displays the notes as they play. One of these includes the ability to rotate the notes while maintaining their relationship in time (see videos below for more examples).



"In the digital age the problem of developing a musical instrument is one of developing a unique shape like a piano or saxophone has a unique shape," said Iwai. "The problem is that in the digital world everything is inside a black box and you can't get the physical feeling from that digital world. The new musical instrument for the 21st century has to have a relationship between shape, sound and interface and these have to match beautifully."
He has been working with Yamaha to turn it into a product for the last four years. Th £599 instrument is only available in the UK as the test market through 8 record shops, including Rooted Records in Bristol, as well as being sampled by South West music guru Peter Gabriel.

IBM stumbles onto single molecule switching

IBM nanotech researchers have stumbled onto something that may make a significant difference to the design and manufacture of logic devices in the future.

Researchers looking at the vibration of the Naphthalocyanine molecule found that they could use two hydrogen atoms in the organic molecule to switch states, providing an 1 or a 0. They have tried with many other molecules but previously it always changes shape which makes the switch unreliable.

“One of the beauties of doing exploratory science is that by researching one area, you sometimes stumble upon other areas of major significance,” said Gerhard Meyer, senior researcher in the nanoscale science group at the IBM Zurich lab. “Although the discovery of this breakthrough was accidental, it may prove to be significant for building the computers of the future.”

In the paper titled “Current-Induced Hydrogen Tautomerization and Conductance Switching of Naphthalocyanine Molecules,” in the US journal Science, IBM researchers describe the switching, and are saying that these molecular switches could one day lead to computer chips with speeds as fast as today's fastest supercomputers, but much smaller in size; with some speculating even building computer chips so small they could be the size of a speck of dust or fit on the tip of a needle.

The next step is to build a series of these molecules into a circuit, then figure out how to network those together into a molecular chip.

However, the trick is to propagate the state through multiple molecules to build logic gates where one molecule influences another, and that is difficult. I would also be surprised if this could be done at the kinds of speeds researchers are talking about and that the industry needs. Plus, this is an organic molecule and sensitive to heat, so there are many environmental issues to be tackled before we are anywhere near building computers out of single molecules of Naphthalocyanine.