RTC Magazine

Recent Trends in FPGAs Drive Adoption in Mil Apps

The adoption of FPGAs into rugged applications continues to increase at a rapid pace thanks to a number of factors. These factors, which make FPGAs more attractive and easier toRead More...

USB I/O for the Embedded OEM

With the advent of the serial interconnect such as PCI Express and USB, the most obvious reaction and approach for designing new I/O has been to continue with just offering a connectorRead More...

Industry Insider

Intel has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Wind River Systems, under which Intel will acquire all outstanding Wind River common stock for $11.50 per share in cash, orRead More...

COMs vs. SBCs: Forward Thinking Helps Make the Best Embedded Choices

The end application of any design typically helps define the choice of the computing form factor used. From there, the desired level of performance and scalability can be built intoRead More...

Building Fault Tolerance into Embedded Data Management

Small resource-constrained applications are getting so complex that we can’t even start comparing the requirements from 10 years back with what we see today. Nonetheless there has beenRead More...

USB Offers Many Choices for Use in Embedded Systems

USB is not a peer-to-peer protocol like Ethernet. One USB device, called the USB host, acts as the master. Other USB devices, called USB devices or USB peripherals, act as slaves. TheRead More...

USB and StackableUSB: Enabling Efficiency and Scaling for Embedded Designs

Board-level system designers have benefited from Moore’s Law of exponential improvement in size, cost, density and speed over the years as processor boards have packed more horsepowerRead More...

Life in the Cloud (sans Harp and Halo)

Sometimes a minor observation can lead you to realize that the world around you is fundamentally changing. Last week I went in for my yearly physical, which of course always involvesRead More...

Newest Embedded Technology Used by Industry Leaders

10 GigE Switches Provide IP Carrier Class Routing on 6U cPCI, VME and VPX A family of switches supports jumbo frames, full-wire speed Layer 2 bridging as well as Layer 3 UnicastRead More...

Beyond Handsets: Android Platform Picking up Major Chip and Tools Supporters.

OK Labs Claims Mathematically Verified Microkernel / Hypervisor Technology

USB 3.0 Boosts Speed 10x, Broadens Embedded-Systems Applicability

USB has become the interface of choice for many PC and consumer products, having reached an installed base of more than six billion units and counting. It is the ubiquitousRead More...

Concept to Reality: An Application Architecture with MicroTCA

Much has been written about the virtues of MicroTCA platforms and AdvancedMC (AMC) modules. Both of these technologies have been maturing and there are now numerous options andRead More...

RTI DDS Selected for Upgrade of Grand Coulee Dam’s Control System

Real-Time Innovations has announced that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has selected RTI Data Distribution Service (DDS) for an upgrade of the Grand Coulee Dam’s control system.Read More...

Development Platform Features New Texas Instruments Multicore DSP

Development Platform Features New Texas Instruments Multicore DSP  An off-the¬-shelf multiprocessor, multicore development solution features dual Texas Instruments (TI)Read More...

Embedded Database Upgrade for Scalability and Flexibility in Real-Time Apps

Embedded Database Upgrade for Scalability and Flexibility in           Real-Time Apps With version 4.0 of its flagship eXtremeDB embedded database product, McObject offersRead More...

Capacitive Touch Development Suite for Atmel AVR Microcontrollers

Capacitive Touch Development Suite for Atmel AVR Microcontrollers A complete development suite for capacitive touch buttons, sliders and wheels using AVR microcontrollers fromRead More...

Development Platform Features Blackfin Processor and .NET Micro Framework

Development Platform Features Blackfin Processor and .NET Micro Framework  A new VITA 57-compatible development platform features the Analog Devices Blackfin BF518F processor and alsoRead More...

Embedded Technology, Multicore, and Virtualization. Are You Keeping Up?

The embedded design world has changed markedly over the last decade, and the progress shows no sign of slowing. Multicore processing (in the form of both symmetric multiprocessingRead More...

The Multicore Developer's Toolbox

All major embedded processor architectures—ARM, Intel, MIPS and Power—have spawned multicore processors, and designers across a range of industries are snapping them up due to theRead More...

Multicore Silicon and Virtualization Software—Made for Each Other

Embedded virtualization is finding increasing deployment in intelligent devices of all kinds. As in the enterprise and on the corporate desktop, embedded virtualization meets the needsRead More...

APIX Starter Kit for Development of Robust, Inexpensive Control Units

APIX Starter Kit for Development of Robust, Inexpensive Control Units Automotive Pixel Link (APIX) technology was originally developed for transferring image data in vehicles,Read More...

Tools for Motor Control Improve Efficiency and Performance and Reduce Development Time

Tools for Motor Control Improve Efficiency and Performance and Reduce Development Time Two new low-cost development systems enable the rapid development for motor controlRead More...

Graphics Processors Running General-Purpose Code Set to Revolutionize Embedded Computing

The quest for ever higher performance in embedded computing has seen successive generations of microprocessor come and go, with quad core the latest to rise to the challenge. DSP andRead More...

Eurotech—from Sensors to Supercomputers

What kind of embedded computing company also produces Petascale supercomputers—computers running at over 1,000 Teraflops—and considers them integral to their embedded business? TheRead More...

Advancing Advances in Technology

Two innovative companies have different takes on what could be called “conventional advanced technologies”—graphics and wireless networks. Both highlight ways these slightly differentRead More...

CPU Architectures Bring C Programmability into Formerly Specialized Devices

Given all the hardware assists that are continually appearing to speed specialized parts of applications such as I/O, signal conditioning, graphics processing, signal processing, etc.,Read More...

On-Chip Debug Solutions Support ARM Cortex-A8

The ARM Cortex-A8 processor now has a full debug suite available with on-chip debug technology. The Cortex-A8 is ARM’s first superscalar processor featuring technology for enhancedRead More...

Low-Power in Small Systems Made Simple

Developing a power management plan is a critical step in embedded systems design. Consumers and manufacturers alike value long battery life, and engineers must focus on the same endRead More...

Energy Management in Multicore Designs with Embedded Virtualization

Energy conservation is increasingly an important requirement in the design of computer systems. In the desktop and server space the main driver is the cost of electricity and airRead More...

New Intel Processor Family Extends the Embedded Span of x86

With the announcement of a new family of processors and chipsets, Intel is enhancing its CPU offerings for the desktop and mobile space while also tailoring some of them to theRead More...

Software Quality a Matter of Life or Death—and Not Just for the User.

I think it started with that little “check engine” light. I had for some years been blissfully driving a number of cars that were equipped with the enigmatic little light but hadRead More...

Hypervisor Enables MSI Support for all Operating Systems

A bare metal (Type 1) hypervisor allows the execution of real-time operating systems (RTOSs) in parallel to operating systems like Linux or Microsoft Windows XP without adding anyRead More...

Hypervisor Supports On-Chip Debugging and Processor Virtualization Technologies

Autonomous UIs—A New Path for Customizing Application Look, Feel and Function

Embedded computing has its roots in industrial automation and instrumentation. The vast majority of traditional systems was headless, or communicated with operators and other usersRead More...

Embedded Application Lifecycle Management Solution Targets 50% Cost Reduction

Embedded Application Lifecycle Management Solution Targets 50% Cost Reduction A new end-to-end application lifecycle management (ALM) system for the embedded space merges productRead More...

Industrial Automation Software Supports Controller Redundancy, User Interface, Reporting, Trending and Alerts

A full set of software applications and utilities for the Snap Pac System of automaton controllers from Opto22 provides control programming, HMI development, OPC connectivity,Read More...

Multi-Core Software: To Gain Speed, Eliminate Resource Contention

Deployment on multicore CPUs should make software faster by enabling tasks to run in parallel rather than waiting for a time slice on a single core. But in practice, parallelRead More...

Power, Processing and Communication

When we talk about embedded systems, the word “power” is commonly associated with two other words: heat and processing. Sometimes it is easy to confuse them, but both are central toRead More...

Gap Remains Between Multi-core Potential and Software Realization

VDC’s embedded hardware and systems research practice recently surveyed over 200 embedded developers who were using multicore processors. The results showed that there is still a majorRead More...

nanoETXexpress Starterkit for Wind River VxWorks

A new Atom Processor-based COM Express-compatible  nanoETXexpress Starterkit for the latest VxWorks platform is designed to enable easy and efficient development and validation ofRead More...

Multicore Trace Tool Enables Event Analysis

A new multicore-enabled development tool enables embedded developers to visualize and better understand the behavior of their real-time systems by showing thread and core activityRead More...

Look Before You Leap: Hypervisors Present New Design Challenges for Embedded Developers

Increasingly, hypervisors are being touted as a solution for consolidating multiple systems or applications onto a single piece of hardware. Using a hypervisor offers several potentialRead More...

Hypervisors Ease the World of Multicore Processors

In the realm of high-performance embedded 32-and 64-bit devices, it is becoming increasingly difficult to buy a single core processor. This means that systems that have beenRead More...

Hypervisors Leverage Multicore Processors for Embedded Systems

The newest multicore processors contain hardware-assisted virtualization features that enable hypervisors to be constructed in such a way that they can support multiple operatingRead More...

Tightly Integrated Devices Yield More Efficient Motor Control

Motor controls are comprised of the power electronics that control the application of voltage and current to the motor. Digital motor controllers manage the power electronics toRead More...

Intel’s “Tunnel Creek”—A New Thrust for the Atom into Embedded

What is a system-on-chip? Maybe we thought we knew, but the definition seems to be shifting and that has some interesting implications for the embedded space. Time was, an SoC wasRead More...

Windows Embedded Compact 7 Supports Connectivity from Device to Enterprise

Microsoft has just unveiled the public community technology preview (CTP) for Windows Embedded Compact 7, the next generation of Microsoft’s Windows Embedded Compact platform forRead More...

Time to Rethink Software Testing for Embedded Devices

Whether they realize it yet or not, test teams and their software development colleagues at embedded product companies are headed for trouble—or are knee-deep in it already. There isRead More...

Java Tackles Multi-Core Complexity

As VLSI transistor densities continue to rise, microprocessor vendors are increasingly turning toward multicore architectures as the most effective utilization of availableRead More...

Medical Device Software: Why Has It Gone Code Red?

An FDA analysis of 3,140 medical device recalls conducted between 1992 and 1998 reveals that 79% of software-related recalls were caused by software defects introduced when changesRead More...

DDS Component Links Incompatible Network System Interfaces to Build Multisystem Applications

By now, the world is familiar with machine-to-machine (M2M) systems in which autonomous or semi-autonomous nodes communicate and share data over a dedicated network to operate as anRead More...

Ensuring Software Quality in Embedded Medical Devices

The term “medical device” is used to refer to any item that treats, diagnoses, prevents or monitors patients. This ranges from simple stethoscopes, to teleoperated surgical devices, toRead More...

Advanced Static Analysis: Evaluating Tools to Optimize ROI

Advanced static-analysis tools have become popular in recent years because they are capable of finding serious programming errors that might otherwise go undetected. UnlikeRead More...