Pebble Bay Launch Embedded Systems Development Workshops
Leading embedded systems development experts, Pebble Bay, have announced that they will be running a series of workshops that will assist engineers in understanding the fundamentals of developing code for embedded systems. Covering topics ranging from cross development to hardware interface development; these workshops offer a valuable opportunity for engineers to learn from Pebble Bay's many years of experience. They will be held at Birmingham and Bristol on the 28th and 30th September respectively. More information is available at http://www.pebblebay.com/content/new-workshop-series-days
"These workshops are intended to really 'lift the lid' on embedded systems development," said Ian Willats, Managing Director of Pebble Bay. "The aim of these sessions is to introduce the basic principles of embedded systems development for those who have little or no experience of developing embedded systems. Some aspects of the workshops will also appeal to experienced engineers looking to address certain issues such as device driver development. We presented some similar workshops at this year's UK Embedded Masterclass and they were a great success; we have, therefore, been keen to follow up with some additional workshops."
UK based Pebble Bay is a business that helps companies build and improve all kinds of products based on microprocessors. Since the company's launch nearly five years ago, Pebble Bay has become a respected leader in the development of board support packages and hardware-software interfacing, working with companies around the world. With extensive knowledge and experience of a broad range of commercial and open-source RTOSs and a thorough understanding of microprocessor based hardware, the Pebble Bay team has become a valuable resource to the worldwide embedded systems industry.
"Whether you're an experienced engineer with a challenging problem or a student, or hardware or software engineer that is looking to branch into the embedded sector, these workshops should prove to be a good investment of time and money," said Ian Willats. "For us, these workshops are a chance for us to showcase the talent and extensive knowledge that resides within Pebble Bay. For the delegates, it's a valuable chance to accelerate their learning with a hands-on-professional. They will gain a lot of critical information that will help save them time, stress and development budget for a long time into the future."
Each day will include two workshops. The first being "An Introduction to Embedded Software Development Using C", the second being "An Introduction to Hardware Interfacing and Device Driver Development". The fee for attending just one session is £65+VAT and both sessions can be attended for £85+VAT.
The first workshop introduces the fundamental principles of developing software for embedded systems, using the C programming language. The aim of the session is to help developers who are unfamiliar with embedded systems quickly get to grips with the special techniques used to build and debug embedded software. It includes demonstrations using an embedded target system.
The second workshop introduces the fundamental principles of interfacing with hardware in an embedded system, including an overview of device drivers. It discusses plenty of essential practical techniques along with traps for the unwary and how to avoid them. The aim of the session is to de-mystify what can be considered a black art for those who have little or no experience of hardware interfacing. This workshop also includes demonstrations on an embedded target system.
About Pebble Bay
Pebble Bay helps businesses build and improve all kinds of products based on microprocessors. The company helps their customers to get the best out of their design, by focusing on the software building blocks that support the application.
Clients trust Pebble Bay’s team of specialists and project managers to solve embedded software problems across a wide variety of industries and applications. This enables new products to be delivered to market quicker and existing products to be enhanced and improved upon.
"Wind River Delivers Suite of Multi-architecture Embedded Software Development Tools"
Wind River today announced the immediate availability of its latest suite of development tools, including Wind River Workbench 3.2, Wind River On-Chip Debugging 3.2 and Wind River Compiler 5.8, that can help a broad range of customers, including those in the automotive, industrial, and networking market segments, reduce device software development cycles, eliminate project delays and accelerate time-to-market. Wind River’s development tools enable greater choice and flexibility for customers, whether they choose to develop systems based on Wind River’s VxWorks and Wind River Linux operating systems or use their own choice of operating system.
“While Wind River is best known for its operating systems, we have been providing our customers with a rich set of development tools and support for many years,” said Tomas Evensen, chief technology officer, Wind River, and original creator of the Diab compiler. “The embedded device market is continuously evolving and a one-size-fits-all development tools approach is limiting. We are committed to delivering innovative development tools to support both our Wind River and non-Wind River operating systems while providing a level of integration, services and support not possible from the many smaller companies in the embedded tools market.” www.windriver.com
Lauterbach Announces Support for the Intel Atom Processor Series
Lauterbach have announced support for the Intel® Atom™ processor core based platforms for MID (Mobile Internet Devices) Menlow, Moorestown and Medfield.
The existing TRACE32® PowerDebug system has been enhanced for the new processor architecture, bringing a mature high end debugging solution to the Intel® Atom™ microarchitecture. The TRACE32 PowerView software includes a very efficient and user friendly HLL debugger for C and C++ as well as awareness for both Linux and Windows® CE RTOS. The tools can be connected to either Windows or Linux hosts via USB or Ethernet 10/100/1000. All TRACE32® PowerTools comply with the RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) directive.
Lauterbach will be demonstrating this technology at the Embededed Masterclass. If in the meantime this is of interest - please contact barry.lock@lauterbach.co.uk or call +44 (0) 1256 333690 - www.lauterbach.co.uk
Workshop Explores Time Triggered Software for Mainstream Embedded Systems
This year's Embedded Masterclass will feature a half-day workshop that will explain the many advantages of using time-triggered software in mainstream embedded systems. Time-triggered (TT) architectures are widely used in safety-related systems such as aerospace and medical systems because they are known to provide highly-predictable behaviour, and reduced certification costs. As this workshop will make clear, use of TT architectures can also provide many advantages to developers of a much wider range of “deeply embedded” systems, not least because this approach can result in much-reduced testing costs.
In a time-triggered embedded system, there is only one interrupt enabled. This interrupt is usually linked to a timer, which will generate “ticks”: these ticks will, in turn, drive an appropriate (often very simple) operating system. During this workshop it will be argued that TT architectures can be (and should be) used more widely. Numerous examples of the use of TT architectures will be presented, and engineers will have the chance to try out various TT system designs for themselves and compare them with “event triggered” alternatives.
“Developing embedded systems is not easy, and there are no ‘silver bullets’”, stated Michael Pont.
“During this workshop, we won’t try to argue that a TT approach is a perfect match for all embedded systems (it isn’t). However, the workshop will conclude by suggesting that – as engineers start their next project – they should ask themselves: Should we use a time-triggered architecture this time? By the end of this workshop, we think they may be surprised how often the answer is: ‘Yes’.” - www.tte-systems.com
Blue Chip Technology and Aaeon Partner in Exclusive UK Partnership for Computer On Modules
Blue Chip Technology and Aaeon are pleased to announce the start of a new partnership which will further enhance their position in the Computer On Modules (COM) arena.
Blue Chip Technology have an established track record in the UK with its range of ETX modules and supporting design services and the strategic alliance with Aaeon will significantly expand the choice of COM boards Blue Chip Technology can offer to its customer base. Aaeon is a trusted global brand in the embedded marketplace, having established a leading edge manufacturing base and strong R&D capabilities. The Aaeon COM portfolio incorporates a broad choice of different industry formats and the latest innovations in processor technologies including a complete series of new Atom based boards.
The new product introductions will include COM Express, XTX and ETX cores, covering a wide range of CPU performances, power budgets, upgrade paths and price points which will meet the requirements of a large cross section of embedded applications. The COM design concept is particularly suited to this type of strategic partnership, allying a comprehensive range of COM cores to local, in-depth expertise in customer host board design – be it a ground up development or expert support in bringing up an in-house design project.
“Blue Chip’s position in the UK is built around its in-house design and manufacture capabilities, the embedded UK customer base has responded positively to local support and hands-on engineering expertise. “ explained Barry Husbands, Blue Chip Technology Managing Director. “We see this relationship as being very much an extension of this philosophy. We are not interested in becoming just another Sales channel for Aaeon – we will only offer product where we are confident we can maintain our high standards of support. Aaeon understand this and have made every technical resource available to underpin our product knowledge”.
www.bluechiptechnology.co.uk
Green Hills Software Joins ARM Solution Center for Android
Green Hills Software have announced corporate engineering support for the ARM Solution Center for Android, a collaborative resource for designers and developers of ARM technology-based products running on Android, the open source platform from the Open Handset Alliance™.
Green Hills Software provides INTEGRITY® Secure Virtualization (ISV) coupled with a complete ecosystem of software solutions that enable developers of Android-based devices to achieve higher levels of security, reduced power consumption, faster time-to-market, and more flexible usage and licensing models. Green Hills Software will demonstrate these benefits while working with the platform, OEM, and third party software vendors within the Android Innovation Center.
"We are pleased to join ARM Ltd. and its partners to provide solutions optimized for Android-based devices," said Gordon Jones, vice president of Green Hills Software’s Embedded Virtualization Business Unit. "Built on the world’s first and only Common Criteria EAL6+ operating system technology, INTEGRITY Secure Virtualization enables a range of powerful connected device use models, including multiple concurrent service provider instances and the deployment of security-critical applications sandboxed from the multimedia user environment."
"Android was written for the ARM architecture, the leading processor architecture for Internet everywhere applications from mobile to the connected home," said Kevin Smith, vice president of Segment Marketing, ARM. "ARM is fortunate to be able to cultivate a Partner ecosystem that ensures device manufacturers have the best development solutions at their disposal." www.ghs.com
Green Hills Software Supports Freescale P2020 Multicore Processor
Green Hills Software have announced a comprehensive software development and run-time management solution for embedded products based on the multicore Freescale QorIQ™ P2020 and P2010 communications processors. Components of the Green Hills Software development toolkit include the INTEGRITY® RTOS and INTEGRITY Secure Virtualization (ISV), optimizing C/C++ compilers for Power Architecture® technology, MULTI® integrated development environment (IDE), and high-speed hardware probes.
"Embedded systems designers seeking to maximize the performance-per-watt benefits of multicore technology will be drawn to the combination of the P2020 platform and software solutions from Green Hills," commented Ravi Swaminathan, director of software ecosystem alliances at Freescale. "Green Hills Software’s industry leading real-time operating systems and software development tools enable application developers to realize the maximum potential of our platform based on Power Architecture technology."
"The P2020 and P2010 achieve high performance with networking versatility in a low power envelope, enabling designers to dramatically increase the level of functionality in their embedded products," stated Robert Redfield, director of partner business development, Green Hills Software. "We are pleased to be working closely with Freescale to bring the world’s most reliable and robust operating system, virtualization, and software development solutions to this exciting platform."
Green Hills Software provides complete solutions for developing and deploying embedded real-time applications for Freescale QorIQ communications processors. Green Hills products provide for the development of totally reliable, absolutely secure, and maximum performance devices, in the least time and with the lowest development and manufacturing costs.www.ghs.com
Lauterbach High Speed Trace Technology is now available for the Freescale QorIQ P4xxx Processor family
This technology provides the same functionality as the well established Nexus3 trace but typically saves between 6 and 20 pins on the processor package.
This trace technology will be demonstrated for the first time in the UK at the Embedded Masterclass, demonstrating that the tools are capable of a speed of 6.25Gbits/sec on each of 3 channels. See link for more data.
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WANTED: Developers Looking for Worst-Case Execution Time of their C++ avionics software
SDC Systems have announces that it is launching a beta program for RapiTime’s support of C++. Developers of avionic software written in C++ will be able to use RapiTime’s on-target profiling capabilities to: measure execution times, track code coverage, and find worst-case execution times (WCET) for their applications. The full product release featuring C++ support will take place at the start of Q4, however early access to these capabilities is available through the beta program.
RapiTime has successfully supported a number of high profile avionic programmes using the C and Ada languages, and is now augmenting language support to include C++. “We recognize that C++ is becoming increasingly important in the avionics community” said Rapita Systems CEO, Guillem Bernat. “For that reason we are seeing strong demand for C++ support for RapiTime: a need that we are pleased to be able to meet”.
Bernat continued “We’ve decided to provide a limited number of projects with the opportunity to get early access to this new technology, via a beta program. Of course, this provides the beta users the opportunity to perform an in-depth evaluation of RapiTime without licence fees during the beta period.”
For further information about the RapiTime C++ beta program contact stuart.parker@sdcsystems.com - www.sdcsystems.com
Immersion Rated Portable Data Tokens and Designer’s Kits on Show at MedTec
Nexus GB set to show its range of memory products for medical device manufacturers
Nexus GB, the exclusive UK distributor of Datakey Electronics’ range of portable memory products, will be exhibiting at the MedTec exhibition and conference at the NEC on April 27 and 28. Nexus will be on stand 2250 in hall 20, where it will show its entire range of tokens and receptacles. In the medical device design industry, these products find applications ranging from anti counterfeit measures and product authentication to calibration and limit use.
Central to its stand will be its range of IP67 immersion rated and EMI reduction receptacles. The new product works with the company’s proven memory tokens, providing OEMs with a one stop shop for harsh-environment data needs. The range has several uses in medical applications where it is ideal for devices that will be autoclaved, sterilised or washed down when in use.
The new series, designated the SR4310, is also available in IP-65 (splash-proof) and IP-67-EMI (immersion-rated with Electromagnetic Frequency reduction) versions. “I think the key for medical OEMs is that this product is a long term memory solution,” explained Victoria Barrett, Nexus’ director of PR and marketing. “Unlike most models of USB memory or camera cards it won’t be obsolete by the time an OEM has brought a design to market. This can be the crux of the issue for medical applications which are often very long lead-time designs.”
Also on show will be Nexus’ family of serial development kits that provide all the necessary tools to build a simulated portable data system and test its features and benefits. The basic development kit covers the majority of Nexus’ range, whilst a specialist kit covers its managed memory tokens, which act as USB style portable data carrier devices without the drawbacks of a consumer style memory product.www.nexusgb.co.uk
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Hitex Design UK and Pebble Bay Collaboration Offers Important Resource for Hardware Software Integration
Hitex Design UK and Pebble Bay have agreed a strategic partnership that will enable the two companies to offer a uniquely capable service for software and hardware integration and embedded development. With Hitex Design UK a leader in hardware design and Pebble Bay a world leader in board support and device driver software, this collaboration is expected to be an attractive service to hi-tech development companies around the world; helping companies to accelerate development and develop better products.
"One of the major challenges of hi-tech development is the problem of enabling the software to interface with the hardware," said Ian Willats, Managing Director of Pebble Bay. "How well this is done impacts every aspect of the systems performance and reliability. Our collaboration with Hitex Design UK will enable us to offer manufacturers and developers a formidable resource that will help them develop new and innovative products and help them resolve issues with current designs."
Hitex Design UK has been involved in numerous designs over many years, covering hardware, embedded software and full system integration from concept to volume production. Pebble Bay offer independent software development services to a broad range of industries, from motor sport to defence, and from telecoms to medical. With a highly skilled and experienced team of software engineers, Pebble Bay help manufacturers develop new products by providing low level code solutions that enable their clients to quickly and reliably create new market beating products.
"This collaboration helps both of our companies expand our offering and expertise," said Michael Beach, Managing Director at Hitex Design UK. "Both companies have many decades of experience and proven success in their field, we are also geographically close and what we do is complementary - so it's a very good fit for us and we are excited to have reached this agreement."
Pebble Bay have also announced that they will be presenting a half-day technical workshop at this year's UK Embedded Masterclass event. Entitled "An Introduction to Hardware Interfacing and Device Driver Development" the workshop is intended to help engineers understand how software interfaces with typical embedded system hardware and to understand the purpose, structure and typical components of a device driver. www.pebblebay.com
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OEMs set to Save Space with Externally Mounted Rugged Portable Memory
~ No need to give up panel space or interior volume with Bar series memory keys and tokens ~
Nexus GB has released the Datakey Electronics Bar Series of rugged, portable memory products, consisting of memory tokens and mating receptacles. The Bar series receptacle features an on surface mounting system, which allows Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to add a portable data carrier to their product without giving up large amounts of panel space or interior volume. The series also features an IP-67 immersion rating and is designed to meet the requirements of the most demanding military and industrial applications.
The unique on-surface mounting style minimises the amount of interior space required, as only the receptacle's pins extend inside the OEM device. Also, the Bar Receptacle has a small footprint of only 5.3 cm 2. The receptacle is secured using two screws and an adhesive gasket, which also contributes to the Bar's IP-67 rating and provides a tamper-evident installation.
While originally designed to meet the requirements of tactical military applications like Crypto Ignition Keys (CIKs), the Bar can also be used in other harsh environment applications, such as: machine access control, calibration & parameter uploads, feature enable/disable, and data transfer.
Designed for use in the most challenging environments, the Bar series meets United States Department of Defence MIL-STD-810F specifications, including: shock, vibration, immersion, salt-fog, blowing dust, blowing sand, freezing rain and more. This is extremely useful for OEMs selling into the military as well as into commercial applications that have chosen to implement this influential standard.
The Bar has an operating temperature range of -40°C to +85°C (-40°C to +100°C storage) and has ESD (Electro Static Discharge) protection to greater than 15kV. Also, both the Bar token and receptacle are designed to minimise electromagnetic emissions, which is important in many military applications.
The Bar provides an intuitive slide-in/slide-out operation and features an open design for easy in-field cleaning, an important feature for tactical devices. The Bar token and receptacle have physical features to ensure that the token can only be inserted in the proper orientation, allowing for “by-feel” operation in the dark. The receptacle features a retention pin that provides tactile feedback when the token is fully inserted, and also helps keep the Token firmly in place during operation - standing up to the most demanding shock and vibration requirements.www.nexusgb.co.uk
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Mocana Wins Contract to Secure UAV Drones with Spark
Spark Integration Technologies have announced a technology partnership with Mocana to secure Spark’s Distrix™ information exchange product suite.
The agreement allows Spark to integrate Distrix with Mocana’s NanoDTLS™ device integrity API to prevent eavesdropping, tampering and message forgery of satellite communications managed by Distrix. Distrix enables customers to swiftly integrate Mocana’s encryption and authentication technology without requiring any rework to existing systems. This joint solution is already being used by Cahon Systems based in El Cajon, CA to retrofit large unmanned aerial vehicles and other assets in-the-field to secure voice and data communications between UAVs and ground stations in real-time operational scenarios.
Spark’s Distrix System Builder™ simplifies the design, coding, and implementation of distributed information exchange by providing graphical tools to describe the information and processes within systems and generate the code to link them together in the required configuration. By isolating the application logic from the environmental implementation, System Builder enables developers to change operational details such as the deployment platform and Quality of Service parameters without impacting application and interface logic.
NanoDTLS is Mocana’s super fast, super small DTLS solution specifically designed to speed product development while providing best-in-class device security services for resource-constrained environments. The Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) protocol provides communications privacy for datagram protocols. NanoDTLS is based on the stream-oriented TLS protocol, and allows datagram-based applications to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, or message forgery. The datagram semantics of the underlying transport are preserved by NanoDTLS, and applications built with it don’t suffer from the delays associated with stream protocols. NanoDTLS is open-standards based, extensible, extremely small footprint, platform-agnostic and includes an optional government-certified FIPS 140-2 level one-validated crypto core, and supports the NSA’s Suite B cryptography suite. Interested developers can request a free source code evaluation of NanoDTLS at http://www.mocana.com/nanodtls.html
“Our project specifications required an embedded solution that provided robust cryptographic coprocessor support on an ARM9 processor. We found that NanoDTLS exceeded the performance and platform requirements while being extremely easy to use,” said Chad Trytten, CEO of Spark. “The fact that we were dealing with Mocana – the recognized experts in device integrity – helped convince our customer that NanoDTLS was the best approach. In working with them, we were also tremendously impressed by Mocana’s quick and comprehensive support.”
Parasoft Corporation today announced the new release of Parasoft C++test, an integrated solution for automating a broad range of best practices proven to increase software development team productivity and software quality for C and C++. In this new release, Parasoft significantly expands the scope of C++test with the introduction of integrated runtime memory analysis that is suitable for both enterprise and embedded development.
“Software verification techniques such as static code analysis, runtime memory analysis, unit testing, and data flow analysis can each prevent and detect specific types of defects,” stated Wayne Ariola of Parasoft Corporation. “Now, with the latest release of C++test, development teams can apply all of these complementary techniques in concert. This integrated approach dramatically reduces the risk of going to market with the defects and security vulnerabilities that commonly evade traditional fragmented testing efforts.” www.parasoft.com
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Express Logic Announces Safety-Critical Certification Pack™ for ThreadX® RTOS
Turnkey solution saves time and expense in meeting safety-critical
regulatory requirements for industrial, medical, and aerospace software
Express Logic Inc today announced the immediate availability of market-specific, turnkey, Safety-Critical Certification Pack™ products for its popular ThreadX® RTOS. ThreadX has proven itself in over 750 million electronic devices, many of which are required to meet stringent industrial, medical, transportation, rail, automotive and aerospace safety and reliability standards. To date, ThreadX customers have performed the required certification tests and validations themselves. By introducing a turnkey Safety-Critical Certification Pack for ThreadX, Express Logic can now help embedded device manufacturers eliminate developer months of verification and validation effort in complying with rigorous reliability and safety-critical standards.
For European customers, Express Logic’s Safety-Critical Certification Pack supports such standards as IEC-61508 for Industrial Equipment, IEC-62304 for Medical Devices, EUROCAE ED-12B for Aerospace, and the newly globalized rail standard IEC-62279 (formerly known as BS/EN-50128). With ThreadX and the appropriate Safety-Critical Certification Pack for their application, manufacturers can mitigate their development risk by using a proven, readily-certifiable RTOS for a fraction of the cost of alternate solutions. www.expresslogic.com
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Pebble Bay Takes The Lead in USB Driver Development
UK based embedded systems experts, Pebble Bay have recently announced the successful completion of a number of projects relating to the development of USB drivers for a diverse range of systems. Implemented on a range of RTOSes and hardware platforms, Pebble Bay was able to deliver solutions that delivered high performance and high reliability.
Pebble Bay is a team of professional embedded systems engineers that work with hi-tech companies around the world, helping in the development of board support packages, device drivers, and a broad range of foundation software, such as protocol stacks, required to build realtime and non-realtime systems.
"USB and USB driver development is certainly an area where we have developed a lot of expertise," said John Efstathiades Technical Director. "The projects have ranged from resolving longstanding faults whereby the original USB driver software had functional and performance issues, to writing new drivers that support running standard TCP/IP networking protocols over USB between a PC and the target system. In one instance we developed special optimised USB class drivers and a custom host stack and host controller driver to deliver a mission critical USB solution."
For these projects the team at Pebble Bay worked with operating systems such as VxWorks and Nucleus and processors such as the Coldfire MCF5272, Samsung S3C2413 and the Alchemy Au1210 which have integrated USB device controllers, as well as standard USB OHCI and EHCI host controllers found on most modern computers.
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MontaVista Software is Elected to the GENIVI Alliance Board of Directors
MontaVista®, a leader in embedded Linux® commercialization announced it has been elected to the Board of Directors of the GENIVI Alliance, an automotive and consumer electronics industry association driving the development and adoption of an open In-vehicle Infotainment (IVI) reference platform. MontaVista was a Core member of GENIVI in it's inaugural year, and now assumes a seat on the board as GENIVI enters it's second year. Dan Cauchy, vice president of Marketing at MontaVista will sit on the GENIVI board.
"The GENIVI Alliance has been a great success in it's first year, due to the participation of its members" said Graham Smethurst, GENIVI president. "By MontaVista Software assuming a leadership role within GENIVI and sharing their experience and knowledge with our members and the industry as a whole, together we can drive the acceptance and use of Linux and open source in automotive solutions across multiple architectures."
MontaVista joined GENIVI as a Core member in June, 2009 bringing over a decade of experience in providing embedded-Linux solutions to the mobile, consumer electronics and carrier markets. MontaVista's unique combination of experience in consumer electronics combined with the demands of the telecom and carrier markets bring a unique perspective in it's leadership role within GENIVI. MontaVista is uniquely positioned to help GENIVI and its members bring a commercialized, multi-architecture, open source IVI solution to the market that meets the demands for reliability, low power-consumption, and fast boot-times required in automotive solutions. Additionally, MontaVista's strong experience delivering solutions on ARM processors will help GENIVI achieve the broad architecture support the market is demanding. ARM Holding Ltd. is another recent addition to the GENIVI board.
“The first year of the GENIVI Alliance has been a great success, and we are excited to expand our role into a leadership position within GENIVI,” said Dan Cauchy, vice president of Marketing at MontaVista Software. "MontaVista brings a unique history and expertise to the board that no other company can offer at this level, and we look forward to helping drive forward the successful development of a cross-architecture, open source IVI reference platform." www.mvista.com
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Pico Technology releases 5 gigasample per second USB Oscilloscope
The new PicoScope 6000 Series oscilloscopes are the first USB scopes to offer a 5 GS/s real-time sampling rate. This is accompanied by an impressive 350 MHz bandwidth on all four channels. The scopes also have a huge 1‑gigasample memory buffer, unsurpassed on any bench-top or USB scope.
The PicoScope 6000 Series is the latest product of Pico Technology’s 18 years of experience in PC Oscilloscope design. The instruments pack more performance and features than ever before into a space-saving USB Oscilloscope enclosure. As well as the headline specifications, the scopes offer a built-in function generator, arbitrary waveform generator, mask limit testing, switchable bandwidth limiting on each channel, and switchable 1-megohm and 50-ohm inputs. This is in addition to the spectrum analysis, advanced triggering and serial decoding that are already standard features of Pico USB oscilloscopes.
The scopes connect to any Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 computer with a USB 2.0 interface. You can use one with a PC to save space on your workbench, or connect it to a laptop to create a portable instrument that’s perfect for field servicing and on-site demonstrations. The high sampling rates and bandwidths make these scopes ideal for analogue and digital circuit designers, test engineers and installers. If you want to write your own application to control the scope, Pico provides a software development kit, including example code, free of charge.
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ALT Software announces Hybrid ML (Media Library) for Avionics and Safety Critical Applications
ALT Software announces the launch of their new Hybrid Media Library for OpenGL SC. Hybrid ML is software library and device driver architecture designed to offer developers a set of powerful new capabilities to leverage OpenGL SC and additional programmable features on all classes of media accelerated devices.
It combines a flexible set of software components that support programmable media controllers of all types, including lightweight software implementations, low power graphics cores found in SoCs such as the Intel US15W, Freescale 5121, TI OMAP and Fujitsu Ruby, as well as more powerful programmable processors. Hybrid ML provides a standardized front-end API with DO-178B certifiable soft implementations of GPU stages, enabling intelligent insertion of hardware acceleration based on programmable pipeline stages (reliable shaders) or direct fixed function rendering on a wide array of devices.
The product also offers capabilities for GPU virtualization, supports partitioned RTOS operation, and provides multi-context support and multiple GPU support within a single API interface. Initial RTOS support includes Green Hills INTEGRITY-178B and Wind River VxWorks 653.www.sdcsystems.com
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BitWise gains IS0 27001 Accreditation.
BitWise Group in the UK has attained IS0/IEC 27001:2005 accreditation for it’s Information Security Management System (ISMS). The software services company chose the ISO 27001 standard because it is gaining visibility and adoption in several of the company’s key markets.
In order to achieve the accreditation BitWise had to demonstrate that it had the infrastructure and procedures in place to securely store and access all data held by the company on it’s ISMS. The company was audited by LRQA and at the same time achieved an update to their existing Quality Management System accreditation to the latest ISO 9001-2008 version.
Craig McWhirter, BitWise Group Managing Director, commented: “We are delighted to be one of the first companies in our industry to achieve IS0 27001 status and this accreditation acknowledges that we have the systems in place to honour the commitment to our clients to handle their sensitive information and data with the utmost integrity.” www.bitwisegroup.com
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Copytrax to Demonstrate Digital Screen Printing Technology At Hi-Tech Developers Event
Cambridge based digital print developers, Copytrax, have announced that they will be demonstrating the new Copytrax PrintMaster at the Embedded Masterclass in Canbridge on Thursday (May 6th). www.embedded-masterclass.com
Copytrax’s new technology enables companies to achieve high quality print at the press of a button on a broad range of materials, without the requirement for the creation of films and screens. Recent applications have included printing on PCB's, dial gauges and control panels.
This new 'digital approach' to screen-printing offers engineers a number of important new advantages. At the development and prototype stage, this gives engineers the freedom to quickly create prototypes in-house, therefore reducing costs and accelerating the design cycle. This freedom to experiment also means that engineers can be more innovative and maybe even create multiple versions for approval by the client or manager. Another important advantage of this technology is that a machine such as the Copytrax PrintMaster has a minimal environmental impact on the working environment. Unlike traditional screen-printing methods, digital printing equipment does not require cleaning solvents and similar agents.
"The main development has been in the make up of the inks that we can now use," said Steve Woods, Sales Manager at Copytrax. "These inks are very durable once printed and can be used to print on a very wide range of substrates. In addition to this, the printhead technology is also enabling us to provide equipment that is delivering higher resolution and more vibrant designs than has been possible before. This has been an exciting break through and we are seeing a lot of demand for this technology."
The Copytrax PrintMaster employs Epson Micro Piezo head technology using a variable-sized droplet format to ensure superb colour management and a high-resolution performance. The PrintMaster can print a broad range of media up to a size of 330mm x 530mm and offers a quiet and low odour performance that enables the PrintMaster to be operated in a design and engineering office environment. For many clients, Copytrax provide bespoke 'trays' that can hold multiple items for low to medium volume print runs. Copytrax can also provide a 'rotary' print fixture for the printing of cylindrical objects. This fixture will even accommodate tapered designs.
"For many of our clients, the PrintMaster has introduced a new level of flexibility in the way they develop their products and the volumes that they can produce," said Steve Woods. "They now have more freedom to introduce the production of lower volume specialist products or specially branded solutions. Our clients can now also respond to customer enquiries much faster and reduce the lead times related to traditional screen printing methods." www.copytrax.com
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Pebble Bay To Make Their Mark on USB 3.0
UK based embedded systems engineering consultants Pebble Bay have announced their availability to undertake USB 3.0 development work for companies looking to exploit this latest high-speed, high performance communication format. Building on the ease of use of USB 2.0, a key feature of USB 3.0 is a SuperSpeed performance of 5 Gbit/s; ideal for high definition video, medical devices, automotive systems and a wide range of other data intensive applications.
"USB 3.0 is an exciting development for our industry, it will open up a lot of new possibilities," said John Efstathiades, Technical Director at Pebble Bay. "In addition to the vast speed improvement, the USB 3.0 host interface will deliver more current to devices, meaning that bus-powered devices can do more without needing their own power supply and rechargeable devices can charge their batteries in less time. The new USB 3.0 specification also offers some improved network intelligence that will enable engineers to develop much better performing systems. I am very sure that companies looking for a significant market advantage will be exploring USB 3.0."
Pebble Bay works with a broad range of companies, assisting in the development of foundation software at the hardware/software interface. Their work includes the development of BSPs, device drivers and lower level code for embedded systems. Over the past 5 years Pebble Bay has provided services to companies around the world and has become respected for its work with a range of operating systems such as VxWorks, Integrity, LynuxWorks, Nucleus and Linux. They have undertaken extensive work with USB, with the development of special code to enable robust, high-speed data acquisition for automotive applications, and to enable companies to adopt USB for networking and communications in a number of new devices.
"We certainly have a great deal of experience and knowledge of the USB standard and associated class specifications," said John Efstathiades. "We also have a wide experience of CPU architectures and RTOSes, which enables us to understand how to develop a system that will fully exploit the potential of USB 3.0. With USB 3.0, all parts of the system, hardware and software, need to be optimised in order to get the maximum benefit from this new SuperSpeed signalling rate."
USB was developed to provide a simple inter-connect system that enabled plug and play devices such as printers and cameras. USB also enabled port expansion, enabling PC's to accommodate many new external devices. USB 1.1 introduced two speeds: low-speed 1.5 Mbit/s and full-speed 12 Mbit/s. USB 2.0 introduced hi-speed 480 Mbit/s. It is now a standard feature of many embedded systems that act as host or peripheral devices.
"USB is no longer just used to connect peripherals to PCs,” said John Efstathiades, "It is now also used as an inter-connect between devices and modules within systems. It now has a much bigger role to play. In addition to this, we now have a new generation of devices with much larger storage and bandwidth needs, such as HD cameras and media players. I feel sure that USB 3.0 is an enabling technology that will deliver many important changes in the performance and functionality of tomorrow's hi-tech devices."
About Pebble Bay
Pebble Bay helps businesses build and improve all kinds of products based on microprocessors. The company helps their customers to get the best out of their design, by focusing on the software building blocks that support the application.
Clients trust Pebble Bay’s team of specialists and project managers to solve embedded software problems across a wide variety of industries and applications. This enables new products to be delivered to market quicker and existing products to be enhanced and improved upon. www.pebblebay.com
Note : USB, VxWorks, Integrity, LynuxWorks, Nucleus and Linux are registered trademarks and remain the property of their respective owners.
Pebble Bay Contact:
Tanya Wrycraft
Business Development and Marketing Manager
+44 (0)1926 453 681
tanya.wrycraft@pebblebay.com
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TTE Systems Win Presenters Prize at Embedded Masterclass 2010
Organisers of the recent UK Embedded Masterclass, an annual hi-tech developers conference, have announced that Dr Michael Pont of TTE Systems Ltd was voted "The Best Presenter". With just a whiteboard and his wit and charm, Michael discussed the advantages of developing software using a 'Time-Triggered' methodology, as opposed to a multi-tasking interrupt driven software architecture.
Michael's performance was dynamic, informative, humorous at times and serious when relating his technology to safety critical issues. In many ways, his message regarding 'time-triggered architectures' challenges the traditional approach to software development, ensuring that the presentation was both provocative and compelling. In addition to this, Michael expressed a deep understanding of real-time embedded system development and was able to handle several difficult questions about this complex subject. www.tte-systems.com
In a close second place was Paul Tingey from Wind River who presented a discussion regarding the challenges of developing software for multi-core and multi-processor systems. Again, this was considered informative and well presented.
"The non Power Point approach was welcomed by all of the delegates, the feedback was most emphatic," said Richard Blackburn, Managing Director of marketing company Energi, who managed and promoted the event. "It certainly gave the presentations a much more dynamic and spontaneous feel and also the delegates felt more free to interrupt and challenge specific issues. It really lifted the quality of the entire event. We are very pleased to have moved away from the Power Point format. This was much more fun and informative. Time just flew by."
In addition to requesting the presenters to use a whiteboard, the organisers also arranged a poll, so that delegates could vote for the most informative presentation. The prize for the winning presenter was £200. With this new approach, attendance at each of the presentations was much improved on previous years.
"We decided last year that we needed to raise the standard of the presentations," said Richard. "We know that an engineer’s time is valuable, so we wanted to ensure that the delegates attending the event gained information of real value. Having the presenters use a whiteboard encouraged them to prepare their presentations well in advance and put a lot of effort into their performance. Knowing that they were going to be judged also helped raise the standards. It was very productive and I feel sure engineers will be keen to revisit the event next year as a result of these changes."
The Embedded Masterclass has now been running for 10 years and plans for next year’s event are already well advanced. Billed as a ‘non-sales’ forum where hi-tech developers can meet key vendors from around the world, the event facilitates the sharing of knowledge with regards to the latest in tools, software and hardware for the development of microprocessor based systems. Key to the event is a series of half-day technology workshops.
Having grown year on year, this year’s event was sponsored by 36 vendors and attracted exhibiting companies from the US, Canada, Germany, Sweden, France, Poland and the UK.
