Embedded system engineering magazine 2006.05,06

Rugged boards

Fastwel has introduced the EPIC CPC800 SBC and the CPC1700 PC/104-Express CPU board. Both are designed for harsh environments with components soldered on board for shock and vibration resistance.

on the Intel Pentium M processor with

1GB of DDR SDRAM and a 32MB Solid State drive, which means that when running and OS with a compact kernel, there is no need for additional storage. There are also connectors for up to four PC/104 and PC/104+ modules.

The CPC1700 PC/104-Express is single board computer for mission critical applications. It combines the features of standard PC/104+ and also carries an Express connector onboard. It also has a Pentium M and up to 1GB of on-board memory. It will be available in two versions – for industrial (-40°C to +85°C) and for commercial (0°C to +70°C) temperature ranges.

www.fastwel.com

mode. In the P e l i C A N mode the CAN104 han dles all frame according to specification and provides

analysis functions to support diag-

nosis, system maintenance and performance optimisation.

Applications include automotive instrumentation, industrial process and machine monitorand control, test and measurement, data acquisition, vending machines, POS and ATM

systems, building and lift management. www.ampltd.com

High density single slot 3U PXI modules

Pickering Interfaces, has introduced what it claims is the world's highest density matrix in a single slot PXI module.

The 40-540 family can be used in any PXI chassis and is supported by Pickering Interfaces 60-100 LXI Modular Switching Chassis. Each switching module supports a matrix with up to 528 crosspoint switches organized as 132x4

ALPHA DATA is extending the ADM-XRC series of PCI Mezzanine Cards to include platforms based on the Virtex-5 family. The first product will be released in fall 2006 and use the LX110. Supported form factors include PCI Express, PCI/PCI-X, CompactPCI, PMC and XMC and applications are thought to be radar and sonar processing, software defined radio, reconfigurable computing, telecommunication encryption/compression, image processing and electronic intelligence.

VMETRO has two board level products based on open standard form-factors includ-

ing PMC and PCI. For PCI based development platforms, VMETRO’s DEV-FPGA05, based on the Xilinx LX50 Virtex-5 FPGA, will be bundled with a software support package to allow Virtex-5 applications to be evaluated and developed at low cost. For deeply embedded applications typically found in medical imaging or aerospace and defence systems, the PMC-FPGA05D PMC module with a Virtex-5 LX110 will be available.

www.alpha-data.com

www.vmetro.com

ELECTRONICS HAS often been described as part science, part art. A defining trait of an embedded design engineer is creativity, an ability to apply the

art of electronics in solving technical problems. As electronic systems increase in complexity, the embedded designer often encounters the problem of having to devote much of their design time to specifying elements of the system that

provide no unique features to the project. Providing the embedded designer with a

suite of tools that can be used to build the backbone of a system quickly and reliably allows the focus of the designers to shift towards providing innovative solutions for their application, with features that set it apart from competitors.

For the embedded designer adopting a plat- form-based design strategy requires a radical shift in thinking. Where previously, designs had been built up of a series of interrelated components assembled to meet a products specification, the platform strategy offers the designer the opportunity to apply a common nucleus across a product family. Using ‘standard’ building blocks as the foundation for a product family pose some important engineering questions.

●Does the platform scale in performance?

●What is the lifetime of a platform?

●How flexible are the platform interfaces?

●Does the platform architecture have a clear roadmap for future generations?

Intel is working on providing the designer with building blocks that are scalable and flexible, with a defined life-cycle and clear roadmaps for the future of each of a platform’s components.

The platform, as the backbone of an embedded system, must deliver more than simple convenience. A platform vendor must provide enabling technologies that with the components deliver system performance better than the individual collection of components. The Intel Core Duo processor/Mobile Intel 945GM Express chipset-based platform shows how this can be done.Enabling technologies cover two major areas, compute performance and acceleration modules.

Compute performance

In the embedded space, compute performance

targets both performance/watt and real-time response. The Intel Core microarchitecture couples the low-power features of the P6 microarchitecture, such as the shorter pipeline with some of the performance features of the Intel Netburst microarchitecture, such as advanced dynamic execution, a very deep, out-of-order speculative execution engine.

Core Multi Processing (CMP) puts multiple independent processing cores on a single die, each with their own L1 code and data caches, local APICs and thermal controls, while having a shared L2 cache, power management and bus interface.

Intel’s first multi-core processor, the Intel Core Duo is in the Mobile Intel 945GM Express chipset-based platform for the embedded market.

Acceleration modules

Simply improving processor architecture does not necessarily improve the performance of an embedded system. Intel’s Advanced Platform Technologies uses six technologies distributed across the system components on the platform. Those that have immediate benefits for the embedded designed include Core Multi Processing (CMP), Virtualization Technology and Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel EM64T)

Core Multi Processing

CMP builds on the multiple thread support, Hyper-Threading Technology (HT Technology), in the Netburst architecture. This allowed a single processor to execute up to 2 threads at a time by using a combination of shared and duplicated resources to maximize the usage of a single execution pipeline. CMP implements multiple execution cores on the same die.

Designer can partition their application to improve performance, for example by separating out scheduled and real time tasks, or allowing the co-existence of Control and Data plane applications in a single CMP system.

Virtualization

Virtualisation has previously been implemented using a software abstraction between OS and hardware to manage multiple virtual machines. Adding virtualization technology to the proces-

sor provides hardware acceleration through virtual machine context switching in HW.

EM64T

Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel EM64T) allows a 32 bit CPU to operate in 64 bit register mode. The 64 bit environment has been expanded to increase the available processor registers available to the processor execution engine. This will be useful where applications need to access database type structures. Having outlined some of the hardware features that an embedded designer can rely on to build a system, the final section will focus on the support, tools and software that are available to the designer.

Development tools

Intel can provide many resources, from reference hardware designs, schematics, reference platforms and development kits through schematic and layout reviews to initial hardware bring-up and OS loading. Intel’s own software development tools and compilers plug directly into many of the standard development IDEs and the Intel Integrated Performance Primitives is a suite of libraries to provide optimized access to features of the Intel architecture.

A strong third party developer network provides Intel architecture-based software solutions, be they development tools, libraries or turn-key applications.

For the debug and tweaking phase, where a designer will push to get as much performance from the system as possible, Intel has developed a number of code profiling and optimization tools such as Intel VTune Performance Analyzer, Intel Thread Checker and Intel Thread Profiler.

Conclusion

The platform approach allows embedded system designers to focus their efforts on developing innovative and novel solutions for their application space. <End/>

This is an edited version of a longer article. The longer article and other links can be found on www.esemagazine.com.

www.intel.co.uk

communication port settings such as baud rate, parity etc. but also more complex operating parameters such as timing details and clocking schemes for external memory devices. Normally a time consuming process, requiring high degrees of knowledge of the microcontroller register design, these parameters could be entered easily for each peripheral using a simple mouse click and selection of the appropriate settings, either from a drop down menu, or through a dialogue box. The development tool could also generate the boot code and assembler file locking the configuration into the microcontroller, as well as include associated software drivers in compilation of the application software. Furthermore the ideal tool would enable a designer to review and modify that file, and would include operational parameters like stack and heap sizes, available in fully editable and commented code. Changes to the design would then need a simple adjustment of the configuration files and recompilation of code, removing some of the risks associated with changes to external peripherals.

As the complexity of embedded designs has increased so too has the number of microcontrollers on offer

Integrated tools

The reconfigurable microcontroller offers the designer the ability to meet the challenges posed by complex, multiple, product designs which include high levels of peripheral configuration, with the lowest number of devices. Additionally, a fully integrated set of tools enables the rapid set up and integration of these devices into the product design, allowing the designer to spend more time on developing the application, and less on defining the chip.

With more peripherals and functions included in the silicon than pins available to use them

Cores

Company name

ARC

Tensilica

Application area

Company name

Atmel

Analog Devices

Cyan

Digi International

Freescale

Fujitu

Luminary Micro.

Microchip

Nat. Semi.

Rabbit

Ramtron

Sharp

Silicon

Laboratories

Texas Instruments