On Design
There's More to an RTOS than Threads
November 10, 2010 5:20 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsWhen engineers think about using a real-time operating system they worry about task timing, interrupt latency, and other timing- and task-related concerns. But other aspects of adopting an RTOS deserve equal attention. "Keep an eye on your project's future growth and expandability," said Andy Gryc...
Kits for Kids
October 20, 2010 12:10 pm | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsThe Microchip Technology PIC processors have appealed to electronics experimenters and hobbyists for some time, and many companies sell a variety of device programmers and development boards. Young people, though, can start with a less elaborate setup...
Do MCU Processor Cores Still Matter?
September 30, 2010 12:31 pm | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsAsk an engineer who uses microcontrollers whether processor cores matter and you'll likely hear, "Not much." People at three MCU vendors--Silicon Laboratories, Renesas, and Microchip Technology echo this answer. The capabilities and types of peripherals blended into an MCU chip matter much more.
The DIY RTOS Meets Its Match
August 7, 2010 6:32 am | by John Carbone, Express Logic | Articles | CommentsThe do-it-yourself approach to a real-time operating system appeals to many an engineer’s desire to control, schedule, and manage application interrupts. So ten years ago, the number of in-house RTOS applications outstripped all commercial RTOS implementations. Although the do-it-yourself (DIY) RTOS remains the number-one competitor to commercial RTOSs, industry analyst Embedded Market Forecasters has found
Debug Code for ARM Cortex-M3 MCUs
July 13, 2010 4:59 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsARM counts six large silicon suppliers as licensees for the Cortex-M3 processor core, which attests to its popularity. Microcontroller manufacturers license the Cortex-M3 core and its attendant debug-and-trace macrocells, called CoreSight. The CoreSight block includes many capabilities, and hardware and software engineers should know how to take advantage of them.
ESC 2010 Update
June 17, 2010 4:37 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsIn late April I visited the exhibits at the annual Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, CA. For the most part, people I met with discussed microcontrollers, communication, and development kits.
Tools Correlate Code and Current
June 9, 2010 5:18 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsThe emphasis on low-power embedded systems can give engineers heartburn. They must strive to enhance a system's performance, add capabilities, and make its battery last for as many as 10 years. A combination of hardware and software tools now help engineers understand power consumption without the antacids.
ESC 2010 Update
May 4, 2010 8:41 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsIn late April I visited the exhibits at the annual Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, CA. For the most part, people I met with discussed microcontrollers, communication, and development kits. The short descriptions below represent only a snapshot of the interesting products announced or unveiled at ESC.
Kits for Kids
April 15, 2010 7:10 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsAs a teenager, I built many "computer" circuits with relays and switches. As I recall, a flip-flop took two 2PDT relays and a binary adder took two 4PDT relays in my brute-force logic circuit. Kids today can get started exploring computers more easily.
Design Tips Save MCU Power
March 11, 2010 4:11 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsMicrocontrollers offer engineers a variety of power-saving techniques. But using them effectively requires careful attention to tradeoffs in software and hardware at the start of a project. "Engineers must partition their application so they have a rough idea how long their microcontroller will stay in a sleep mode or in an active mode," said Mike Salas...
Get Rolling with Efficient Motor-Control Designs
March 11, 2010 3:58 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsTo find out more about the state of motor-control design in embedded systems, I recently talked with three engineers at Texas Instruments who work with motor-related hardware and software. "Motor control looks simple to start but it covers many disciplines so it's almost impossible to have one designer do everything," noted Miroslav Oljaca...
Give Sensors a Gentle Touch
January 13, 2010 4:05 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsNew devices, technologies, and development kits make it easier than ever to include haptic controls in a design. Here's an overview of several hardware and software advancements. Atmel's first maXTouch touch-sensor controller and microcontroller, the mXT224, gives equipment designers as many as 224 sensing nodes across display screens than can exceed 10 inches.
IPv6 Goes Embedded
December 21, 2009 4:27 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsMost networked equipment uses Internet Protocol version 4, or IPv4, which provides for about four billion 32-bit IP addresses. Concerns about exhausting these addresses--and other technical issues--led the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)to develop Internet Protocol version 6, or IPv6.
Kits for Kids, November 2009
October 5, 2009 11:17 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsYoung people with an interest in electronics still have a cornucopia of kits to start with. As a youngster I had a crystal radio that picked up several local stations I listened to with a small headphone. You can still buy crystal-radio kits and many cost under $20.
Brushless DC Motors Roll On
September 10, 2009 12:36 pm | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsYou can find brushless-DC motors in appliances, medical instruments, and industrial equipment because they offer advantages over their brushed-DC-motor siblings. But before you can use a brushless-DC (BLDC) motor you need to understand how it works.
SuperSpeed USB: A USB 3.0 Update
September 2, 2009 7:35 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsSuperSpeed USB connections — coming in 2010 — will zip data between devices at a theoretical rate of 5 Gbps, or more than 10-fold faster than a high-speed USB 2.0 connection. The faster transfers could help embedded-system developers who design video kiosks, TV recorders/players, and test-and-measurement equipment that use large quantities of information.
Thermal Management Strategies for Extreme 3U cPCI Embedded System Applications
August 5, 2009 6:47 am | by Barbara Schmitz, MEN Mikro Elektronik | Articles | CommentsAs the cooling challenges of 3U CompactPCI (cPCI) embedded system applications multiply due to increased processing power, reduced package sizes and more hostile environments, new thermal management options and industry standards continue to evolve. Chip and board manufacturers have already done a vast amount of work to mitigate thermal management concerns.
Modules Simplify RF Designs
August 4, 2009 10:01 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsReady-to-use wireless modules provide a way to quickly get a design "on the air" when engineers find RF circuits and communication protocols fall outside their areas of expertise. Even when engineers have RF experience, a module still might make sense from the perspective of saved time and money.
When Good Memories Go Bad – Data Recovery of Flash Media
July 2, 2009 7:55 am | by Sean Barry, Kroll Ontrack, www.krollontrack.com | Articles | CommentsComputer hard disk drive storage has an impressive history of technological advances, from the RAMAC storage systems in the 1950s to perpendicular recording introduced a few years ago. The advancement of these technologies has increased the density of today’s hard disk drives to the terabyte range. Along the way frustrations with new storage technology have been proprietary equipment formats, initial high investments, and failed expectations of reliability.
New PICMG 2.30 Draft Standard for cPCI Can Extend Legacy System Life
May 22, 2009 10:14 am | by Charles Staley and Lindsay Powell, 3M Electronic Solutions, www.3m.com | Articles | CommentsTo take advantage of advances in high-speed serial data transmission technologies, PICMG is releasing a new option for its popular CompactPCI standard. The new PICMG 2.30 Compact PCI PlusIO standard is based on PICMG 2.30 core specification and defines the migration path from parallel PCI to the serial PCI Express.
A Visit to the 2009 Embedded Systems Conference – Part II
May 18, 2009 11:37 am | Articles | CommentsWith over 8,000 attendees, this year’s Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) was a pleasant surprise to an industry expecting a low turnout. Held in San Jose from March 30 to April 2, the event had a nice assortment of new tech and devices. Here is our second portion of our two-part coverage of the event.
Embedded Systems 2009
April 23, 2009 7:23 am | Product Releases | CommentsHere are a few pictures we took ont he floor of the 2009 Embedded Systems Confernce. Recognize anyone?
A Visit to the 2009 Embedded Systems Conference
April 16, 2009 6:55 am | Atmel Corporation | Product Releases | CommentsWith over 8,000 attendees, this year’s Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) was a pleasant surprise to an industry expecting a low turnout. Held in San Jose from March 30 to April 2, the show demonstrated that while the economy may be depressed, the design engineering community isn’t.
Two Paths Lead to FIR Filters
March 23, 2009 11:07 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsBecause finite impulse response (FIR) filters use a mathematical algorithm to process information, engineers rely on them when an analog filter just won't do. “FIR filters appeal to people who don't want to become filter designers”, explained Grant Griffin, President, Iowegian International. "They just want to use a filter to solve a problem
6LoWPAN Goes Where ZigBee Can't
February 12, 2009 8:25 am | by Jon Titus, Senior Technical Editor | Articles | CommentsMany “standard” and proprietary protocols use the media-access controller (MAC) and the physical circuits (PHY) associated with IEEE 802.15.4 radios. Those protocols use their own arrangements of bits and bytes to transfer information between nodes, but none of them use the Internet Protocol (IP). So they cannot directly communicate with Internet-based devices and Web servers/browsers.
