Positive metrics for ESC Boston 2004; six products

Overall metrics for Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) Boston were positive after this “premier” East Coast embedded exhibition and educational forum completed its 13th edition at Boston’s Hynes Convention Center (Sept. 13-16, 2004). A total of 139 exhibitors took part—a 17% increase over 2003—and exhibit display area grew by 5% to 23,200 net square feet, says show producer CMP Media LLC. However, attendance of “almost 3,000” represented a dip of about 8% compared to 2003.

Manufacturers and suppliers of semiconductors, development tools, software, and services make up ESC’s exhibitors. Their portion of the show ran on Sept. 14 and 15. As for the core conference part of the event, some 78 tutorials and technology classes were presented, along with two keynote addresses and three panel discussions. Conference sessions cover crucial embedded technology topics, ranging from Unified Modeling Language (UML), TCP/IP networking, and Linux/open source to real-time development and high availability design.

VMIVME-7807 single-board computer integrates an Intel Pentium M processor with up to 1.5 Gbyte of DDR SDRAM, one PCI-X, 66 MHz PMC expansion slot, dual Ethernet configuration, and up to 1 GB of compact flash memory.

A sampling of products and technology introductions at ESC Boston follows from GE Fanuc , Green Hills Software , I-Logix , Kuka Controls , Macraigor Systems , and Quadros Systems . GE Fanuc Embedded Systems Inc . introduced its VMIVME-7807 single-slot, 6U-format VME single-board computer (SBC) that operates at up to 1.8 GHz to supply high bandwidth and processing power for I/O-intensive applications. This SBC comes in two Gigabit Ethernet configurations. The first version routes one 10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet port to the front panel and a second port to the rear P2 connector. In the second configuration, both 10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet ports are routed to the rear P0 connector to support VITA 31.1 (Gigabit Ethernet on VME64x backplanes).

Also see

September 21, 2004 Control Engineering Daily News

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Green Hills’ Multi IDE and I-Logix’s Rhapsody work seamlessly to significantly reduce the debug cycle, including synchronization of break points in individual source code lines and the application model.

Green Hills Software Inc . and I-Logix , announced a significant extension to the integration between I-Logix’s Rhapsody Model-Driven Development environment and Green Hills’ Integrity RTOS [real-time operating system] and Multi Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The move reportedly supports and accelerates the full application-development lifecycle. Rhapsody can now automatically generate optimized code for Green Hills C/C++ and Ada compilers to capture and validate an embedded application design, via models based on Unified Modeling Language (UML) 2.0. After compiling, the code can be downloaded and run on Integrity RTOSs using Multi and AdaMulti IDEs. During debugging, Multi source-level debugger is synchronized with Rhapsody UML models—to significantly increase productivity over traditional, manual step-by-step programming, say the developers. Kuka Controls showed its real-time extension platform, CeWin, which lets Microsoft Windows CE and XP Embedded operating systems reside simultaneously on one processor. Eliminating the need for a second CPU reduces cost, size, and weight of system hardware, while increasing reliability. Among feature enhancements of CeWin 3.1 are an additional shared memory area for faster and easier data exchange between the two operating systems, an event-system to help their full synchronization, and an integrated Web server for system administration. If a Windows XP Embedded system exception occurs, Windows CE is notified, but real-time capability as well as latencies remain unchanged, according to Kuka.

Also see April 1, 2004 Control Engineering Daily News

Macraigor Systems LLC unveiled a new high-speed Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0 device for JTAG (IEEE Standard 1149.1) or background debug mode (BDM). Named usb2Demon, the device is said to provide embedded system developers with a cost-sensitive, high-performance interface for target on-chip debug (OCD). The device works as a converter of OCD commands. It combines USB 2.0 performance with ability to clock the target at up to 24 MHz to facilitate the debug solution. usb2Demon will be available in 4Q04 with a list price of $750. An assembly-level software debugger and GNU tools suite are free from the Macraigor Web site.

Quadros Systems Inc . announced support for Freescale Semiconductor’s expanded family of 32-bit ColdFire processors through its configurable and scaleable real-time operating system, RTXC Quadros RTOS. The operating system and middleware enable developers to maximize the performance of the ColdFire family with sophisticated kernel services, highly scalable memory footprint, and extensive peripheral support, says Quadros Systems.

The software includes an extensive suite of middleware integrated with the RTXC RTOS kernel. It supports on-chip peripherals and functions of ColdFire devices needed for applications ranging from factory automation to medical instrumentation. RTXC Quadros multi-stack RTOS for the ColdFire family is available now, priced starting at $12,500 for a single-project license.

Also find previous coverage of ESC Boston from the following companies:

Bsquare — Sept. 28, 2004, Control Engineering Daily News

VersaLogic Corp .— Sept. 14, 2004, Control Engineering Daily News

—Frank J. Bartos, executive editor, Control Engineering, fbartos@reedbusiness.com

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