VDC Research: Embedded Microprocessor, Board & Systems Market Blog

At the Design West – Embedded Systems Conference 2013 – Part 2

In this blog we will continue to provide a few more highlights from the suppliers we spoke to at the 2013 DESIGN WEST / Embedded Systems Conference that was held last week in San Jose.

Small Form Factor Motherboards: At the VersaLogic booth we were shown several of their new small form factor motherboards, including the EBX format Copperhead that is powered by an Intel i7 processor and can support up to 3 independent displays. We also saw their COM Express Mini format Falcon and EPIC format Iguana that are powered by Intel Atom processors. The Iguana boards have a Mini PCIe card socket that allows an OEM to round out its configuration with a wide array of connectivity, storage, and other options. All of the Versalogic products we saw at the show were designed for extremely high reliability in operating temperatures that extend from -40C to +85C, and many of them can be ordered in Class 3 assembly versions for mission critical applications.

Computers-on-Modules (COMs): At the congatec booth we saw the variety of COM product lines they offer including Qseven, COM Express, ETX, and XTX. If customers require high power COMs in passive cooling configurations, congatec has patented spring loaded heatspreader thermal interfaces that pull heat away from chipset components and transfer it to the edge of the module. Depending on the OEM application, many of the congatec Qseven products can be ordered with x86 processors from AMD and Intel or ARM processors from Freescale.

Development Platforms: At the ST Micro booth we visited with Ayla Networks who were demonstrating their proof-of-concept secure M2M cloud connectivity solutions with the STM32 F3 evaluation platforms representing connectivity targets. We expect to hear more from Ayla in the future, and you will likely be reading about them in our blog. At the Texas Instruments booth we were shown the new BeagleBoard Black open-source development platform. This impressive unit sells for only $45, and has a 1 GHz ARM A8 processor, 512MB of DDR3 RAM memory, and an on-board HDMI. The BeagleBoard can be expanded for multiple applications by using BeagleBone “capes”. There were multiple applications highlighted, including a remotely controlled electro-mechanical spider that had been fabricated using 3D printed parts.

Ultra Low Power MCUs: We noted that ST Micro had won an EE Times / EDN ACE Award for its Fully-Depleted Silicon-on-Insulator (FD-SOI) technology that allows devices to run using 20 – 50% less power. On a similar note, Renesas was demonstrating the power sipping ability of its RX111 group of MCUs that can wake up in 4.8us from a sleep mode, where it only consumes 350nA. In addition, the RX111 has 6 safety functions to verify/ensure that the device and supporting circuitry are working properly.

Industrial SATA III SSD: The VDC team met with Innodisc and learned about their new SATA III line of Flash Storage Products targeted at embedded applications in the industrial market.  These Innodisc products use arrays of lower-cost Multi-Layer Cell (MLC) memory chips to duplicate Single-Layer Cell performance and reliability at a significantly lower price point.

Embedded Certainty: At the XMOS booth we learned about their series of MCUs that were designed to remove uncertainty from critical applications. This means that programs can be developed where the signal timing is completely predictable. Roughly stated, the XMOS MCU have removed I/O layers and other elements that create signal latency or processing variables that can affect timing. There are many applications such as digital audio and collision avoidance that can benefit from MCUs with predictable timing.

Embedded Motherboards: As the VDC EHW team is currently in the midst of our supply-side coverage of the embedded motherboard market, we were particularly interested in seeing the two new SuperMicro X9DR products. Both of these units were extremely powerful and can be used in applications that require power-efficient processing of high volumes of data. SuperMicro also sells its products into the traditional IT space and, as such, has some system options that can be attractive to OEMs supporting mission critical applications. These include built in Uninterruptible Power Supply and automatic flash memory backup of system RAM and CPU processes in the event of a power outage.

Stay tuned for part 3 where we will wrap up our observations from the 2013 Design West show. 

ALPR = Big $$ for Embedded Hardware Suppliers

An interesting opportunity for embedded hardware suppliers caught the attention of the VDC M2M Embedded Platform team. The opportunity was highlighted in a Boston Globe article this week about a local police department that equipped a cruiser with a $28K Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) unit. There were a number of eye-popping statistics starting with the fact that the unit apparently paid for itself in the first 11 days it was deployed. The ROI was accomplished from revenues generated by identifying vehicles and drivers with expired licenses, registrations, inspections, or other unpaid fines and fees. ALPRs can also be used for parking enforcement particularly in areas where civilian officials want to encourage shoppers with low cost short interval parking spaces. In this parking application, an official uses an ALPR to detect commuters and/or store workers that try to take advantage of the potential arbitrage and fine them.

Now let’s look at the $28K bundle of embedded hardware and software and speculate a bit on what is likely to be involved. The ALPR cited by the Boston Globe had the capability to read 1,800 license plates per minute and cover 4 lanes of traffic simultaneously. It can make those readings at differential speeds of up to 150 mph. This is a key factor because the unit is mounted on a cruiser as opposed to a parking or toll-taking lane where only the vehicle would be moving and the zone where the license plate would be is more predictable. Therefore there has to be a camera system capable of capturing a wide field at varying focal lengths and light conditions. The torrent of data from the camera system has to be rapidly processed to identify license plates and simultaneously perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on 4 or more plates in the field of view. Additionally, the system has to identify the state that issued the plate. This is challenging because many states like Massachusetts issue multiple types of specialty plates for sports teams and other organizations or causes. States also control costs by not replacing license plates until they practically fall apart. Therefore, it is fairly safe to say that there would be approximately $10K in optics and high performance processing inside the ALPR to accomplish the OCR function.

What happens next is important. We are going to make an assumption and it is a big one. We will assume that the ALPR generates data that supports law enforcement but this data will not be a cornerstone for court cases. This means that the raw video would not need to be compressed and stored for future reference while preserving chain of custody. For example, if the ALPR were going to be used for moving traffic or criminal violations it would need to have irrefutable video evidence that identified the driver as well as speed measurement data. Because of our limited OCR assumption, the captured data only needs to be combined with time stamps, GPS coordinates and, perhaps a few operational parameters. As a result, this limited data set would be in the order of kbytes per record as opposed to Mbytes per second for full video archiving. Even so, this still represents several thousands of dollars per ALPR unit for the additional embedded sensing, processing, storage, HMI and communication hardware.

In our estimate, the next part of the ALPR application would optimally involve cloud-based Big Data resources. The ALPR would transmit captured data in real time and processed for matches in multiple databases. The response back to the police cruiser would have to be rapid to be effective. The most effective ALPR supporting infrastructure would have to combine data from all municipalities, states, and federal agencies relevant to a particular region. Suffice it to say, the cloud-based and communication services could easily amount to several hundred dollars per month for each ALPR deployed.

The Boston Globe article stated that there were already 87 ALPRs deployed in the state with another 7 Boston area police departments adding 21 additional in the next month. Considering that Massachusetts alone has over 350 cities and towns but the entire US represents over 36,000 municipalities, the potential market for ALPRs and the embedded hardware inside them would appear to be a huge and rapidly growing opportunity.

Reminder - ESC Design East Show is Next Week - Last Chance to Qualify for Embeddy

There's still time to connect with the VDC Research Embedded Hardware & Software team at the ESC show next week but the coveted time-slots on Tuesday are rapidly being taken. If you believe you have a new product that qualifies for one of the VDC embeddy awards contact us as soon as possible as at least one member of the VDC team needs to see the product demo/briefing during or before the show. The winners will be notified on Tuesday evening and announced just before Wednesday's keynote speech.

The VDC team will be at the show site starting on Monday and, of course we can also schedule meetings on Wednesday as well.

If you would like to schedule a meeting around Embedded Hardware, please contact:

David Laing, Senior Analyst, Embedded Hardware & Systems Practice, VDC Research Group at: dlaing@vdcresearch.com or 508.653.9000 x146.

Or

Chris Rommel, Vice President, Embedded Hardware & Systems Practice, VDC Research Group at: crommel@vdcresearch.com or 508.653.9000 x123.

If you would like to schedule a meeting around Embedded Software and Tools, please contact:

Jared Weiner, Analyst, Embedded Software & Tools Practice, VDC Research Group at: jweiner@vdcresearch.com or 508.653.9000 x143.

Connect with VDC Research Group at the Design East/Embedded Systems Conference 2012!

VDC Research Group will be joining the Design East/Embedded Systems Conference 2012 exhibition and conference.  During the conference, we will be presenting the coveted VDC Embeddy awards to a deserving product in the software and hardware categories. To make sure your product is considered, please make sure that:

• The product is formally announced at the show or, has been announced as of August, 2012
• That the VDC Research team will be briefed on the details of the product by your show staff.

Note: The Embeddys will be presented before Wednesday's keynote address. Therefore the briefings need to be completed by the evening of Tuesday September 18th.

VDC’s Embedded Hardware Team will be available at the show starting Monday September 17th and will be at the conference through the 19th.  During that time, we welcome the opportunity to connect with attending vendors.  We look forward to explaining VDC’s research methodology, learning about your latest product releases, and discussing your market research and strategic needs.

If you would like to learn more about the show, please click here.

If you would like to schedule a meeting around Embedded Hardware, please contact:

David Laing, Senior Analyst, Embedded Hardware & Systems Practice, VDC Research Group at: dlaing@vdcresearch.com or 508.653.9000 x146.

Or

Chris Rommel, Vice President, Embedded Hardware & Systems Practice, VDC Research Group at: crommel@vdcresearch.com  or 508.653.9000 x123.

If you would like to schedule a meeting around Embedded Software, please contact:

Jared Weiner, Analyst, Embedded Software & Tools Practice, VDC Research Group at: jweiner@vdcresearch.com  or 508.653.9000 x143.

Might Air Flow through Northrop Grumman’s Air-Flow-Through Technology Patent?

A couple of weeks ago, an interesting press release appeared in my Inbox, announcing that Curtiss-Wright Controls Defense Solutions (CWCDS) was introducing a new version of their VPX6-490 DSP board, which utilizes dual NVIDIA GPGPU MXM modules and NVIDIA’s Fermi architecture. Besides the fact that this board appears to have extraordinary capabilities, this new version also utilizes Northrop Grumman’s air-flow-through (AFT) cooling technology, which CWCDS was the first to license. This is also, in my opinion, a valid and exciting technological development, providing superior cooling while protecting sensitive components from potentially damaging contaminants in the ambient air. The board release announcement was dated June 28, 2012; the press release announcing the license arrangement was dated April 19, 2012.

Being curious, I decided to poke around a bit and learn more about this AFT technology. I downloaded Northrop Grumman’s patent no. 7,995,436 (click on “Images” to see the drawings), and stumbled on something that gave me pause.

Bear in mind that I am not a patent professional. However, in my career I have been sole or co-inventor on 17 US patents, and thus have been involved in the process and have seen some of its pitfalls.

A Hole in the Patent?

In the Disclosure of the Invention section of the patent, which appears in Column 2 of page 15, the patent reads “…at least one removable module…” (for example, board) “…electrically or electro-optically coupled with the base unit…” (for example, backplane). No problem here. However, in the Abstract, which appears on page 1, and in the claims which appear on pages 18 and 19, the “electrically coupled” option has been omitted. All of the independent claims (Claims 1, 8 and 16) stipulate that the boards (I’m using my own “layman’s” terms here to avoid getting bogged down in the legalese) are “electro-optically coupled” to the backplane. To my knowledge (and I checked into this to be sure) electro-optical coupling is accomplished through the use of light sources (today, LEDs) and photoreceptors or photocells of some sort. Fiber optics, as in VITA 66, could also provide the proper coupling. Any of these would necessitate use of a special backplane rather than the “conventional” VPX types.

Further perusal of the Disclosure of the Invention failed to find any additional mention of the coupling means, be they electrical or electro-optical. I can’t see any reason why AFT would not work with electrically coupled boards and backplanes as well as with those that are electro-optically coupled.

I can envision two scenarios which may explain the omission of the “electrically coupled” option in the patent claims. The first is that this was a mistake, that the electrically coupled option had been dropped inadvertently. The second is that it was deliberately omitted in a response to a PTO Office Action, probably a “103 rejection” (where the invention is deemed by the Examiner to be “obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art”). In a response to this type of Office Action (which is very common), patent attorneys often limit the claims in order to further differentiate the invention from the prior art.

Possible Impact on the Participants

Now the big question is just how this will impact Curtiss-Wright and Northrop Grumman. As I stated above, I’m not a patent professional; the following are my opinions only, and the situation should be sorted out by the attorneys of the parties involved.

I should state here that this issue has no negative impact whatsoever upon the technical merits of either CWCDS’ product or Northrop Grumman’s AFT technology. Any impact would be legal and, perhaps, financial.

In either of the scenarios that I outlined above, the use of AFT technology in CDCDS’ boards is not prohibited even if electrical, rather than electro-optical, coupling is used. However, electrically coupled boards are, in my opinion, not protected under the patent. Curtiss-Wright has gained technical support and relevant expertise from Northrop Grumman through the license, but has not gained any real degree of protection for the cooling technology except in the case of electro-optically coupled devices. I’m not certain whether a court would uphold royalty payments to Northrop Grumman under the license if AFT were to be used on electrically coupled board and backplane combinations. Again, that’s for the lawyers to sort out.

In the first instance mentioned above, wherein the omission was inadvertent, I do not believe that CWCDS would have any unexpected financial exposure. However, under the second instance, where the omission was deliberate, the story may be a bit more complicated.

I have not looked at any of the prior art at all. Forty patents are listed as cited references; twenty-three of these were cited by the Examiner (the cited patents have some relevance to the patentability of the invention; the others listed are for the purpose of providing background). It is possible that one of the cited patents dominates the Northrop Grumman patent, meaning that it discloses a cooling method substantially similar to AFT. In that case the electrically coupled option may have been intentionally dropped from the claims in order to provide differentiation, and thereby make the AFT invention patentable. It is then possible that CWCDS, if they use AFT on electrically coupled boards, may be bordering on infringing this earlier patent, and thus it is conceivable that they may have some financial liability. I would suspect that, in this case, CWCDS would be held harmless and the liability assumed by Northrop Grumman because of their failure to adequately disclose that their patent didn’t cover electrically coupled devices and that another did, but one never knows. In any case it appears to me that it’s time for the lawyers. I’ll be interested to see how this plays out.

Connect with VDC Research Group at the Design West/Embedded Systems Conference 2012!

VDC Research Group will be joining the Design West/Embedded Systems Conference 2012 exhibition and conference.  During the conference, we will be presenting the coveted VDC Embeddy awards to a deserving product in each of the 2 software and hardware categories. To make sure your product is considered, please make sure that:

• The product is formally announced at the show or, has been announced as of January, 2012
• That the VDC Research team will be briefed on the details of the product by your show staff.

VDC’s Embedded Hardware Team will be arriving March 27th and will be at the conference through March 29th.  During that time, we welcome the opportunity to connect with attending vendors.  We look forward to explaining VDC’s research methodology, learning about your latest product releases, and discussing your market research and strategic needs.

If you would like to learn more about the show, please click here.

If you would like to schedule a meeting around Embedded Hardware, please contact:

David Laing, Senior Analyst, Embedded Hardware & Systems Practice, VDC Research Group at: dlaing@vdcresearch.com or 508.653.9000 x146.

Or

Chris Rommel, Vice President, Embedded Hardware & Systems Practice, VDC Research Group at: crommel@vdcresearch.com  or 508.653.9000 x123.

If you would like to schedule a meeting around Embedded Software, please contact:

Jared Weiner, Analyst, Embedded Software & Tools Practice, VDC Research Group at: jweiner@vdcresearch.com  or 508.653.9000 x143.

New MicroTCA Specification targets Military Applications

PICMG has recently announced the adoption of a specification for a hardened, conduction cooled version of the emerging MicroTCA platform (MTCA.3). THis is the third in a proposed series of five specifications, aimed at broadening usage of the AMC architecture into ruggedized applications in both military and commercial markets.

The first MicroTCA specification, MTCA.0, was adopted in July of 2006. This defined the basic system architecture which employed AdvancedMC mezzanine cards (AMCs) plugged directly into a backplane, without modifications. This significant first step allowed AMC cards to be used as blades in small footprint systems, without requiring use of a carrier. It was anticipated that MicroTCA would find application not only in communications, but in industrial and military applications as well. However, many were skeptical about the edge connected nature of AMC cards, fearing that this could be a serious vulnerability. Thus the military, in particular, considered MicroTCA as only being appropriate for use in benign environments (e.g. wide-bodied aircraft).

A second specification, MTCA.1,which was adopted in March of 2009, defined an air-cooled ruggedized version of MicroTCA, intended for exterior and mobile communications applications. While an improvement over MTCA.0, this still did not offer the degree of ruggedization that was required by the Military and Aerospace market.

A hardened air-cooled specification, MTCA.2, was proposed and is the subject of an active effort at PICMG. However, MTCA.3, which was adopted in February of 2011, provides an immediate avenue for the introduction of MicroTCA into less benign application environments. Its one "downside" is that MTCA.3 does specify conduction cooling which, although desirable in many cases, is substantially more expensive.

As a part of the MicroTCA ruggedization effort, PICMG commissioned a study comprising military environmental testing of the MicroTCA connector system. The test program, performed by Contech Research (Attleboro, MA), was based on MIL-STD-801 and RTCA/DO-160 standards. The rigorous program investigated the connectors from the standpoints of mechanical shock, random vibration, thermal shock, thermal cycling with humidity, temperature life, mixed flowing gas, insulation resistance, dielectric withstanding voltage, durability, insert and extraction force, salt, fog and sand. The fact that the connectors passed these tests handily should put to rest the aforementioned skepticism and points to a probability that MicroTCA may be adopted for deployment under severe, even battleground, conditions.

MicroTCA, therefore, now provides an alternative to the small form factor VME-based systems micro.VPX and Nano-ATR, which were recently introduced by VITA members PCI-Systems, Inc. and Themis Computer.

Has VME Learned From xTCA?

Despite VME guru Ray Alderman’s (in)famous comment that CompactPCI was a “dog” and ATCA a “dog with fleas,” it appears that VITA and the VME industry may be moving along a path first blazed by PICMG and xTCA.

Late in 2002, PICMG released the first version of the Advanced TeleCommunications Architecture (ATCA) standard. This defined the first true blade-based architecture, wherein all communication across the backplane was via a high-speed serial switch fabric, rather than over a shared, parallel, multidrop bus. This was followed by the Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) standard in 2005.

It didn’t take folks that long to realize that AMC cards could also be used as blades in smaller footprint systems. PICMG released the first version of the resultant MicroTCA standard in 2006. The advent of MicroTCA was seen as a positive development for the market, not only because of its technical capability and reduced footprint (vs. ATCA), but because it also expanded the potential market for AMC cards. These could be used either as mezzanine cards or as MicroTCA blades, yielding higher potential volumes and thus greater economies of manufacturing scale.

The VME industry was slower to adopt blade-based systems architectures, largely because military and aerospace defines the primary market for VME systems, and the military tends to take a more cautious approach to innovation than do civilian markets. In the latter, time-to-market is of overarching concern, whereas in military and aerospace, where mission criticality is the primary concern, far more emphasis is placed on reliability and ruggedness.

However, the evolution of VME through VME2eSST and VXS to VPX and OpenVPX has brought blade architectures, similar to ATCA, to the forefront of VME-based technology. It now appears that parallels to AMC and MicroTCA are also in the works.

Two new small form factor systems architectures are currently being investigated by VITA, with the objective of producing standards. These are “micro.VPX”and “NanoATR.” The former is the brainchild of PCI-Systems, Inc., and is the subject of working group VITA 73; it utilizes a small form factor VPX card. The latter, NanoATR, was developed by Themis Computer, targeted at ATR systems for aircraft, and utilizes an even smaller card. NanoATR is the subject of working group VITA 74. Both versions of the cards are being evaluated by the VITA 71 working group, which is developing a standard for a new rugged VME mezzanine architecture.

VDC believes that these developments will be highly beneficial to the VME-based ecosystem, and applauds the effort. Development of the MicroTCA standard was, however, fraught with confusion and delay because of differing views on an optimal configuration (cube vs. rack mount). We caution VITA’s working group(s) against falling into a similar trap, and to allow either configuration from the start.

ATCA Summit Show Report

VDC Research Group's Embedded Hardware practice attended the ATCA Summit in Santa Clara, CA last week. This show always presents a great chance to catch up on the latest happenings of the entire ATCA ecosystem as it brings together virtually all of the important ATCA technology players. The themes that were most clear to VDC at this year's Summit were the move towards ever faster bandwidth (currently the inevitable move to 40Gigabit Ethernet) and the growing up of the ATCA software ecosystem.

It was apparent that the industry will soon be ready to move from 10 GbE to 40 GbE with various vendors displaying their latest hardware that will enable the move to 40GbE. Both Emerson Network Power's Embedded Computing Division and RadiSys announced new 40GbE integrated systems. Emerson Network Power announced the next generation of its Centellis 2000 ATCA platform, which is a two slot ATCA system featuring a 40GbE backplane. RadiSys meanwhile announced the availability of full sized ATCA integrated systems complete with 40GbE backplanes and 40GbE switch blades.  ELMA Bustronic was also exhibiting 40GbE with its latest highspeed ATCA backplane, capable of 40GbE speeds. It is obvious that with the move to 4G/LTE that the requirement for speeds of 40GbE and faster is rapidly approaching and these firms along with other ATCA vendors will be soon be securing LTE and other 4G design wins with such 40GbE ATCA platforms. VDC's own current projections show that today the ATCA market is at the inflection point where 10GbE is now used in more new ATCA designs than 1 GbE and that real deployment of 40GbE ATCA systems will begin in earnest in 2011 with an inflection point coming 2013 when 40GbE will overtake 10GbE in the majority of new ATCA designs.

The importance of the ATCA ecosystem improving its software component has been obvious to VDC for some time and it was obvious at the Summit that much work continues to be done in this area. The software infrastructure available from the ATCA ecosystem today still lags the hardware infrastructure, but there are many firms and industry organizations working hard to close that gap. VDC believes that for ATCA to achieve its full potential a more robust offering of commercial software solutions is needed around the hardware platforms available. Much has already been done in the area of commercial real-time middleware by both GoAhead Software and ENEA, but other pieces of the software puzzle are still needed. One of great important is the need for true real-time virtualization for ATCA platforms. We met with the SA Forum and OpenSAF foundations during the show to learn about the latest development at these organizations and both are making important strides in enabling a stronger ATCA software ecosystem. The work of these organizations should continue to be elevated by both vendors and customers alike as customer feedback can be invaluable for foundations of this sort and the work they are doing will make life much easier for ATCA users in the long run.

Two other firms focused on software's importance in enabling ATCA platforms at the Summit were Continuous Computing (CCPU) and Diversified Technology (DTI). CCPU continues to focus on its Trillium protocol software as an important part of its ATCA integrated systems and also confirmed that LTE business is picking up for ATCA as they are seeing adoption in some new LTE applications. DTI announced an enhanced software suite and support for its 10GbE switch blade as the market has moved rapidly to 10GbE solutions today as noted earlier.

MicroTCA also had a prominent role at the Summit. Kontron announced a carrier-grade 1U MicroTCA platform that comes pre-validated with Cavium-based AMC modules. Meanwhile, Advantech announced a new 26-core MicroTCA platform in a 3U package and CommAgility announced the release of a high performance FPGA-based interface and processing AMC that can provide speeds up to 10GbE for MicroTCA platforms.

So as you can see this year's ATCA Summit was a great sampling of the innovation that has occurred all year long in the ATCA ecosystem even in the face of the recession. Look for things to get even more exciting as 4G rollout ramps up in late 2010 and 2011, as this will create a massive deployment of brand new network infrastructure the size of which we have not seen for many years and of which ATCA is poised to capture a substantial piece.