On Target: Embedded Systems

Embedded Bits and Bytes – In case you missed these announcements from the last several weeks...

AdaCore, a supplier of Ada development tools and support services, announced a merger with SofCheck, Inc., a Lexington, Massachusetts-based automated software quality (ASQ) company.
http://www.adacore.com/2012/01/10/adacore-sofcheck-merge/

Atego™, a software tools and professional services supplier, for complex, mission- and safety-critical systems and software engineering announced that it has secured an additional, multi-million dollar equity investment.
http://www.atego.com/pressreleases/pressitem/atego-secures-major-multi-million-dollar-equity-investment

Cavium, Inc. announced a technology and marketing collaboration with Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) to offer Intel® WiDi-based products designed to enable superior wireless display consumer experience.
http://www.cavium.com/newsevents_Cavium_Collaborate_Intel.html

Coverity announced record growth in the first quarter of fiscal year 2012, achieving the highest Q1 bookings, revenues and new customer accounts in the company's history as a result of rapid market adoption of development testing.
http://www.coverity.com/html/press/coverity-marks-record-first-quarter.html

DDC-I, a supplier of software and professional services for mission- and safety-critical applications, announced the availability of the Certifiable Fast File System (CFFS) for DDC-I’s Deos™ safety-critical real-time operating system (RTOS).
http://www.ddci.com/displayNews.php?fn=news__Deos-CFFS_013012_release.php

Enea announced that the Enea Bare Metal Performance (BMP) Tools will now support Cavium OCTEON® multicore processors.
http://www.enea.com/Corporate/Press/Press-releases/Press-release/?item=631827

Express Logic, Inc., a supplier of royalty-free real-time operating systems (RTOS) and PolyCore Software, Inc. (PSI), a supplier of multicore communications software solutions, announced extended cooperation to increase support of multicore platforms.
http://rtos.com/news/detail/polycore_software_and_express_logic_expand_cooperation_to_ease_multico/

Freescale i.MX Processors Build Market Momentum in Fast-Growing Automotive Infotainment and Telematics Markets
http://media.freescale.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=196520&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1646370&highlight=

Green Hills Software announced a major new release of its flagship INTEGRITY real-time operating system.
http://www.ghs.com/news/20120104_INTEGRITY_11.html

IAR Systems® announced that its embedded software development toolchain IAR Embedded Workbench® now provides support for the new XMC4500 microcontrollers from Infineon Technologies, including examples for the modular Hexagon Development Kit.
http://www.iar.com/en/About/Pressroom/Press-releases/2012/1/IAR-Systems-supports-the-Infineon-XMC4500-high-performance-microcontrollers-for-energy-efficient-industrial-applications/

IBM announced a definitive agreement to acquire Worklight, a privately held Israeli-based provider of mobile software for smartphones and tablets.
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/36660.wss

Intel Corporation reported full-year revenue of $54 billion, operating income of $17.5 billion, net income of $12.9 billion and EPS of $2.39 -- all records.
http://newsroom.intel.com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2012/01/19/intel-reports-record-year-54-billion-in-annual-revenue-up-24-percent-239-in-annual-eps-up-19-percent

Klocwork Inc, a provider of source code analysis solutions for improving embedded software security and reliability, announced it closed 2011 with the highest bookings and revenue in the company's history.
http://www.klocwork.com/news/press-releases/releases/2012/PR-2012_01_11-Klocwork-Closes-Record-Fiscal-Year-In-2011.php

Lauterbach, a manufacturer of microprocessor development tools, launched support for the new 32-Bit XMC4000 microcontroller family of Infineon Technologies, which is based on the ARM® Cortex™ -M4 processor.
http://www.lauterbach.com/frames.html?home.html

LDRA has extended the LDRA tool suite to support direct integration with Altera’s Embedded Design Suite (EDS) for Nios II soft core processors.
http://www.ldra.com/news.asp

LynuxWorks announced that the Mission Systems and Sensors Division (MS2) of Lockheed Martin in Owego, NY, has selected the LynxOS® real-time operating system (RTOS) and Luminosity Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for use in conjunction with the United Kingdom (UK) Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS).
http://www.lynuxworks.com/corporate/press/2012/awacs.php

MathWorks announced that DOCOMO Beijing Communications Laboratories Co., Ltd. (DOCOMO Beijing Labs) has adopted MATLAB to develop and verify algorithms for the development of new physical layer mobile communications technologies for advanced standards such as LTE-A.
http://www.mathworks.com/company/pressroom/DOCOMO-Beijing-Labs-Reduces-Development-Time-of-Mobile-Communications-Technology-by-50-Percent-with-MATLAB.html

Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ: MENT) announced the integration of Ecrio’s industry-leading IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Device Software with its flagship Nucleus® Real Time Operating System (RTOS).
http://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/news/mentor-ecrio-nucleus-lte-ims-mobile-platform

Microchip Technology Inc., a provider of microcontroller, analog and Flash-IP solutions, today announced a 25% performance increase on its dsPIC33F “GS” series of Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs) for Switch Mode Power Supplies (SMPSs).
http://www.microchip.com/pagehandler/en-us/press-release/microchip-announces-performanc.html

National Instruments today announced early access support for testing next-generation 802.11ac WLAN chipsets and devices.
http://digital.ni.com/worldwide/bwcontent.nsf/5076c193a6bfa57486256a7000512ca4/1d32cf21fe62097a8625798f0076b9da?OpenDocument

QNX Software Systems Limited, a supplier of software platforms for the in-car infotainment and telematics market, has won a Best of CES Award, in the Car Tech category, for its recently announced QNX CAR™ 2 application platform.
http://www.qnx.com/news/pr_4854_1.html

Synopsys, Inc. announced  that it has closed the acquisition of ExpertIO, Inc., a leading independent provider of verification IP (VIP) for industry standard protocols. http://synopsys.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=992

SYSGO, a supplier of embedded software solutions for the world’s most demanding safety and security applications, announced that the incoming orders rose by 105% in 2011 compared to 2010.
http://www.sysgo.com/news-events/press/press/details/article/sysgos-incoming-orders-increased-over-100-in-2011/

Wind River, a world leader in embedded and mobile software, today announced it has extended its safety critical systems product capabilities to support complete RTCA DO-178C certification evidence as a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solution.
http://www.windriver.com/news/press/pr.html?ID=10121

VDC Research looks forward to companies contacting us for a briefing on new announcements around products, new partnerships and alliances, or other changes within your organizations. At a minimum please make sure that we are included in your press/analyst relations distribution list for new announcements as they become public.

Ditch the Dictionary, “Spell Check” Your Way Through Source Code Analysis

Anyone still keep a dictionary and thesaurus next to your writing station?

If you’re like me, the computer is where you write and automated spell checking in email and word processing programs have long since relegated these once essential writing tools to dust collecting duty on a bookshelf. 

Klocwork, a leading supplier of embedded automated test & verification tools, is bringing the spell checker usability model to source code analysis (SCA). The company’s newest release of their main product, Klocwork Insight 9.5, provides C/C++ developers with “On-the-fly” analysis. By underlining security and critical defects in code as it is written, the tool helps users move away from the inefficient batch processing model of code analysis and further towards the ideal of SCA completed by developers in their regular work flow rather than by dedicated testing groups.

This release also provides “On-the-fly” reporting tools. Using simple drag and drop pivot chart capabilities, developer teams can rapidly create reports to meet their organization’s needs.

“On-the-fly” impact analysis is the third improvement Klocwork promotes with the Insight 9.5 launch.  Their release announcement indicates it “offers cross-project impact analysis and reporting which immediately indicates whether a reported issue exists in other code bases, branches or builds. With this smart matching technology, development teams that re-use code across multiple systems won't waste time finding and fixing the same issues over-and-over.”

The benefits promised by shifting source code analysis into a developer’s workflow are clear. Earlier discovery of coding issues such as security defects, memory leaks and bug can lower overall development costs and reduce lost time spent writing flawed code. We could see customization of this type of instant notification functionality gaining even further value going forward as more organizations adopt or establish their coding standards. The ability to prioritize issues based on severity and prevalence across multiple code streams and avoid redundancy by implementing a resolution en masse is a compelling value proposition. 

 

For more insight into these tools, including automated testing & verification tools such as those offered by Klocwork, please see VDC Research’s upcoming analysis of the Software & Systems Lifecycle Management Tool markets.

 

IBM Security Systems Division Offers Enterprise-wide Solutions but Overlooks Embedded

Last week, VDC attended IBM’s annual Software Analyst Connect Meeting, which offered us the opportunity to attend a number of presentations, meetings and briefings with various IBM executives and product managers.

As opposed to our normal research coverage, which largely focuses on the (embedded) software/system development space and thus IBM’s Rational Software division, this conference featured products and brands from across IBM’s Software Group (WebSphere, Tivoli, etc.) for which there seems to be a growing effort to foster cross-selling opportunities.

One of the more interesting centerpieces of discussion at the conference was the consolidation of IBM’s security solutions into a new division – aptly named the Security Systems Division. The realignment of the company’s security solutions into the new business unit was largely catalyzed by their recent acquisition of Q1 Labs.

It is not necessarily a new or novel notion to suggest that development organizations should embrace a wide range of security solutions to best limit the potential threat or impact of intrusions. IBM’s move certainly caters to this growing need, but we believe it also speaks to the complexity inherent in IBM FAEs trying to sell these products in addition to those from their respective parent brands – especially when there can often be separate security-focused stakeholders in place within enterprise/IT organizations.

But what about the embedded market?

Clearly IBM’s security portfolio focuses on the enterprise, but embedded devices and systems are being exposed in increasing frequency as well. After IBM’s 2009 acquisition of security static analysis solution company Ounce Labs and their recent, refound focus on the embedded market within Rational, we had thought they might begin to address this market need as well. Well not yet at least - Although the realignment of Ounce out of Rational might defuse this potential strategy in the near term, IBM did acknowledge that enhanced security solutions for embedded targets were on its roadmap.

Regardless of whether or not IBM ultimately does target the embedded market with its security solutions, their strategy of aligning a broad set of potential security solutions within one portfolio certainly resonates with the growing need for attention to be given to security across the embedded development and deployment cycle.

Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) – Boston 2011

VDC attended the 2011 Embedded Systems Conference in Boston on September 27 and 28 and held face-to-face meetings at the conference with over 20 exhibitors. This year’s ESC included greater than 100 exhibitors and was part of what UBM Electronics called Design Days Boston. Design Days Boston featured four events including ESC as part of one show including DesignMED North America, DesignCon East, and designing with LEDs. These four programs span a wide range of technologies and interests and were supported by numerous technical sessions.

Conference organizers reported at the show that registration was up 10-15% year over year. During the course of the show VDC observed that floor traffic and booth attendance at exhibitors conducting training sessions in mini-classroom settings seemed to draw and hold the attention of attendees in greater numbers.  

Companies need to make sure that they are realizing a positive return for their investments in these types of conferences. In many cases this translates to metrics such as show attendance, floor traffic, and quality of leads from attendees. Expanding ESC to a Design Days format that includes multiple unique design conferences in one is an approach that is sure to attract new exhibitors, engineers, and new energy. 

THE “EMBEDDIES” GO TO:

Best of Show

 

VDC awarded our software “Embeddy” for best of show live on the conference floor to aicas for their JamaicaCAR application management system (AMS), which offers a secure framework for running Java apps that enable car owners to update their automotive infotainment system as new functionality becomes available. Designed with safety and security in mind, the JamaicaCAR AMS minimizes driver distraction and ensures that only properly vetted applications can access critical resources.

This new framework for automotive connected applications jointly developed with Harman International addresses many challenges faced by embedded software developers today.  The system has been designed-in with stringent safety and security requirements and the resulting model supports access control and privilege management. Automotive OEMS will be able to integrate applications from suppliers while maintaining the same look and minimizing the need for customization. The new system will be offered on select trim levels in the 2012 Toyota Prius v, Prius Liftback, Prius Plug-in and the new Toyota Camry.

Honerable Mention

VDC awards an honorable mention to Green Hills Software for their announcement of MULTI Version 6 and Green Hills compiler 2012.  These new releases offer improved optimization of code size and performance. In addition, the Green Hills Compiler version 2012 is now available as a standalone product that offers engineering organizations the flexibility to independently upgrade just the compiler when support for new CPUs is required.

Walking the Floor

AdaCore, a leading supplier of Ada language tools and support services, announced the upcoming release of GNAT Programming Studio (GPS) 5.1 that is expected to be available in October 2011. The new release will feature extended support for C and C++, enhanced source editing and GUI features, and supported on most development platforms for both native and embedded software development.

Arium reviewed their recent announcement (mid-September) from the Intel Developer Forum for the support for the Intel Boot Loader Development Kit (BLDK). Arium’s SourcePoint debugger includes features that allow developers to debug source code used in BLDK development.

ARM conducted live demonstrations on their new DS-5 Linux Application Development System that includes DSTREAM debug and trace unit. In addition the company had demonstrations on their Microcontroller Development environment, MDK-ARM and their new ULINKpro debug and trace unit.

RTOS and tools supplier Enea demonstrated in their booth their Enea OSE RTOS highlighting multicore support, LINX IPC software, and Optima Eclipsed-based IDE that includes system debug and profiling tools.

Express Logic announced its NetX Duo TCP/IP IPv4/IPv6 dual stack has been extended to include support for the IPsec protocol.  A protocol suite for securing network communications, IPsec encrypts and authenticates each packet of a communication session and NetX Duo with IPsec support creates a virtual channel between two networks where packets are encrypted for security and signed for authenticity.

Static analysis tool vendor GrammaTech announced the next version of CodeSonar which incorporates new program analysis algorithms to identify data race conditions and other types of critical concurrency defects. In addition the new version includes a code-level metrics feature that will allow project managers the ability to track various types of metrics and set thresholds for automatically generated warnings when metrics are outside an expected range.  

IAR announced enhanced support in the company’s IAR Embedded Workbench tool suite for STMicroelectronics recently launched STM32 F4 family of ARM Cortex-M4 based microcontrollers. In addition the company announced that their IAR Workbench IDE for ARM C/C++ was selected by HOLT Integrated Circuits as Holt’s development environment for ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller development for their MIL-STD-1553 application development kit.

LDRA Software Technology announced version 9 of the LDRA tool suite which unifies its tools with a common user interface, central repositories and performance optimizations for lifecycle traceability.  In addition the company announced product integration with MathWorks Simulink modeling tools and their LDRA tool suite.

Micrium reviewed their recent announcement whereby Micrium products, kernels and complete RTOS solutions will be offered through Avnet Electronics Marketing.  

Newark/element14 a distributor and community for design engineers conducted demonstrations of its online search and knowledge tool, the element14 knode.

Objective Interface Systems, a supplier of high-performance communications middleware solutions, reviewed their recent announcement that their ORBexpress product now supports Wind River’s VxWorks 6.9 real-time OS with Symmetric Multiprocessing on multicore platforms. 

Parasoft announced a new release of their integrated Parasoft C/C++test development environment. New product highlights include support for an extended range of development environments, traceability reporting, complete system metrics calculation, and static analysis for 2011 CWE/SANS.

Reactive Systems, a software testing and validation company conducted demonstrations of their Reactis product line which includes Reactis for Simulink and Reactis for C.

Other leading embedded systems vendors in attendance at ESC/Boston included AMD, Altium, Avnet, Coverity, Digia-QT Commercial, eCosCentric, IBM, Intel, JTAG Technologies, KW-Software, Lauterbach, Logic PD, MathWorks, Perforce Software, SEGGER Microcontroller, Siemens PLM Software, SmartBear Software and others.

TRADEMARK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Many names of companies, associations, technologies, products, and product types, etc. mentioned in this bulletin comprise Trademarks, registered or non-registered, owned by various entities. These are too numerous to mention individually. VDC acknowledges that ownership of these Trademarks exists and requests that readers acknowledge this as well.

ABOUT VDC

This Embedded Systems Industry Bulletin is published as part of VDC’s Embedded Software Market Intelligence Service. VDC has been providing embedded systems market intelligence for over 20 years.

Published by VDC Research Group, Copyright 2011, all rights reserved.

 

What Do Engineers Prefer for a Host Development Platform?

Every year VDC conducts an extensive worldwide survey of embedded engineers and their development projects to better understand engineering requirements, preferences, and trends. This information is available from VDC in unique cross tabbed reports to offer readers a detailed, in-depth, view of engineers in the development project trenches.

Engineers use numerous tool types in their development projects. Tools range from compilers, debuggers, editors and build tools to software and system lifecycle management tools such as automated test and verification, modeling, and virtual prototyping tools. Some of the factors most important in the selection of tools include price/cost, technical capabilities, ease of use, and past experience.

One of the areas of interest to suppliers of embedded software development tools is to make sure that they target their investments to the type of platforms engineers prefer to use for their development. Based on VDC’s 2011 survey, embedded engineers cite the use of Windows and Linux-based systems as their preferred development environments.  Windows Vista has had minimal impact on PC’s used by engineers even looking back on VDC’s 2010 survey results, however, engineers expect development environments to migrate in significant numbers to Windows 7 from Windows XP over the next two years.

 

How does your development project stack up? Let us know through your feedback.

Our recently published report, Development Tools, from Track 2 of VDC's 2011 Embedded Software Market Intelligence Service provides additional statistical insight and analysis around this and other trends affecting embedded system development.  Click here for additional information and access to a free executive brief highlighting other key findings from our research.

AVAILABLE NOW - VDC RELEASES EMBEDDED ENGINEERING SURVEY DATA FOR 2011

The 2011 engineering survey data reports provide insight into the behavior, opinions, and demographics of embedded engineers, the degree to which embedded system engineering tasks are converging, and key system engineering trends likely to impact embedded systems manufacturers and solution providers over the short and long term.

This survey data is based on detailed Web survey responses collected worldwide in the March to July 2011timeframe and offers an understanding about the dynamics of the embedded market as they relate to current and future product development trends. This detailed data provides access to VDC’s extensive knowledge of the embedded engineering community based on the individual report topics.

VDC’s Embedded Software 2011 Market Intelligence Service, Track 2: Embedded Systems Engineering Survey Data, includes five volumes with more than 120 exhibits per volume for:

· Operating Systems;
· Development Tools;
· Vertical Markets;
· Regions and select Countries; and
· Processor Architectures.

Who should be interested?

Software (ESW, ESL, and EDA) and hardware (silicon and board) solution providers (whether currently engaged in the embedded market or not) should find this information of interest, as these reports provide valuable insight into the types of current and future requirements and methodologies that companies are using to engineer embedded devices/systems. This information can be used to assist companies in differentiating their solutions, developing competitive strategies, engineering products that better meet current and future customer requirements, and/or supporting key marketing and sales claims.

Systems manufacturers and semiconductor suppliers will also find value in this data in developing an understanding of key system engineering trends that will impact their business in the short and long term, gaining a perspective on the embedded software and hardware market, and an understanding of the vendor options available to them.

Stayed tuned for further information and sample data to be released from these individual reports.

For further information about VDC’s Embedded Software 20011 Market Intelligence Service contact:
Bob Perugini, Account Director, 508.653.9000 ext. 144, rperugini@vdcresearch.com

ESC Boston is This Month - Still Time to Register and Meet with VDC

The Embedded Systems Conference will be held this month (September 26^th-29^th) at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston.

VDC will be attending the conference once again this year and will be presenting our 7th annual Embeddy Awards for Best in Show live at the conference. The winners will be announced live ahead of Wednesday's morning keynote session.

So how can your company win the Embeddy award?

To be considered, you must schedule a meeting with VDC to discuss the announcement that you are making at the show. You can arrange a meeting time with VDC by doing one of the following:

For Software and Tools related announcements

Contact Stephen Balacco, Director, Embedded Software & Tools Practice, VDC Research Group by contacting Stephen at: sbalacco@vdcresearch.com or 508.653.9000 x 124.

For Hardware related announcements

Contact Richard Dean, Senior Analyst/Program Manager, Embedded Hardware and Systems Practice, VDC Research Group at: rdean@vdcresearch.com or 508.653.9000 x 152.

Still need to register?

Online registration is still open and you can always register in person at the show as well.

We are looking forward to another great show.  See you all in Boston!

Security: The New (Read: Old) Demon of Embedded Device Development

39% of embedded engineers report designs that incorporate web components. This figure is expected to surpass 50% within the next two years. This dynamic represents a material shift in the design considerations undertaken by many organizations given the breadth and growth of applications expected to gain web connectivity over the next few years (consumer electronics, white goods, automotive, situational awareness, etc.).

Recent international news, however, has highlighted the growing threat facing cloud-based applications. Sony’s PlayStation Network was (repeatedly) hacked, exposing thousands of customers’ credit card information. Just yesterday, Lockheed Martin announced that it had suffered a "significant and tenacious" cyber attack, in effect exposing the government’s largest IT supplier. With more and more interconnected devices serving as new potential waypoints for network intrusion (as well as access points to locally-stored sensitive information), it is time for an industry-wide introspection into the best practices around secure device development.

Clearly, this is not a new issue or consideration for some embedded verticals markets (i.e. military/aerospace). Many other applications classes, however, were originally autonomous systems with no sustained connections to the outside world. This is no longer the case. More and more devices are now requiring connectivity requirements to remain relevant.

How do you protect your system?

There are a number of methods that engineering organizations are undertaking today either through the implementation of aftermarket fixes (think COTS security solutions, e.g. secure routers or firewalls) or within the development of the system itself. To focus on the “secure by design” methods, which we believe to be a critical first step to secure device deployment, we view there to be three distinct approaches: development tools targeted at precluding the introduction of security vulnerabilities, testing tools, and the implementation of specific run-time software (e.g. RTOS, hypervisor, etc.).

 
It is perhaps not surprising that over 40% of engineers did nothing or did not know if anything had been done during their current project to limit security issues due to the number of remaining embedded devices that lack web connections. What is surprising, however, is the limited overlap between the techniques undertaken by engineers whose organizations are taking proactive steps to preclude the introduction of security issues. All of these techniques can help reduce application vulnerabilities but none of them is a cure-all and should be used in isolation.

Whereas the accountability for security issues can be broadly painted across product stakeholders, perhaps the greater issue is education. End customers cannot expect developers to develop secure products unless it is specified in the requirements nor can they expect all engineering organizations to approach their due diligence in the same manner. Part of the issue may also fall on the security solution vendors themselves whose value proposition articulation is purposefully myopic – to maximize sales of their own products. Clearly, the industry needs a coordinated effort to evangelize the issues and suites of solutions/practices required to limit security vulnerabilities.

VDC will explore these trends in greater depth within our upcoming report, Safety and Security, from our 2011 Embedded Software and Tools Market Intelligence Service.

Embedded Systems Bulletin – May 2011

Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) – Silicon Valley 2011

VDC attended the 2011 Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose on May 3^rd through May 5^th and held face-to-face meetings at the conference with over 30 exhibitors. The Silicon Valley conference has always been the premier event in the US for embedded software and hardware suppliers and the customers they serve.

Conference organizers reported at the show that registration and attendance was up year over year. VDC observed during the course of the conference that there appeared to be more exhibitors than the prior year that the show floor area had expanded. In fact, we compared the exhibitors’ lists from this and last year conferences and found the number of exhibitors attending increased about 18%. Good news for the show promoters, exhibitors, and attendees.

Exhibitors we met with at the conference unanimously expressed upbeat views in terms of show attendance, floor traffic, and quality of leads from attendees. An improving economic climate and outlook has resulted in the supplier community reinvesting marketing budgets in attending conferences and OEMs seeking out technical solutions and looking to ramp investments in new project starts.

Next up ESC Chicago, June 7-9, at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL in conjunction with the Sensors Expo & Conference.  

THE “EMBEDDIES” GO TO:

Best of Show

VDC awarded our software “Embeddy” for best of show live on the conference floor to Mentor  Graphics   for the successful launch of the Mentor Graphics Sourcery CodeBench with System Analyzer, a tool targeted at helping embedded developers quickly visualize and analyze system data to identify and debug or decode problem areas easily and improve design performance. Engineering organizations are utilizing more complex hardware architectures, which places greater strain on their ability to efficiently debug and optimize software code. As such we expect that tools such as Mentor Graphics’ Sourcery Systems Analyzer will become increasingly valuable to engineering teams as they look for greater insight into the performance of their applications on new, complex target architectures.

Honorable Mention

VDC awards an honorable mention to MicroChip for their announcement of the next generation MPLAB X IDE. The IDE includes cross platform support for Linux, Mac OS, and Windows operating systems and its support for the company’s entire portfolio of 8, 16, and 32-bit microcontrollers including all 800+ PIC microcontrollers, dsPIC digital signal controllers, and memory devices. MPLAB X is based on the Oracle-sponsored open source NetBeans platform which allows users to customize the IDE to suite development needs and is available for free download from the company website.

Best Demos 

Freescale demonstrated their Robot Kit as an easy to use mechatronics development and   demonstration  platform and includes the Tower System Mechatronics Board which is programmable in C/C++ using CodeWarrior. For fast prototyping, the board is supported by Robot Vision Toolkit and RobotSee (a simple language with the power of C).  The kit includes four PWM controlled servos, metal legs, and the board that has a 3-axis accelerometer and a 12 channel touch sensor.

Most Interesting Display

Samson, the 66-million year old dinosaur skeleton, was discovered in South Dakota in 1987 and on   display at the conference. Most likely the largest display ever at an Embedded Systems Conference, this one was hard to miss, and drew large crowds. The display was presented in partnership by ESC Silicon Valley and Green Hills Software.

 

Walking the Floor

AdaCore, a leading supplier of Ada development tools and support services, made several announcements at the conference including the selection of the AdaCore Toolset for the Argos Satellite Project by Thales and Rockwell Collins selection of the GNAT Pro for advanced avionics display systems. In addition, the company had an announcement based on a recently published report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that speaks favorably on the use and suitability of the SPARK language for secure programming.

ARM announced the release of v5.0 of the ARM Compiler and availability of the DS-5 Professional Edition toolkit, replacing RVDS, as the reference software development tool chain for ARM processor-based ASICs and ASSP cores. In addition the company had announcements regarding a new ARM memory interface solution and highly configurable debug and trace solution for complex SoC designs, their ARM CoreSight SoC-400.

Atego announced the release and availability of their Aonix PERC Ultra 6 which provides compatibility with the Java 6 language and incorporates a new high performance compiler, graphical console and a new Virtual File System. In addition, the company announced the acquisition of HighRely, a provider of engineering services and software solutions for critical systems design and development to the avionics, medical equipment, nuclear and other industries.

Atmel announced the availability of new evaluation kits for both ZigBee Pro and RF4CE application development and prototyping.  The evaluation kits come complete with reference boards with wireless support low power transceivers and software stacks. The company also announced expanding support for the Atmel AVR Xplained evaluation kits to support industrial, consumer, and automotive markets.

Cadence Design Systems announced their Cadence System Development Suite that features the Cadence Rapid Prototyping Platform and the Cadence Virtual System Platform and connects to the Palladium XP Verification Computing and Incisive Verification Platforms. These four platforms are focused on enabling hardware-software co-design from architectural-level development through to prototyping.

RTOS and tools supplier Enea made several announcements at the show including support for the ARM Cortex A9 MPCore and the Xilinx Zynq-7000 processing platform; the Enea Bare Metal Performance Tools (Enea BMP Tools) solution for multicore implementations on the NetLogic Microsystem XLP processors; and extended support for the company’s Optima IDE Tools to support heterogeneous multicore and Linux.

eCosCentric announced an update, version 3.1, to the eCosPro Developer Kit which focuses on and includes enhancements to cross development environment tools and host development environments supported. In addition the company announced with MIPS Technologies that the eCosPro RTOS has been ported to support the microMIPS instruction set architecture.

Eurotech announced the launch of the Zypad BR2000 series of vehicle mounted and man worn computers that are considered ideal for rugged environments. In addition, the company announced the launch of a new low power PC/104+ module based on the Vortex86DXprocessor, the CPU-1440.

Express Logic demonstrated their ThreadX RTOS and TraceX software logic analyzer that will offer information about the real-time behavior of a system running on the new AMD Embedded G-Series Platform that is expected to target transportation, medical and gaming systems. Express Logic’s ThreadX RTOS will provide instant on, hard real-time support, and scalable footprint.

Static analysis tool vendor GrammaTech announced a new sophisticated program-analysis engine that is being incorporated into the CodeSonar static analysis tool to identify data race conditions and other serious concurrency defects for multicore and multi-threaded applications.  The technology is compatible with a wide range of compilers such as ARM’s RealView, Freescale’s Codewarrior, GCC, and Green Hills’ MULTI, and others.

Green Hills Software announced significant updates to their Platform for Secure Networking that include a new multicore communications API, fast path network packet optimization, support for native and virtualized third-party Linux Oss, and optimizations for Freescales QorIQ multicore networking processors.  In addition, the company announced a new business unit, INTEGRITY Security Services. The new business unit will offer toolkits based on GHS proprietary FIPS compliant Cryptographic support for Windows, Linux, VxWorks, INTEGRITY, INTEGRITY-178B and general purpose Oss on ARM, Intel, Power Architecture, MIPS and others.

LDRA Software Technology announced support for object-code traceability within the LDRA tool suite. This capability ensures that verification problems found at the object-code level can be traced to the originating source code and requirements levels.

Logic PD announced their Torpedo System on Modules (SOM) which is described at the industry’s smallest embedded modules. The tiny Torpedo System on Modules is based on TI’s DM3730 DaVinci video processor and AM3703 Sitara ARM microprocessor. Android, Linux, and Windows CE BSPs are available for all versions of the DM3730 and AM3703 SOMs.

LynuxWorks announced the port and demonstration of their latest version of LynuxSecure separation kernel and hypervisor to the Themis Computer CoolShell and Rugged Enterprise Server platforms.   

MontaVista Software showcased their commercial Linux products and services at the conference and also was demonstrating their Bare Metal Engine that provides a light weight, configurable run-time environment that offers RTOS performance inside a Linux environment.

QNX Software Systems reviewed recent announcements and the company’s continued focus for both safety and security. The QNX Neutrino RTOS Certified Plus has been certified to both IEC 61508 SIL 3 and Common Criteria EAL 4+ and is also POSIX-compliant. In addition, QNX highlighted their support for safety-critical medical devices built on the QNX Neutrino RTOS which as a proven history in FDA-certified devices.

Wind River announced the availability of and security certification for their Linux Secure to achieve Common Criteria EAL4+ certification by the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) using the General Purpose Operating System Protection Profile (GP-OSPP). In addition, the company announced version 4.6 their Simics full system simulator that expands over multiple boards, enhances team collaboration, and allows for target system visualization and surveillance.

Other leading embedded systems vendors in attendance at ESC/San Jose included  Adapteva, Aicas GmbH, AMD, Arium, Cavium, CMX Systems, Datalight, Digi International, Electric Cloud, EMA Design Automation, IAR Systems, IBM, Klocwork, Kontron, Lauterbach, Macraigor Systems, MapuSoft Technologies, Marvell Semiconductor, McObject, Micrium, National Instruments,  Netronome, NXP Semiconductors, Parasoft Corporation, Perforce Software, PolyCore Software, Programming Research (PRQA), SEGGER Microcontroller, Signum Systems, Synopsys, Target Compiler Technologies, TenAsys, Timesys, Xilinx, VersaLogic Corporation, and others.

TRADEMARK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Many names of companies, associations, technologies, products, and product types, etc. mentioned in this bulletin comprise Trademarks, registered or non-registered, owned by various entities. These are too numerous to mention individually. VDC acknowledges that ownership of these Trademarks exists and requests that readers acknowledge this as well.

ABOUT VDC

The Embedded Systems Industry Bulletin is published as part of VDC’s Embedded Software Market Intelligence Service. VDC has been providing embedded systems market intelligence for over 20 years.

Published by VDC Research Group, Copyright 2011, all rights reserved.

 

ESC San Jose is Next Week - Still Time to Register and Meet with VDC

The Embedded Systems Conference will be held next week (May 2nd-5th) at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose.

VDC will be attending the conference once again this year and will be presenting our 7th annual Embeddy Awards for Best in Show live at the conference. The winners will be announced live ahead of Thursday's morning keynote session.

So how can your company win the Embeddy award?

To be considered, you must schedule a meeting with VDC to discuss the announcement that you are making at the show. You can arrange a meeting time with VDC by doing one of the following:

For Software and Tools related announcements

Contact Stephen Balacco, Director, Embedded Software & Tools Practice, VDC Research Group by contacting Stephen at: sbalacco@vdcresearch.com or 508.653.9000 x 124.

For Hardware related announcements

Contact Richard Dean, Senior Analyst/Program Manager, Embedded Hardware and Systems Practice, VDC Research Group at: rdean@vdcresearch.com or 508.653.9000 x 152.

Still need to register?

Online registration is open until tomorrow Thursday, April 28th and you can always register in person at the show as well.

We are looking forward to another great show.  See you all in San Jose!