Electronics Weekly No 2459 9-Mar-2011

Embedded design is flying highREAD OUR REPORTS FROM EMBEDDED WORLD 2011 IN GERMANY PAGE 3, 4, 6, 10

Design moves to a higher levelTHE LATEST HIGH-LEVEL SYNTHESIS TECHNOLOGY OVERCOMES THE LIMITATIONS OF THE FIRST RELEASE TOOLS PAGE 16

Sun worshippers get energyCONCENTRATORS ARE PUTTING SOLAR PANELS IN THEIR PLACE PAGE18

9-15 March 2011 | No. 2459 | ElectronicsWeekly.com

ElectronıcsWeekly

the week in electronics

One of the most interesting aspects of Apple’s first iPad was the micropro-cessor. Apple designed its own 1GHz processor, the A4, most likely based on an ARM Cortex-A9 core. It has now designed a dual-core processor, the A5, for the iPad 2, which is probably based on a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor. After all, this is the technology used by Nvidia in its Tegra 2 applications processor, which is being designed into tablet PCs. Qualcomm is also upgrading its Snapdragon smartphone processor platform to a dual-core Cortex-A9 processor for tablet PC designs such as the HP TouchPad.

So if the ARM Cortex-A9 was the smartphone processor of choice, it seems the dual-core version will be the same for the first wave of tablets.

APPLE DESIGNS DUAL-CORE PROCESSOR FOR IPAD 2

ONE-STOP SHOP FOR SOURCING COMPONENTS

Altium has created an online design ecosystem, AltiumLive, that could potentially link the design tool firm’s 50,000 customers with component suppliers and manufacturers. “This is a major step for us; a bridge into the future to build a larger ecosystem,” CEO Nick Martin told Electronics Weekly.

The move has been triggered by the release of Altium’s Designer 10 tool suite. “We are taking an off-the-shelf approach to building a design ecosystem,” said Harris. Designers can log on to select content, such as new functions, upgrade, IP and more, then download and install. For example, Harris says designers can “reach into the supply chain, adding Mouser and Arrow to Altium Designer’s functionality”. http://live.altium.com/#signin

EDITOR’S CHOICE PRODUCT OF THE WEEK

Wireless sensors distribution dealAlpha Micro Components has signed a distribu-tion agreement with energy harvesting firm EnOcean to sell its wireless sensor modules in the UK and Ireland. EnOcean’s self-powered modules are typically used in building control and industrial automation systems. “EnOcean enhances our range of wireless industrial automation solutions,” said Maxine Hewitt, marketing director for Alpha Micro Components. “Its innovative technology will be vital for meeting the sustainability demands for the industrial sector and the built environment.”www.alphamicro.net

Altium launches design ecosystemBlackfin moves to 65nm processAnalog Devices will move its Blackfin processor to 65nm process technology this year. The firm’s high performance Sharc digital signal processors are already on a 65nm process, with production Blackfins still at 90nm. According to Rich Mur-phy, business development manager at Analog, the first Blackfins have already been produced on a 65nm process.www.analog.com

Kontron puts QorIQ into AMCKontron has announced a range of single-width AdvancedMC proces-sor modules based on the Freescale Semi conductor QorIQ commu-nication processor. The QorIQ P2020-based Kontron AdvancedMC processor module AM4120 is sched-uled for release in Q2 2011. There are also plans to use the scalable QorIQ processors on MicroTCA and AdvancedTCA platforms.www.kontron.com

On this week’s coverAt Embedded World in Nuremberg last week, MathWorks demonstrated a quadrocopter flight control system that was developed using the firm’s Simulink software tools. The system automatically corrects any differ-ences between the craft’s actual and desired position caused by external influences such as wind. www.mathworks.com

Fujitsu adds Cortex-A15 licenceFujitsu Semiconductor has expanded its processor licence with ARM to include the Cortex-A15 processor, Mali graphics and CoreLink systems IP. Already an established ARM li-censee, Fujitsu introduced its FM3 family of Cortex-M3 processor-based MCUs last November.www.fujitsu.com/emea

Rumours of bid for Alcatel LucentZTE, the Chinese telecoms equip-ment manufacturer, is rumoured to be preparing a bid for Alcatel Lucent, according to Bloomberg. Huawei, the other major China telecoms equip-ment maker, has denied it is making a bid. ZTE has not denied the rumour.wwwen.zte.com.cn/en/

Watch provides call alertsCasio’s prototype Bluetooth watch communicates with smartphones and runs for two years before it needs a new battery. It uses the Bluetooth low-energy profile to provide call and email alerts from the user’s mobile phone or PC.www.casio.com Controlled by eyeBuilt by Swedish eye-tracking firm Tobii and Lenovo, a laptop that can be directed by eye has been unveiled at the CeBIT information technology trade fair in Hanover, Germany. The firm claims that using the eyes to point, select and scroll is intuitive.www.tobii.com

PC sales hit by iPadGartner has downgraded its prediction for global PC sales this year, following the popularity of tablets such as the iPad. Worldwide PC shipments are forecast to reach 387.8 million units in 2011, up 10.5% from 2010, according to the firm. Gartner had previously forecast growth of 15.9%.

ElectronicsWeekly.com 9-15 MARCH 2011 EW | 3

Dual-core ARM in fi rst tablet PCs

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Still problems to solve for big multicores, says ARM CTO

ElectronicsWeekly.com4 | EW 9-15 MARCH 2011

EMBEDDED WORLD 2011

Multicore microproces-sors will be limited to two and four cores for the foreseeable future,

according to ARM’s chief technology officer.

“Academics have tried to solve the parallelisation of software problem but no one has truly done it,” Mike Muller ARM’s CTO told Electronics Weekly at Embedded World last week.

“As a result two and four core microprocessors will be the limit for

some time,” said Muller.The latest smartphones and tablet

PCs are built around dual core ARM Cortex-A9 processors from ST-Erics-son, Nvidia, TI and Qualcomm.

Qualcomm last month announced its intention to design its first quad core ARM chip but this will not ap-pear before 2012.

Intel currently sells dual and quad core processors to the PC market and last year introduced the first six core processor, the Core i7 980X, for the desktop market. AMD followed with

the Phenom II chip. The barrier is not in the hardware

architecture, but having the software that can get achieve the performance gains and which is useable.

“The problem is all about the soft-ware architecture,” said Muller.

Muller believes that the problem of running multiple cores in parallel ef-ficiently is being addressed.

“But it is just really tweaking the performance, there is still no general purpose solution to the problem,” said Muller.

Microsemi is positioning itself as a supplier of system-on-chip (SoC) devices

with a business built around FPGA platforms and analogue components.

The US-based company, which is especially strong in the aerospace, defence and industrial markets, added the FPGA lines to its existing analogue and power business with the acquisition of Actel last year.

This is an example of how FPGA suppliers are now refocusing their businesses to be SoC and ASSP vendors, and not just suppliers of general purpose programmable logic devices.

“We view the FPGA as a system-on-chip device,” said Jay Legen-hausen, Microsemi’s v-p of world-wide sales for the SoC business.

“For us the FPGA is the part which brings along a whole range of our other products,” said Legenhausen.

According to Legenhausen, future product developments of the Smart Fusion mixed signal FPGA range will focus on “embedding new functions on-chip and not just creating a bigger FPGA,” he said.

Another aspect of this is the expan-sion of third party support for the SmartFusion FPGAs with a particu-lar focus on industrial networking applications.

The intention is to increase the choice of operating systems and com-munication protocols supported by the FPGAs.

EMBEDDED WORLD 2011

Microsemi sees FPGAs as SoC devices

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news


Renesas to take on ARM with unified 32-bit MCUs

EMBEDDED WORLD 2011 EMBEDDED WORLD 2011

Atmel builds ecosystem around AVR

Renesas Electronics is look-ing at how it can unify its three high-end microcon-troller families into a single

processor architecture to compete with ARM in the embedded market. The company has three 32-bit micro-controller ranges - the V850, SH and RX families.

“We are creating a new strategy and we are discussing how we can create a unified approach,” Tsutomu Miki, chairman of Renesas Electron-ics Europe, told Electronics Weekly. The company has already achieved this in its RL78 family of lower per-formance microcontrollers which unified the R8C and 78K MCU fami-lies after the merger of the Renesas and NEC chip businesses last year.

A new unified 32-bit processor with the support of an ecosystem of tools and IP will strengthen Renesas in its battle with ARM-based micro-controllers in the embedded market. According to Miki, the company’s MCU partner programme has more than 700 members covering tools, IP and reference platforms.

“We respect the ARM ecosystem

Freescale has announced Power Architecture microcontrollers for industrial control.

The PX series, based on e200 cores, is intended for motion control and motor drives. Single-core per-formance is up to 600DMIPS, there are multicore options, and up to

4Mbyte of embedded flash. “A single chip can control up to

six motors, process complex math al-gorithms and manage more than the typical three communications con-nections - all at the same time,” claimed the firm.

Freescale run-time software in-

cludes the complimentary MQX RTOS, DSP and motor control librar-ies and Swell PEG (portable embed-ded GUI) development suite.

Power microcontrollers are also sup-ported by tools and the safety-certified Integrity RTOS from Green Hills. www.freescale.com

and we recognise that combining semiconductor devices with an eco-system is the next phase of the micro-controller business,” said Miki.

He also believes that the decision of Renesas, which operates its own fabs, to skip the 65nm process gener-ation and move its processors direct-ly to a 40nm process will “give the

company a lead in 2012”. Last week, the company added

eight microcontrollers to its V850 range which are targeted at low power smart metering applications, with the company’s single-cycle flash memory ranging in densities from 768kbyte to 1Mbyte. www.renesas.eu

Atmel is building an ecosystem around its AVR microcontrol-lers which includes a set of

tools which will be compatible with both 8- and 32-bit AVR microcontrol-lers.

The design ecosystem also in-cludes source code for 400 design ap-plications developed by Atmel with some third party support.

The intention is to expand the number and range of designs through third party relationships.

The new Studio 5 is an enhanced version of the firm’s existing IDE with support for all 8- and 32-bit AVR MCUs.

According to Haakon Skar, market-ing director for AVR microcontrollers at Atmel, the new tool set will make editing and debugging source code easier with a feature which assists code writing.

“It is an intelligent editor which

analyses the code written by the de-signer and will correct syntax errors and even make code suggestions,” said Skar.

In developing integrated tool and creating an ecosystem around it, Atmel has abandoned its support for the Eclipse open source environ-ment.

“Eclipse has not delivered on its promises,” said Skar.

“We have seen complexity and quality issues with Eclipse code and so decided for the future it would make sense to use a better platform,” said Skar.

“Our intention is to create an open platform for IP with code for inclu-sion in designs,” said Skar.

It is offering designers a source code library for 8-bit AVR Xmega and 32-bit AVR UC3 MCUs with over 400 complete applications including drivers, software stacks and floating point math libraries. www.atmel.com

EMBEDDED WORLD 2011

Power architecture chips for industrial control

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Picture Gallery – Advance of the Tablets

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Picture Gallery – Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona


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BLOG OF THE WEEK

> Mannerisms: Electric car chargers to cost $1,000 this yearDomestic electric car chargers should soon cost $1,000 as the big boys like Siemens, GE and Eaton get in on the act.

GE’s product called WattStation comes out in the summer. Sometime this year the ‘Siemens Charge’ is due.

The US government has put up $2.4 billion to develop an electric car industry and the Chinese govern-ment has put up $15 billion.

Pike Research says the world mar-ket for chargers was only $69 million last year, but will top $1 billion in a couple of years.

Incentivising electric car buyers are: GE’s plans to install 35,000 Watt-Stations in the US; a US government subsidy of $7,500 per car; a further Californian subsidy of $5,000 per car.

Disincentives are: electric cars cost twice the equivalent petrol car; take eight hours to charge and have limit-ed speeds and ranges.

Electric car models available for sale include Th!nk City, Nissan Leaf, REVAi, Mitsubishi iMiEV, Buddy, and the Tesla Roadster. electronicsweekly.com/mannerisms

PICTURE GALLERIES


> Tablets set to kill the iPad

> Mobile World Congress 2011, Barcelona

Taking a visual angle on stories or interesting subjects, the galleries complement Electronics Weekly’s more traditional text-based articles. Take a look behind the scenes and step through the photos.

BLOGS

> US To Put Man In Space Next YearThis was a headline 51 years ago in Electronics Weekly’s edition of 7 December 1960. “October 1961 is the target date for orbiting a US astronaut in space. Early next year, one of the seven astronauts now in training will be tossed into space in a non-orbital flight in preparation for the final event.”electronicsweekly.com/mannerisms

> Only Connect: A Thunderbolt of innovationWith the 10 Gbps performance of Thunderbolt products you can transfer a full-length HD movie in less than 30 seconds and back up one year of continuous MP3 playback in just over 10 minutes.electronicsweekly.com/electroramblings

> Samsung Blu-Ray player compoTime for another competition! Up for grabs this time is a Wi-Fi ready Blu-Ray player from Samsung, courtesy of Digi-Key, which sponsors the Gadget Master blog. Features include full 1080P high-definition video, Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master Audio. electronicsweekly.com/gadget-master

news

Secure RTOS technology is sitting at the tipping point

Green Hills’ Kleidermacher: “We are seeing a lot of interest from the Android smartphone space”


Real-time operating system (RTOS) technology with high levels of security and reliability can now

be used in embedded systems for automotive and smart metering ap-plications, according to Green Hills Software’s chief technology officer, David Kleidermacher.

Kleidermacher says the increasing level of embedded processor per-formance means it is now practical to run the company’s secure RTOS on even low-end microcontrollers.

Kleidermacher said the company was working with processor firms such as Freescale, ARM, Renesas Electronics and STMicroelectronics to support its Integrity secure RTOS on their processors.

“Our relationship with the semi-conductor firms is as strong as it has ever been,” said Kleidermacher.

RTOS in embeddedThe secure RTOS, which was origi-nally developed for high-reliability system applications in aerospace and control systems, is now being ported to a range of embedded processors.

“The need for software security is rippling all the way down embedded systems from the top,” ARM’s chief technology officer, Mike Muller told Electronics Weekly.

As a result, Kleidermacher expects the implementation of the RTOS to accelerate in new areas such as auto-motive and smart metering, but also smartphones and even PCs.

“We are seeing a lot of interest from the Android smartphone space,” said Kleidermacher.

Reliability and securityIn automotive it is the high reliability that is important to driver assist-ance systems. In smart metering and mobile phones, the software security features are interesting designers.

According to Kleidermacher, an-other important development was

EMBEDDED WORLD 2011 MANNERISMS BLOG

Everything will have its homepage

when Intel became interested in the secure RTOS to run on its reference platforms for point-of-sale terminals.

The firm intends to support Intel’s second-generation Core processor family with the Integrity RTOS and its secure virtualisation technology.

The RTOS has also been ported to Freescale’s QorIQ processors, and ARM-based processors from Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics.

Mobile financial transactionsARM has its own partitioning soft-ware called TrustZone, and Green Hills has been working with ARM to support software partitioning be-tween secure and real-time critical

applications running on its Integrity RTOS and a general-purpose OS such as Windows or Android, run-ning on the same processor.

This opens the possibility of im-plementing secure software for finan-cial transactions on mobile phones.

Windows cannot be that secure, so the only way is to run it on an RTOS and keep the secure applications sep-arate and outside the Windows OS.

This requires increased processing power, but with the latest Intel and ARM cores this will soon be practical for PCs and smartphones, reckoned Kleidermacher.

“Both Intel and ARM are very in-terested in the idea,” he said

The Integrity RTOS can host gener-al purpose operating systems such as Linux/MeeGo, Android and Win-dows in secure virtual machines. It also has the reliability and real-time determinism for critical functions..

The smaller version of the RTOS has already been ported to Cortex-M4 based processors from Freescale.

We live in the stone age of computing where we con-nect to the internet by man-

ual output. The next stage is automat-ic connection where every object from a Coke can to a car tyre has a computer that automatically con-nects it to its own homepage.

This “Internet of Things” is the logical next step for computing, Professor Elgar Fleisch of the Uni-versity of St Gallen and ETH Zurich told the ISS-SEMI meeting in Gre-noble, France, last week.

“There will be a CV for each product,” said Fleisch. The homepage of a tyre would say where it was made, when shipped, where used and its pressure.

The Internet of Things is a place where “smart items have nerve end-ings and report to anywhere”, said Fleisch.

A processor chip ID and sensor in a food package could signal to its homepage that it is going to lose its freshness, for example, “I’m getting warmer – do something about me”.

“New functional layers in prod-ucts enable a new value proposi-tion,” said Fleisch.

“The semiconductor industry is the enabling industry for this new world – the Internet of Things,” said Fleisch.

Mannerismswww.electronicsweekly.com/mannerisms

“Our relationship with the semiconductor companies is as strong as it has ever been”

Progress: One day, everything in this fridge will have its own homepage

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Chip firms debate merits of 450mmSemiconductor panel voices scepticism at benefits of introducing 450mm wafer, writes David Manners

The European Commission told the conference it wanted fabs to open in Europe

ElectronicsWeekly.com

“Is 450mm a curse or a blessing?” asked Rutger Wijburg, NXP senior vice-president for front-

end manufacturing, at the ISS-SEMI panel discussions in Grenoble.

“First, it’s wanted only by three big companies, a memory company, a foundry and Intel. They could push everyone else out of business,” said Wijburg. “Second, the amount of cap-ital is enormous. Someone has to pay the bill. Consumers could be asked to pay that burden.”

STMicroelectronics CTO Jean-Marc Chery was similarly sceptical: “ST thinks 10nm is OK on 300mm,” said Chery. “After that the gain is marginal – the gain in moving from

300mm to 450mm is 10%.”NXP’s Wijburg pointed up the dan-

ger of stretching resources too widely.“Can we have a programme in

450mm as well as More than Moore?” he asked. “If we spread our-selves too thinly we won’t achieve other aims.”

Jens Drews, who is in charge of government relations for Globalfoun-dries, said: “Resources are spread very thin at the companies which make the tools. They shouldn’t defo-cus on the automation which makes 300mm more productive.”

SEMI is the industry association serving the

supply chains for the microelectronic, display

and photovoltaic industries

The European Commission has had a change of heart and now believes manufacturing semi-

conductors in Europe is important.This was the message of Jean

Therme, director of CEA-Grenoble and chairman of the European Key Enabling Technologies high-level group, speaking to the ISS-SEMI con-ference in Grenoble this morning.

“The commission wants to make

ISS-SEMI

ISS-SEMI

EC wants fab capacity in Europe

possible the siting of fabs in Europe,” Therme told the conference.

Europe’s share of the world’s fabs has been declining, said Therme, with only three 300mm fabs: Intel’s in Ireland; ST’s at Crolles; and Glo-balfoundries in Dresden.

Collectively Europe has the capaci-ty to fab 1,453,679 eight-inch equiva-lent wafers per month, said Therme, about the same as TSMC’s capacity.

embedded systems

AMD wants to be the third wayAMD thinks there is room in the market for it to run alongside Intel and ARM , writes Richard Wilson

Two of the most important processor brands in the em-bedded computing market are Intel and ARM. Is there

room for a third? AMD certainly thinks so with its Fusion architecture being designed in to ETX and XTX COM systems.

Congatec believes the introduction of ETX and XTX modules based on AMD Fusion processors gives these embedded computing form factors a viable future.

According to Congatec, Intel’s dis-continuation of the 855 chipset fami-ly left a major gap in the market par-ticularly for ETX computer modules, which primarily affected the higher performance range of applications.

“This gap has now been closed by processor manufacturer AMD with the Fusion architecture, which also opens up new graphics-oriented ap-plications,” said the supplier.

The firm’s AMD Fusion architecture-based ETX and XTX COM modules are the conga-EAF and conga-XAF.

The difference between the XTX and the ETX standard is that XTX no longer supports the ISA bus, but in-stead a four-lane PCI Express bus.

XTX also has more S-ATA and USB interfaces than ETX.

The company offers a choice of five AMD embedded G-Series proc-essor options ranging from a single-core 1.2GHz AMD T44R (64Kbyte L1 cache, 512Kbyte x2 L2 cache) with 9W TDP, to a 1.6GHz dual-core AMD T56N (64Kbyte L1 cache, 512Kbyte x2 L2 cache) with 18W TDP.

There is a graphics core with the Universal Video Decoder 3.0 for MPEG-2 HD and DivX (MPEG-4) vid-eos and it will support DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.0 for fast 2D and 3D imaging as well as OpenCL 1.1.

There are two independent graph-ics controllers providing a VESA-

compliant video output with resolu-tions of up to 2560 x 1600 pixels

Undeniably, it is Intel and ARM-based processors which define the embedded module market in terms of power and performance, with inte-grated graphics and floating point units almost a given.

Kontron has introduced a double-width AdvancedMC processor mod-ule built around an Intel Core i7 Mo-bile processor.

The Core i7 processors were first designed into COM Express compu-ter modules little more than a year ago. The impact on performance was obvious.

Three versions of the 32nm Core i7

processor are available, running at 1.06GHz, 2.0GHz and 2.53GHz clock speeds with respective power con-sumptions of 17W, 25W and 35W TDP.

The implementation of hyper-threading technology means the 2.53GHz dual-core processor can run parallel, multi-threaded applications.

The AM5020 module’s Intel Core i7 processor is coupled with the QM 57 platform controller hub (PCH) and supported with integrated memory controller, PCI Express Gen2 I/O and Intel HD graphics.

With support for PICMG AMC.1/.2/.3 sub-specifications, the module’s interfaces include eight PCI Express lanes to the backplane config-urable as 2 x PCIe x4 or 8 x PCIe x1.

There are also four Gbit Ethernet interfaces.

There is a DVI-D interface at the front combined with two USB inter-faces, two Gbit Ethernet and a serial port via RJ45.

Typical MicroTCA applications in-clude telecoms gateways and switch-es, as well as applications in medical, automation and security.

The AM5020 module supports Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, as well as VxWorks 6.8 and Wind River Linux PNE 3.0.2.

Intel’s low power Atom E6xx proc-

essor has established itself in embed-ded market offer sub-5W modules as well as hyperthreading.

Hyperthreading technology allows the logical division of the physical processor core for multi-processing with two separate processors. This means that safety-critical applica-tions can run on a real-time operating system on a logical core that is sepa-rate from the graphical user interface which, for example, can run on a Windows operating system.

An example is the conga-CA6 module offering 600MHz, 1.0GHz, 1.3GHz and 1.6GHz Atoms with 512kbyte L2 cache and up to 2Gbyte of DDR2-RAM.

The integrated 3D-enabled graph-ics engine has received a 50% per-formance boost and can accommo-date up to 256Mbyte frame buffer.

MSC has developed a scalable em-bedded computer module family based around ARM processors.

Drawing on the pin compatibility of various ARM CPUs, the nanoRISC modules offer processor options from ranging from ARM9 derivatives clocked at 400MHz up to 1GHz Cor-tex-A8 cores. The ARM processors ensure low power consumption which is specified at less than 3W for the 50mm x 70mm modules.

The first member of the family is a nanoRISC module, based on the Samsung Cortex-A8 S5PC100 proces-sor, with up to 667/833MHz clock frequency, maximum 512Mbyte DDR2 SDRAM, up to 4Gbyte NAND flash memory (NAND, eMMC and SD/MMC), audio and touch support, real time clock, system monitoring, watchdog and many other features.

Interfaces such as Ethernet, USB, CAN, UART, I2C, SPI, GPIO, camera, audio, ADC, touch and display are available via a 230-pin MXM connector.

The 2D/3D graphics engine inte-grated on the S5PC100 supports video resolutions up to 720p.

There is a baseboard which can be used as a starter kit for the develop-ment of hardware on the basis of the respective Samsung processor, which is also available from MSC.

Linux and Windows CE are offered as board support packages.

From the top: Congatec, MSC, Kontron


Congatecwww.congatec.comKontronhttp://uk.kontron.comMSC_Gleichmann Electronicswww.msc-ge.com

embedded systems

Design moves to a higher levelThe latest generation of HLS technology overcomes the limitations of first release HLS tools by enabling modular design and assembly, writes Shawn McCloud

For high level synthesis (HLS) tools to scale and keep pace with designs of the future, they must be able to handle

large, complex designs in their en-tirety.

To do this, they must be able to de-sign and assemble blocks of different abstractions and input languages—from legacy RTL to cycle accurate SystemC to untimed algorithmic C code. They must be able to do this with an intuitive and predictable methodology so that productivity scales with design size and complex-ity.

Such tools will carry EDA to the next step in its evolution, enabling more complex, larger, nanotechnolo-gy designs to be produced quickly and competitively.

Only a few of the dozen or so HLS tools offered today have the level of maturity and robustness to support the move from a top-down to a mod-ular HLS design flow. Initially, HLS took a block level approach, follow-ing the tradition of hardware archi-tects to partition designs according to what individual hardware designers could handle.

First release HLS tools did not have the capacity to handle all as-pects of an SoC; thus, some parts were done in C while others re-mained in hand-coded RTL. Howev-er, the latest generation of HLS tech-nology overcomes these limitations by enabling modular design and as-sembly.

An HLS modular strategy divides complex systems into heterogeneous hierarchical blocks and provides legal interface synthesis for designers to plug and play these different ab-stractions together.

In other words, these tools have the ability to mix legacy RTL with multi-abstraction, C-level blocks, en-abling the representation of all design functionality at the system level of abstraction without converting legacy RTL code to C. This increases pro-ductivity, reduces risk, and yields greater flexibility while helping de-sign teams manage design complexi-ty, leverage legacy RTL, and increase capacity. Just as we saw with RTL reuse, we will see the creation and reuse of C++ IP and the ability to in-corporate that into increasingly larg-er, more complex designs.

This HLS modular approach is a big step forward for designers for three key reasons:

● Teams can divide-and-conquer de-signs.

● Designers can follow a build-as-you-go process.

● Physical effects can be locked down and linked back to C-level models.

HLS tools that provide design par-titioning support team design, and increasing the capacity to design by spreading the design across teams. This ability to divide-and-conquer al-lows design teams to break up very complicated, large, hardware sub-systems into manageable pieces that individual designers in a team can work on independently.

For this approach to be successful, these HLS tools must include fea-


Mentor Graphicshttp://www.mentor.com

tures that provide predictability as to how those pieces will be verified in-dividually, integrated into the larger sub-system, and then verified togeth-er as the larger SoC.

The modular HLS approach must support incremental design. As de-sign blocks are assembled into very large subsystems, designers can pre-serve their optimised blocks through-out the design flow.

The ability to build-as-you-go al-lows design teams to freeze the ma-jority of their hardware subsystem and re-optimise only those blocks re-quired to implement a design change. In other words, it allows designers to isolate those changes to a sub-block and keep the rest of the system un-touched.

In a modular HLS flow each un-timed block can be designed in isola-tion and fully optimised, then instan-tiated in another design where it is

referenced but not synthesised. Top-level synthesis becomes a matter of creating the interconnect.

Incremental design also allows HLS to scale to 100 million gate SoCs and, theoretically, beyond, because it builds blocks of reusable C++ IP that are highly configurable, highly pa-rameterised, and hardware neutral.

As design teams move to next-gen-eration SoCs, they will be able to lev-erage these legacy blocks and sub-systems and incorporate them into larger systems, then optimise them for specific area, performance, and power goals. This will be an impor-tant step forward similar to what we have seen in today’s RTL SoCs, where tremendous RTL design reuse enabled the creation of 20 million gate SoCs.

The ability to lock down physical effects and link them to C-level mod-els allows the annotation of correct, accurate implementation details. This will be particularly necessary as we move into the 0.32μm geometries and lower, and as we begin to see very high frequencies in the 1 to 2GHz range.

To support a modular approach, an HLS tool must be able to associate new hardware blocks with the physi-cal effects—all the way to place-and-route—and annotate that information back to the design being synthesised in C. These advanced HLS tools will make adjustments to the C-level de-signs to satisfy the physical effects and fix any violations that may have occurred. Once that iteration has oc-curred, the implementation-accurate estimates for blocks that are funda-mentally critical can be locked down.

Modular HLS design and assembly capabilities will enable HLS tools to handle highly complex, massive de-signs in their entirety. With this pow-erful capability, HLS will broaden its reach and acceptance for the produc-tion of the largest and most complex systems attainable. In fact, it is what will make these types of systems pos-sible at all.

Shawn McCloud is the product line director

for the Mentor Graphics high-level synthesis

technology.

In a modular HLS flow each untimed block can be designed in isolation and then optimised

processors

Top graphics run along with ARM’s Cortex A8Extra power in processor-based boards will deliver high definition images in multimedia applications, writes Richard Wilson

Chester-based embedded computer firm Blue Chip Technology has designed a range of ARM Cortex-

A8 processor-based boards with the additional processing power of a 520MHz C64x DSP.

Designated RE2, the board is built around a Texas Instruments OMAP 3 chip.

The RE2’s power dissipation is typically around 2W at 720MHz. But for this designers still get a graphics capability to deliver 720p resolution video content.

TI designed the OMAP34x and OMAP36x processors for low power battery-powered applications.

There are integrated IVA hardware accelerators to enable multi-standard video encode and decode up to HD resolution.

There is also a dedicated image processor for image capture.

Blue Chip Technology designs and manufactures the embedded boards in the UK.

With applications likely to be in multimedia, image and voice processing, and data compression/decompression, the supplier has cre-ated a display kit with the necessary display-specific cables and interface electronics to handle the signal, back-light and touch screen requirements for an off-the-shelf range of TFT dis-play panels ranging from 3.5 to 7 inches.

Called REsolution, the display kit also includes a PC utility allowing fine-tuning of display resolution and other parameters to accommodate most available TFTs.

The RE2 board itself will accept an input voltage range of 7Vdc to 36Vdc, so is suitable for vehicle installations.

An expansion port can accept an optional CM1 module to add GPRS and GPS functionality for telematics and in-vehicle applications.

Features include 256Mbyte LPDDR SDRAM and 512Mbyte NAND flash, both soldered on board, plus an op-tional NAND flash microSD card.

Video output is available through a 24 bit RGB TTL connector or a DVI port, and a four-wire touch screen controller and audio codec interface are also provided. Communications capability comprises a 10/100 Ether-net port, quad USB 2.0 host ports, one USB 2.0 device port, dual RS-232 and a single RS-485 port. Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and a camera interface are also provided.

The board supports Windows CE 6.0 and, by special request, Linux, QNX and VxWorks.

The RE2 board has an extended temperature option of -40 to +85°C at 600MHz and soldered memory if the design is required for harsh environ-ments.


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renewable energy systems

Another type of sun worshipIn certain areas like deserts where there are high ambient temperatures and lots of direct sunlight a type of solar cells called concentrators are putting solar panels in their place, writes Steve Bush

The classic image of a solar farm is acres of large blue-grey rectangles propped up to face the sun.

And there is no doubt this is the usual form of photovoltaic power sta-tion, but there is another type - con-centrator solar - which could become far more common, particularly in Earth’s sunnier spots.

Whereas solar panels use large areas of low-cost silicon semiconduc-tor, concentrators use tiny, typically 10x10mm, solar cells made from ex-pensive III-V semiconductors, com-bined with mirrors or lenses to con-centrate the sun’s rays - typically 500 times.

“500x is a happy number because a few years ago 1cm2 was a standard size and the remaining heat, about 30W/cm2 of waste, turned out to be do-able passively. It was a natural physical design limit,” Dr Tom Tib-bits, director of product marketing at Imperial College solar spin-out Quan-tasol, told Electronics Weekly. “The trend in the industry is now for smaller cells and higher concentra-tion. Typical new designs are coming out at 5.5x5.5mm and 700-1,000x.”

Although it is decades old, the solar industry is in many ways still in its infancy and the jury is out on which – panel or concentrator – is ‘best’, or under what circumstances one is better than the other.

Even if there is no clear boarder, there are some locations where con-centrators look to have an advantage, claims Tibbits, and hot deserts are one of them.

“Concentrators are less costly in the right place, particularly in high ambient temperatures, desert for ex-ample, where there tends to be a lot of direct sunlight,” he said. “All solar cell efficiency drops at high temp and III-Vs are inherently more tolerant to high operating temperatures than sili-con.”

The cost equation is complex. Sili-con is cheaper than III-V, but only tiny amounts of III-V are needed, and III-V cells are more efficient because they catch more of the sun’s spec-trum. Silicon is installed in fixed flat panels whereas concentrators need to be steered to track the sun and steer-ing joints need maintenance.

“You can turn the tracker question around, said Tibbits. “You need

tracking to completely optimise power output throughout the day, particularly at the beginning and end of day, and particularly in mid to late afternoon in places like California where there is maximum demand for electricity.”

If pushed, what would Tibbits in-stall?

“I would never advocate concen-trator array on a house in London,” he said. “If I lived in Spain and had a couple of acres, I would certainly consider concentration.”

And they are being built. Last year, US concentrator firm

SolFocus built a six acre 122 array 2.6GWh/year farm in Victor Valley College California (pictured above).

The cells at the focus of concentra-tors are triple junction devices, typi-cally InGaP, InGaAs, and Ge made by metal-organic chemical vapour depo-sition (MOCVD) epitaxial growth on a germanium substrate.

Efficiency is close to 40%, com-pared with around 25% for silicon because each junction absorbs its own part of the solar spectrum. Sili-


Quantasolhttp://www.quantasol.com

con largely ignores shorter wave-lengths.

Quantasol’s unique intellectual property is adding quantum wells to the triple junction structure to in-crease efficiency and allow absorp-tion to be tuned to the sunlight land-ing at different locations on the planet.

It has already made cells with record-breaking efficiency.

“We are able to understand our customer system and location, and design a cell for that system and pro-duce maximum energy per annum,” claimed Tibbits. “We can harvest 5-10% more than standard triple junction cells depending on the spec-trum and optics. In the south-west USA spectrum, we can certainly add around 5% harvesting improvement, and in Saudi Arabia we can have a larger benefit, around 10%.”

He went on to explain that the desert in the US and Saudi Arabia are 10 degrees apart in latitude, and the Arabian peninsula tends to have atmospheric dust which attenuates the blue end of the spectrum.

Although an almost infinite variety of quantum well cells could be made, Quantasol estimates three to five should cover all conditions found in concentrator-applicable sites across the globe.

Adding quantum wells means a more complex manufacturing proc-ess than that for standard triple junc-tions, but not much.

“Quantum wells are easy to grow with the control systems of modern CVD reactors which can switch sources in sub-seconds, and we use the same sources as everyone else,” said Tibbits. “We argue typically growth time is lengthened by only 10%.”

This becomes “a few per cent more expensive overall”, he added. “We aim to sell at a similar price to our competitors, attracting a premium with our higher efficiency because the customers gain in energy har-vest.”

SolFocus’s six-acre 122 array 2.6GWh/year farm in Victor Valley College California with cell detail (inset)

renewable energy


stalled off Orkney last August. Unfortunately, one of the compos-

ite blades failed the same month. Teething troubles are not unusual

with tidal generators as the sea is a harsher and less well understood en-vironment compared with that sur-rounding wind turbines. One of Sea-Gen’s original turbine blades was broken during an installation attempt and its wiring had to be up-graded during trials.

Atlantis’ replacement blade was ordered from Norco GRP, a glass-rein-forced plastic firm based in Dorset.

“Norco joins a UK-dominated sup-ply chain for the turbine, alongside Soil Marine Dynamics, Isleburn, Tata Steel (Corus), Wichita and Hallin Ma-rine,” said Atlantis.

“The fault with the original blades related to the composite material used during their fabrication and that the faulty composite parted from the blade structure, which remained in-tact.”

Both firms have partners signed up for further projects, MCT concentrat-ing around the UK and Atlantis fur-ther afield, and both have agreements aiming to put turbines in Canada’s Bay of Fundy, the place with the highest tidal range in the world. www.marinecurrentturbines.comwww.atlantisresourcescorporation.com

Turning the tide on wind turbines

The UK is leading the world with a modern spin on ancient technology as tidal turbines appear in the seas

around Britain. Not everywhere suits tidal tur-

bines. There needs to be shallow fast-moving water near enough to land for cable laying and maintenance.

Suitable sites are usually in narrow channels where land funnels large masses of water shifted by the tides – between Orkney and the Scottish mainland for example, and in the en-trances of some sea inlets.

Where conditions are right, tidal turbines may well turn out to be cheaper per kWh than wind turbines over time, particularly as tidal flow is regular and its magnitude is almost entirely predictable.

Bristol-based Marine Current Tur-bines (MCT) installed the world’s first commercial tidal turbine, 1.2MW SeaGen, in the entrance Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough in April 2008.

MCT was established in 2000 and its principal corporate shareholders include BankInvest, Carbon Trust In-vestments, EDF Energy, ESB Interna-tional, Guernsey Electricity, High Tide and Siemens Energy.

Atlantis Resources has a 1MW tur-bine called AK1000 which it in-

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In areas near the coast where there is shallow fast-moving water tidal turbines are thriving, writes Steve Bush

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fpgas


Prototyping SoC designs on FPGAs

Envelope signal generation in the FPGA was implemented using Nu-jira’s Envelope Generation Interface, which is compliant with the openET Alliance’s specification for infrastruc-ture ET modulators. www.xilinx.comwww.nujira.com

Synphony support added to Microsemi FPGAsMicrosemi has announced that Syn-opsys’ Synphony Model Compiler, a design tool suite for hardware DSP algorithm design, now provides sup-port for its FPGAs.

The compiler offers an automated implementation and verification flow for engineers using MATLAB/Simulink. It supports many of Micro-semi’s FPGAs, including the RTAX-DSP, RTAX-S/SL, Axcelerator, as well as the ProASIC3, IGLOO, and Fusion devices.

For algorithm designers, the soft-ware offers high-level synthesis in their chosen design environment and automates a smooth transition into the Synopsys FPGA logic implemen-tation flow.

For the hardware engineer, the software generates the necessary RTL code and offers built-in optimisations that account for device-specific fea-tures.

There is a synthesisable IP model library for the MATLAB/Simulink environment for wireless, multime-dia and signal processing applica-tions.www.microsemi.com

Video camera development kit based on LatticeECP3 family Lattice Semiconductor has released the HDR-60 video camera develop-ment kit, a production-ready high definition (HD) system based on the LatticeECP3 FPGA family.

The kit is pre-loaded with a plug and play evaluation image signal processing (ISP) pipeline based on intellectual property (IP) cores from Lattice partner Helion.

1080p can be delivered at 60 frames per second with 2D noise re-

duction and high dynamic range (HDR).

Designed with a form factor to fit into commercially available camera housings, and capable of supporting two sensors simultaneously, the kit is intended for evaluation and proto-typing of security, surveillance, traf-fic control, video conferencing and automotive cameras.

Using a ECP3-70 FPGA, the IP pipeline for a complete 1080p60 camera requires only a 33K LUT ECP3-35 device.

Equipped with an Aptina 720p HDR sensor, with a 1080p HDR sen-

sor planned in Q2, the kit has greater than 120dB system dynamic range, an auto white balance algorithm, and the 2D noise reduction “all in stream-ing mode through the FPGA without the need for an external frame buff-er”, said the firm.

On-board DDR2 memory also ena-bles applications such as 3D noise re-duction, image stitching from multi-ple sensors, image rotation and de-warping.

In addition to two USB ports, there is an RJ45 Ethernet port, a Broadcom Broadreach PHY and a built-in BNC connector, offering support for Ether-net over RG6 coaxial cable for dis-tances up to 700 meters at 100Mbps for customers incorporating compres-sion encoders into their designs.

It supports programming over standard USB cable.

The kit is $399 and schematics and layout files are available free to all purchaserswww.latticesemi.com

There is a video demonstration at www.latticesemi.com/hdr60videoen

PRODUCT FOCUS

Reference design for cellular basestation PA circuitNujira and Xilinx have created a reference design for a cellular base-station power amplifier (PA) circuit with Nujira’s envelope tracking modulator linearised by a digital pre-distortion (DPD) block running on a Xilinx Virtex 6 FPGA.

The integration was based on Nu-jira’s NCT-B1110 Envelope Genera-tion Interface VHDL code integrated with Xilinx’s v4.0 Digital Predistor-tion LogiCORE IP block, running on a Xilinx ML605 reference platform for the Virtex 6 FPGA.

“The integration of the openET En-velope Generation Interface with Xil-inx DPD and CFR LogiCORE IP was extremely straightforward, and the design was up and running within a few hours with no major issues,” said Simon Whittle, Nujira’s design centre manager.

A Nujira NCT-H4010 ET modula-

tor was used with a simple FMC in-terface adaptor for direct connection to the ML605.

The RF path was generated by An-alog Devices’ AD-MSDPD-EVB mixed-signal digital pre-distortion evaluation platform, and the power amplifier was a Nujira NCT-T4503 using a SEDI EGN21B090IV GaN power transistor.

According to Dave Hawke, senior product marketing manager, wireless communications at Xilinx: “Enve-lope tracking technology is increas-ingly being recognised as a must-have power optimisation technology and Xilinx has therefore integrated an envelope tracking port into its 3rd generation multimode radio targeted design platform.”

f

f

f

products

ElectronicsWeekly.com 2-8 MARCH 2011 EW | 21

Interface cards with four RS232 serial portsStandard character OLED display modules with 2000:1 contrastPlus Opto has a range of standard character OLED modules from Taiwanese display manufacturer Winstar.

The PM OLED display modules are compatible with the same me-chanical sizes and pin outs as the supplier’s standard range of STN character modules.

OLED character types are supplied with an “all-in-one” fonts driver, which allows the user to select from English, Japanese, European or Rus-sian characters.

Modules can be supplied with or without polariser, with a contrast ratio of up to 2000:1 for those with a polariser.

OLED technology offers a fast re-sponse time of 10μs (at 25°C) and a wide viewing angle of 175°.

Operating temperature is -40°C to +80°C allowing the technology to also be suitable for automotive appli-cations.www.plusopto.co.uk

48-pin MCU has 7x7mm footprint at 0.5mm pin pitchEnergy Micro is making its EFM32 Gecko and Tiny Gecko product lines available in the small form factor QFP48 package.

The 48-pin package has a footprint of 7 x 7mm at a pin pitch of 0.5mm.

The QFP48 Gecko product offers the same range of low energy periph-erals as its larger QFP100 packaged variant, including a multiple sensor interface, UARTs, LCD Controller, 12-bit ADC and AES encryption/decryp-tion engine.

The QFP48 packaged EFM32 Gecko and Tiny Gecko microcontrol-lers will be available from April.www.energymicro.com

Solderless LED socket for Philips Lumileds Luxeon S LEDsTyco Electronics has a solderless LED socket designed specifically for use with the Philips Lumileds Luxeon S LED.

The Type LS socket complies with UL-1977 specifications and is de-signed with insulation displacement technology to allow for quick and easy termination of 24 AWG wires to the socket.

An integral stainless steel spring within the socket is designed to pro-vide a uniform and adequate normal force to the LED.

To position the LED on a heat sink, a plastic frame that is first placed on the heat sink to correctly orient the LED prior to socket attachment. Once positioned, only three commercially-available #4 or M3 screws are needed to rapidly secure the socket to the heat sink.

Designed to maximise optical effi-ciency in un-lensed applications, the shape of the Type LS socket ensures that 98% of the light emitted from the LED is unobstructed. www.te.com/lighting

Power management development kits can create reference designTexas Instruments has two power management development kits, the TPS54060 and TPS7A30/49 for data converters, operational ampli-fiers, clocks and other signal chain devices.

The evaluation modules can be connected to create a reference de-sign.

The 60V TPS54060 switcher in an inverting buck-boost configuration generates a balanced positive and negative output voltage up to 18V.

The switcher’s positive and nega-tive voltage outputs are post-regulat-ed with TI’s TPS7A30 and TPS7A49 low-noise high-PSRR LDOs. www.ti.com

Tiny JTAG boundary scan controller

products


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CONTACTS

Reference design for candelabra-style LED bulbs

open state, 200μA of current will flow through the switch to determine if the high voltage is present. The switch does not close until the cross-terminal voltage drops below 2.0V.

The IC replaces the conventional discrete transmit/receive solution and requires no diode bridges, induc-tors, resistors or power rails. The IC typically reduces component counts from up to 48 to one. Because the IC doesn’t require a power supply, MD0105 dramatically reduces noise in ultrasound circuits, thereby en-hancing dynamic range.www.supertex.com

12-bit ADC added to hybrid/electric vehicle battery monitor

Linear Technology’s latest version of its high voltage battery monitor for hybrid/electric vehicle and other high voltage battery systems includes a 12-bit ADC, a precision voltage ref-erence, a high voltage input multi-plexer and a serial interface. Each LTC6803 can measure up to 12 indi-vidual battery cells in series.

The device’s design allows multiple chips to be stacked in series without optocouplers or isolators, permitting voltage monitoring of every cell in long strings of series-connected batteries.

The maximum total measurement error of the LTC6803 is guaranteed to be less than 0.25% from -40°C to 125°C. www.linear.com/6803

250W fanless AC/DC power supplies with 12Vdc outputFully-enclosed 250W fanless AC/DC power supplies featuring a 12Vdc output and an operating temperature range of -40 to 85°C are available form Emerson Network Power.

The LCC250 power supplies fed from a nominal 115 Vac input are ca-pable of maintaining their full 250W load capacity up to their maximum baseplate temperature of 85°C.

The input range is 90-264Vac, 47-63Hz and the 12Vdc output is adjust-able by +/-10%, capable of delivering 250W max.

Active power factor correction is employed to minimise input har-monic current distortion. The power supplies have a safety-ground leak-age current of less than 275μA when fed with a 250Vac input, and provide an output hold-up time of at least 16ms when fed with a 115Vac input and delivering full load.

All models have a 178 x 101mm footprint. The conduction-cooled versions have a height of 28mm, while the convection-cooled versions integrate a heatsink which raises their overall height to 38mm.www.powerconversion.com

High IP rating 3 in 1 dimmable power supplies Ecopac Power is offering the Mean Well LPF-40D series 40W, 89% high

efficiency, high IP rating, 3 in 1 dim-mable power supplies.

The LPF-40D series are fully pot-ted by heat-conducted glue to meet IP67 rating and are fully enclosed by plastic casing to give 94V-0 fire pre-vention levels.

With built-in active PFC function and input range of 90-305Vac, the LPF-40D series not only meets the harmonic current limitation per EN61000-3-2 Class C, they also fulfil PF>0.9 if loading is over 50-60%. With cooling by only free air convec-tion, they can operate at full load from -40 to +70°C ambient tempera-ture.

The LPF-40D series has the option to adjust the constant current output with either a 1-10Vdc or a 10V PWM signal or resistor. www.ecopacpower.com

Two terminal, bi-directional voltage protection deviceSupertex has introduced the MD0105 two terminal, bi-directional volt-age protection device, which draws 200μA while protecting receiver circuitry of ultrasound systems from high voltage transmitter pulses.

It is a normally closed switch gov-erned by a switch control that moni-tors the voltage drop across terminals A and B.

The switch will open if the voltage difference exceeds +/-2.0V. In the

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Electronics Weekly No 2459 9-Mar-2011