September 25, 1997

Your first look: products from the
Embedded Systems Conference

Plenty of new products will be on display at the upcoming Embedded Systems Conference, which takes place Sept 29 to Oct 2 in San Jose, CA. Hundreds of companies exhibit the latest development tools, real-time operating systems, logic analyzers, µPs, µCs, and more. Technical sessions include more than 120 classes and full-day tutorials on the newest technologies.

You can get a preview of the show's best products right here in EDN. We asked conference participants for advance details of their exhibits, and we've summarized our findings in the following pages. Take a look at these offerings; you're sure to find something of interest.

For more information about the show, call 1-415-278-5259 or check out www.embedsyscon.com/.

Development kit deploys DSP/BIOS kernel on C54X platforms. Suitable for any hardware platform based on TMS320C54X DSPs, the BIOShop software developer's kit is a retargetable OEM version of Texas Instruments' DSP/BIOS. The kit consists of a target-resident embedded kernel that functions according to the DSP/BIOS API, and BIOScope, a suite of visual host-based real-time analysis tools that uses these kernel services. BIOShop gives you a window-oriented host tool for selecting DSP/BIOS object-code modules. It includes utilities for configuring the platform's memory map and installing the DSP/BIOS in nonvolatile memory, as well as instructions with sample code for writing DSP/BIOS drivers. BIOShop, including three seats and a three-day training class, costs $9995.

Spectron Microsystems, Santa Barbara, CA. 1-805-968-5100, fax 1-805-968-9770, www.spectron.com.

JTAG/ROM emulator speeds LAN integration. You can debug embedded-system designs with the NetICE emulator, which delivers the benefits of a network-based JTAG emulator and a ROM emulator in one package. The four-port unit also allows boundary-scan infrastructure and interconnect testing and in-circuit device programming through the JTAG port. Using the TCP/IP, NetICE connects to various networks and includes both 10BaseT and 10Base2 interfaces. NetICE is target-processor-independent and comes with as much as 16 Mbytes of onboard RAM or ROM. The emulator costs $5950.

Corelis Inc, Cerritos, CA. 1-310-926-6727, fax 1-310-404-6196.

Program creates window-oriented GUIs for DOS. DOS Buttons is a software-development tool for DOS applications that lets you build GUIs that include windows, buttons, and display bars. GUIs can accept keyboard, mouse, touchscreen, and pen input, and they occupy just a few kilobytes of memory. You can apply DOS Buttons to a range of embedded applications, such as handheld data-collection and personal-communication devices, as well as factory instrumentation and process- control panels. The production royalty for DOS Buttons is $1/copy with a minimum of 100 licenses.

Annasoft Systems, San Diego, CA. 1-619-674-6155, fax 1-619-673-1432, www.annasoft.com.

Sound card enhances STD 32-based computers. Offering 16-bit, CD-quality stereo recording and playback, the ZT 8944 STD 32 bus card employs an audio chip set that integrates a DSP/codec with such peripheral circuitry as an OPL3-compatible FM synthesizer, two I²S digital-audio serial ports, and 3-D audio. The I²S ports allow the ZT 8944 to handle multiple digital channels running at different sample rates. The board is compatible with applications written for SoundBlaster Pro, Microsoft SoundSystem, and AdLib, as well as Windows 95 and 3.1. The ZT 8944 costs $285.

Ziatech Corp, San Luis Obispo, CA. 1-805-541-0488, fax 1-805-541-5088, www.ziatech.com.

PCI-bus card grabs video frames on trigger. Serving as a PCI-bus master, the PXC200 frame grabber provides real-time color or monochrome video capture to system memory, handling data transfers to free the host CPU for other tasks. Four multiplexed inputs accept color video from NTSC, PAL, SECAM, and S-video sources. The PXC200 performs real-time image scaling with interpolation, plus horizontal and vertical cropping to minimize memory- and bus-bandwidth requirements. An optional control package provides eight general-purpose I/O ports that you can program as four separate triggers and four strobes. The PCI-bus card, which includes a 12V-dc camera supply, costs $395.

Imagenation Corp, Beaverton, OR. 1-503-641-7408, fax 1-503-643-2458, www.imagenation.com.

VMEbus board holds as many as eight TMS320C44 DSPs. The CV8 master board packs four TIM-40 module sites, 10 external communication ports, a JTAG emulation port, application-specific ports, a shared-memory architecture, a VME64 master/slave interface, a UART, and an optimized, decoupled I/O interface all in a 6U VMEbus form factor. By populating the TIM-40 sites, you can configure the CV8 with one to eight 60-MHz TMS320C44 DSPs to scale processing power from 60 to 480 Mflops. You can access the shared memory on the board through the VME64 interface, which operates to 60 Mbytes/sec. Software support for the CV8 includes Solaris and VxWorks development tools. The CV8 costs $2600.

Spectrum Signal Processing Inc, Burnaby, BC, Canada. 1-604-421-5422, fax 1-604-421-1764, www.spectrumsignal.com.

Embedded RISC engine plugs into PCI bus. The Smartengine/43hPCI, a half-size PCI-bus card, provides the real-time data crunching and intelligence that a PC-based embedded system requires. In addition to a 64-bit RISC processor, the card offers three counter/timers with interrupt capability, a real-time clock, and parallel I/O ports. The 100-MHz VR4300 CPU operates from a 3.3V supply and has access to 8 Mbytes of two-way interleaved DRAM, a 16-kbyte instruction cache, an 8-kbyte data cache, as much as 32 kbytes of nonvolatile RAM, as much as 1 Mbyte of EPROM, and 2 to 8 Mbytes of flash memory. The Smartengine/ 43hPCI costs $945 (OEM).

Smart Modular Technologies, Fremont, CA. 1-510-623-1231, fax 1-510-623-1434, www.smartm.com.

Industrial PC has VMEbus interface. Running under DOS, Windows, or Linux, the eacCP686 industrial PC gives you a choice of CPUs, including a Pentium operating at 75 to 200 MHz, an AMD-K6 to 233 MHz, or a Cyrix-M2. The 6U VMEbus board comes with as much as 128 Mbytes of EDO RAM, a 256-kbyte L2 cache, a real-time clock, and a 1.2-Gbyte hard drive or optional 175-Mbyte flash disk. An onboard PCI-bus SVGA controller accommodates resolutions to 1600×1200 pixels with 256 colors or 1024×768 pixels with 16 million colors. One parallel and two serial ports are accessible from the front panel, as is a PS/2-compatible keyboard port. Prices start at $4400.

eac Automation-Consulting GmbH, Berlin, Germany. +49 30 404 90 69, fax +49 30 405 14 34, www.eac-com.de.

STD 32 bus card expands through PC/104-Plus. Driven by a 133-MHz 5X86 processor, the VL-586-1 STD 32 bus card gives you a PC/104-Plus expansion site to add high-speed video, modem, ADC, and other I/O functions. Onboard memory includes 4 to 32 Mbytes of RAM, 2.5 Mbytes of flash, and 512 kbytes of battery-backed static RAM. The board also offers floppy, IDE, and AT keyboard interfaces, as well as built-in multiprocessor arbitration and a watchdog-timer/reset circuit. The VL-586-1 costs $676 without RAM (100).

VersaLogic Corp, Eugene, OR. 1-541-485-8575, fax 1-541-485-5712, www.versalogic.com.

In-circuit emulator works with SH2 7040 µP. The Orion/ADViCE emulator for the Hitachi SH2 7040 series of processors delivers full-speed in-circuit emulation, nonintrusive trace, multilevel triggering, code coverage, performance analysis, Ethernet connectivity, and a graphical HLL debug interface for PCs and workstations. The emulator also accommodates other SH series members, including SH1, SH2, and SH3. Complete systems start at $24,500.

Orion Instruments Inc, Sunnyvale, CA. 1-408-747-0440, fax 1-408-747-0688.

PCI-bus controllers run at speeds as high as 50 MHz. Fully compliant with the PCI 2.1 specification, the V350EPC and V360EPC are the first members of the EPC family of enhanced PCI controllers revision A0 and the second-generation of the vendor's intelligent I²O-ready PCI bridges. Both parts offer advanced DMA chaining and hot swapping. The V350EPC works with multiplexed local buses to 40 MHz, and the V360EPC accommodates demultiplexed local buses to 50 MHz. The controllers come in 160-pin PQFPs and cost $26 (10,000).

V3 Semiconductor Corp, North York, ON, Canada. 1-416-497-8884, fax 1-416-497-1160, www.vcubed.com.

Software monitors real-time program execution. Version 5.0 of StethoScope, a real-time data-collection and -display tool that shows you what your application is doing without stopping the code, adds a new hierarchical signal manager, performance enhancements, and expanded variable types. Running on Windows NT and Unix hosts, the software gives you a live graphical window into your program, in which you can monitor variables, collect time histories, change values, and archive data, all without affecting your system's execution. Prices for StethoScope 5.0 start at $5000.

Real-Time Innovations Inc, Sunnyvale, CA. 1-408-720-8312, fax 1-408-734-5009, www.rti.com.

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