How We See Embedded Processing

Multicore processors (processors with multiple processing cores) are being considered in more embedded designs. There are in general two drivers that are bringing people to  multicore: performance and/or consolidation.

The performance driver is simple. Many devices need the best performance in the smallest package with the lowest power demands. A multicore processor provides more MIPS per Watt than a single core processor. In 'the old days' performance could be improved by increasing the processing frequency on the processor, but for many designs this is no longer the case. The networking industry especially has been ahead of the rest of the pack in the migration to multicore. 

The consolidation driver covers the fact that a (for example) dual core can be used ...Read More

When programming multicore, debug becomes exponentially more difficult (or at least polynomially more difficult, for the literalists out there) with the number of cores. This is because there are so many more possible connections to be made (for N cores it is theoretically (N-1)!). When multicore was across a board, there was a lot of visibility to be had with a logic analyzer. But when the interconnect is “hidden” on the chip between cores the architecture has to be carefully designed to expose the right debug data without adding a large overhead in wiring to the chip. A chip that cannot be debugged is virtually useless in the multicore space.

Another item to consider - guaranteeing a certain order of events is critical when you have a complex interaction between multiple programs. Even in a single core...Read More

Before we take a look at the landscape of multicore programming and what is happening within it, there’s one thing that we need to bear in mind, a key fact that often gets overlooked:

Software engineers did not ask for multicore architectures!

Let’s be really clear about this because there’s some unfair and unnecessary finger-pointing going on at the moment. Competitive products demand more performance at lower power consumption. Silicon and processor providers decided, undoubtedly for the right reasons, that multicore architectures were the only cost effective way to service these requirements, shifting the burden of unlocking the benefits to the software teams. Yet, it’s really the responsibility of the entire team, software and hardware groups alike, to ...Read More

One thing I find in this constantly innovating semiconn industry is that it is always harder to describe and specify what you need than it is to build it. I guess that’s why I so often see the specification stage of development taking so long. Robert’s article is addressing one of the big-issues that I’ve also enjoyed walking around the industry– that of trying to articulate the new language of multicore processing. In some ways I’ve had it easier in that I needed to only make a distinction between the multiple processor designs that our customers were already building and the new platforms that could be created with ARM MPCore technology-based multicore processors such as the ARM11 MPCore and the new Cortex-A9 MPCore processors.

T...Read More

Maybe it's just me, and maybe it's just a coincidence, but recently I keep having the same kind of discussion over and over with a number of embedded-control designers. Their request: "Integrate more." My response: "It doesn't always make sense."

Sometimes more integration is not necessarily a good thing. On the contrary, there are several cases in embedded control where partitioning is just what the doctor ordered. Nonetheless, I cannot begin to tell you how uncomfortable it felt. The roles used to be just the reverse. Working for Microchip Technology, I got used to bringing news of yet another peripheral or analog function being integrated in a new series of PIC microcontrollers. After all, a microcontroller is, by definition, an exercise in integration. A microcontroller is nothing more than a microprocessor with all the RAM and ROM (Flash) memory ...Read More

Like many students, I worked my way through college in the foodservice industry. During my last few years as a student, I was a bartender at a popular upscale Italian restaurant in Columbus, OH. One of the most popular dishes on the menu was a Shrimp Pasta Fra Diavolo; diavolo is the Italian word for "devil" and this term is typically used to describe food with a spicy or peppery bite. The dish was pretty simple, consisting of a few large shrimp in a spicy tomato cream sauce over linguine, and it cost about $15.

Years later, as an engineer and a product-line owner, I was curious as to just how much of a profit the restaurant was making from this dish. I called an old friend, and he passed on the secret recipe to me (note: do not share any secret recipes with me). I then went on to netgrocer.com to price the ingredients, and here's what I found:

I tend to deliver a lot of presentations to embedded engineers, and to be frank, we are not the easiest bunch to keep engaged. Let's set aside the fact that the majority of technology presentations are woefully dull; this is a given. When it comes down to it, there are big problems that engineers are tasked with solving—so the engineer's mind has lots of fodder for daydreams. I do keep a proverbial ace up my sleeve, though, that I use when I start to see eyes glazing over and heads nodding off… it's LEGO Mindstorms. For those of you who don't know, National Instruments skinned and simplified its graphical programming language (LabVIEW) for LEGO to be shipped with their largest product introduction ever. Whenever I bring this up, eyes brighten and smiles appear and I can't answer questi...Read More

Editor's note: EDN Welcomes a new contributor to this moderated blog, P.J. Tanzillo of National Instruments. His self-introduction follows, and you can also check out his first official post, "The kid inside the engineer knows a thing or two."

My path to being the Embedded Software Product Manager at National Instruments has been quite a winding one. I began my career at NI in the Applications Engineering group, specializing in embedded and FPGA-related projects. I then joined the LabVIEW Embedded R&D team, where I worked on core pieces of the NI embedded technology including the LabVIEW Microprocessor SDK and LabVIEW Embedded Module for ADI Blackfin Processors. Once we had a product to release, we needed a product manager, and I g...Read More

Exactly 10 years ago, I read a cover article on the Scientific American (June 1997) titled "The microchip that rewires itself". The authors noted, "Computers that modify their hardware circuits as they operate are opening a new era in computer design. Because they can filter data rapidly, they excel at pattern recognition, image processing and encryption."

I was learning software development at the time using 8086 assembly, BASIC/C on DOS, etc.  The prospect for a "new era in computer design" was too exciting to ignore, and I took the leap into hardwar...Read More

Navanee's expertise is on both sides of the wall that separate the hardware and software worlds. The Xilinx Embedded Manager has a background in both Computer Architecture and FPGAs, as well as Embedded and EDA tools development. Navanee was a core member of the team that developed MicroBlaze soft processor, an EDN Magazine Hot 100 Product, and the Xilinx Platform Studio toolsuite, which is a recipient of the International Engineering Council's Design Vision award. Most recently, he was the Engineering Manager for Embedded Platform Debug solutions for hardware-software co-debugging.

Navanee has an M.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Brigham Young University, Utah and a B.E. in Computer Science & Engineering from Anna University, India.

&mdas...Read More

The constant thread that runs through my days as an embedded-processor-applications manager is finding new, effective ways for our customers to reduce time to market. It's no secret that design cycles continue to shrink (almost as fast as processor ASPs!), and tools that ease system design can be a real differentiator when it comes time to choose a processor family.

Almost all developers will use some tools, often in the form of C/C++ and optimized assembly code libraries, to offload much of the control and signal-processing work. The open-source environment (uClinux, for example), with its huge base of device drivers and processing algorithms, provides another path to reducing programming complexity and speeding time to market.

Recently, graphical-based development environments (e.g., ...Read More

David Katz has more than 15 years of experience in analog, digital, and embedded-systems design. Currently, he is Blackfin applications manager at Analog Devices, where he is involved in specifying and supporting processor-based embedded designs. He has published more than 100 embedded-processor articles both domestically and internationally, and he has presented several conference papers in the field.

Additionally, he is co-author of Embedded Media Processing (Newnes).

Previously, he worked at Motorola, as a senior design engineer in cable-modem and automation groups. David holds both a BS and master's in electrical engineering from Cornell University.

I will admit, I am new to the blog scene. So when, encouraged by EDN, I started off writing the first piece, I purposely chose a subject that I knew would stir up some controversy—hoping to get the "blog" rolling. The number of comments posted confirms that I succeeded, perhaps a bit beyond my expectations (smile). Let me tell you up front that I don't think I have the perfect answer to all your concerns and comments, but at the same time I want you to know that I had already heard most of them before (big smile). 

First of all, I am aware of the possibility to run "promotions". That is, from time to time to ship batches of boards for free to launch a new tool or a new product. In fact, Microchip does continuously run such promotions. Sometimes the tools are given away fo...Read More

We stand on the brink of a fundamental discontinuity in silicon process-technology unlike anything most of us have seen. For almost two decades, a period of time spanning many of our entire education and careers, we have been beneficiaries of a silicon process-technology that would let us build almost anything we could imagine. Now, all of that is about to change.

For the past five years, capacitive loading of interconnect has grown to be a significant factor in logic speed and has limited the scaling of integrated-circuit performance. To compound the problem, recently, interconnect resistance has also started to limit circuit speed. As we transition from 90 nm to 32 nm, by the year 2010, copper sheet-resistance (mÙ per sq) will increase by almost a factor of five. These factors can render obsolete current de...Read More

Ray Simar is currently responsible for enhancing Texas Instruments digital signal processing solutions by developing advanced architectures for diverse applications.In 1997, Simar was elected to TI Fellow in recognition of his pioneering work on DSP technology.

He is the chief architect and program manager of the high performance TMS320C6000 DSPs that were announced in February 1997.The C6000 DSP is based on VelociTI, an advanced very-long-instruction-word (VLIW) architecture, to achieve very high performance at low cost.

Simar joined TI in 1984.Before the 'C6000, he was the chief architect and program manager for the floating-point TMS320C3x and TMS320C4x DSP devic...Read More