Aug 6 2008 12:00AM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |
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Building on their popular FPGA-based PXI, PC, and CompactRIO platforms, National Instruments has announced a new line of Single-Board RIO modules that offer designers a lower-cost, integrated hardware option for embedded control and data acquisition applications. The new sbRIO-96xx devices combine a real-time embedded processor and a reconfigurable FPGA plus analog and digital I/O on a single 8.2 x 5.6-inch printed circuit board. Similar to the existing FPGA-based platforms, designers can use LabVIEW graphical system design software to confi...Read More

Jul 28 2008 9:37PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |
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Offering designers and hobbyist a low cost starting point for device development, Digi-Key, Texas Instruments, and a group of volunteers have joined forces to create an open, single board computer design that can be adapted to a multitude of embedded projects. The module, dubbed the Beagle Board, is a low-power, fanless design incorporating TI’s recently introduced OMAP35x processors based on the ARM Cortex-A8 core. The design reduces cost and power requirements by eliminating most on-board peripherals, except those provided by the processor, and incorporating standard expansion buses, like high-speed USB 2.0 and SDIO for application-specific I/O. The processor contain...Read More

Jul 1 2008 3:55PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (5) |
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One of the potential problems with PCI Express embedded designs containing multiple high speed data streams is known as endpoint starvation. This can occur when a downstream device requests sequential long reads and the Root Complex spends too much time in serving these requests. The result is that other downstream ports are ignored and therefore starved for data. The latest generation of PCI Express switches offer a read pacing feature to throttle the bandwidth allocated to each downstream device to eliminate endpoint starvation and enhance system performance. ...Read More

Jun 6 2008 4:08PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (1) |
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Earlier this week, Microsoft announced the immediate availability of the Windows Embedded Standard 2009 community technology preview (CTP) designed for OEMs developing devices that connect to existing Enterprise infrastructure. The product will replace the current Windows XP Embedded and features new technologies such as Microsoft Silverlight, Remote Desktop Protocol 6.1, and .NET Framework 3.5. Windows Embedded Standard also includes componentized drivers for the latest x86 processor architectures, such as Intel’s Atom. The software a...Read More

May 28 2008 7:50PM | Permalink | Email this | Comments (0) |
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Just as the embedded industry starts to get serious about system size and form factors, Mercury Computer Systems unveiled its smallest system. The PowerBlock 50  is an ultra-compact embedded computer optimized for real-time image, sensor, and signal processing. The system's modular architecture allows for configurations of multiple processors and delivers over 100 GFLOPS of processing power. The PowerBlock 50 uses a PCI Express switch fabric backplane for high-bandwidth interconnection between modules.  The backplane and cards that plug into it are a derivative of the off-the-shelf ExpressCard standard. Ruggedized for harsh environments and featuring liquid coo...Read More