Embedded World Notes #2

Warning: three days of embedded world in Nuremberg can cause extreme information overload.  That, along with exhaustion from walking crowded isles all day long. There are many, many highlights here – way too many to cover here – but here are five more for your perusal.

Over at Freescale we see their i.MX 6SoloX processor that the company says takes applications processor security to new levels. The SoC has a Cortex-A9 and a Cortex-M4 core and features smart system power. Shipping now in volume, the heterogeneous multicore MCU pairs high security with high performance and efficiency. The processor includes robust physical security, including advanced secure boot and protected data storage. Device level security is improved with a resource domain controller that provides a centralized programming model to configure isolation and sharing of system resources. 

The A9 core has a 512 KB L2 cache; the M4 16 Kbyte I and D caches. The IC has 16/32-bit DDR3-800 and DDR3L-800 and NAND/NOR memory controllers. It includes two 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports, USB 2.0, CAN, and PCIe 2.0, along with dual-port GbE audio video bridging (AVB). Three versions are available – the XAEC for automotive, XCEC for consumer, and XIEC for industrial.

Lantronics is showing off their PremierWave XC HSPA 3.5G intelligent cellular M2M/IoT gateway and application server that uses Penta-band UMTS/HSPA+ (global coverage), quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, Ethernet-to-cellular failover/failback, Ethernet-to-cellular routing, serial-to-cellular tunneling, and serial-to-ethernet tunneling. The unit has a 10/100 port, two serial ports, two digital inputs, one relay output, and a USB port.

It securely connects machines and assets for unattended field applications. It features receive antenna diversity and security options including SSH SSL, IPsec, GRE VPNs,and SMS number white-listing per application.

The Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC FPGA family from Xilinx reaches new performance levels with quad 64-bit Cortex A53 cores and dual Cortex R5 real-time cores for heterogeneous multi-processing. The devices use TSMC 16 nm FinFET process technology for an approximate 5X boost in performance/watt. The family also includes a new interconnect optimization technology, SmartConnect, plus a 466 MHz Mali-400M graphics engine and DDR3 and DDR4 external memory interfaces. See http://goo.gl/cLSCH3 for complete coverage.

The TC35668IXBG Bluetooth enabled processor from Toshiba offers a highly integrated solution for automotive hands-free and audio streaming subsystems. In addition to a Bluetooth v4.0 embedded stack, various Bluetooth Classic profiles and GATT, Toshiba has incorporated a DSP that allows acoustic improvement inside a noisy environment, such as a car, and echo cancellation for hands-free systems. The CHIP features three core elements: a 104 MHz Cortex-M3, a Bluetooth core with 52 MHz ARM7TDMI-STM, and a 208 MHz Ceva TeakLite-IIITM DSP core. The Bluetooth core combines a transceiver, antenna switch, balun, low noise amplifier and power amplifier. It comes in a 97-ball P-VFBGA package measuring 6.0 x 6.0 mm.

ARM is touting their safety support for automotive, health, and industrial markets using the Cortex-R5 processor. The comprehensive safety document set will drive R5 adoption in safety-critical applications. ISO 26262 documentation supports automotive applications such as powertrain and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), while industrial safety-related systems can demonstrate compliance to IEC 61508.