EDN Asia’s seminar in Bangalore provides insight into India’s embedded space

EDN Asia recently held in Bangalore the Embedded Systems & Software Seminar 2006 with the aim of providing insights into the Indian embedded industry.

The keynote address “Embedded Devices Get Ubiquitous” was delivered by S. Janakiraman, President & CEO, R&D Services, Mindtree Consulting Pte Ltd. In the changing computing paradigm, when computing is moving from client-server through Internet through ubiquitous computing, Janakiraman sees some distinct trends impacting embedded industry. These are “fixed function to multi-function devices; analog to digital media; proprietary to commercial software; shift from 8- and 16-bit to 32-bit and higher processors; limited fixed line bandwidth to high bandwidth wired/wireless; and standalone to integration between embedded devices and web.” Software is the key driver for embedded devices. However, there are certain challenges that need to be overcome as embedded approaches ubiquity. The main challenges are interoperability, heterogeneity, mobility, security and adaptability.

ISA and Frost & Sullivan have projected that Indian semiconductor and embedded design industry will grow from $3.25 billion in 2005 to $14.42 billion in 2010 and further to $43.07 billion in 2015. As India moves up the embedded value chain, there will be need to “collaborate and innovate.” The path up this value chain will take India through three roles, according to Janakiraman. These roles are that of an optimizer defining tasks, enabler providing reference solution, and co-innovator providing IP-based solution development and system architecture consulting.

FPGA in embedded
Xilinx India Country Sales Manager Neeraj Varma spoke on “Fast and Flexible Embedded Processing.” He pointed to the difficulties in finding the required mix of peripherals in off-the-shelf microcontroller solutions and the problems arising due to changing requirements, for instance, changing processor cores to accommodate new requirements consumes valuable design resources. Explaining the advantages of FPGA embedded design, he said that FPGAs allow for the implementation of an ideal mix of peripherals and system infrastructure, with new system requirements being supported without changing the processor core. “Longevity of FPGAs approaches the longest available microcontrollers in the market,” he observed. Elaborating on Xilinx embedded processing design solutions, he said that “Xilinx FPGA is a platform for custom processing.” Xilinx offers processor cores—industry standard PowerPC core in Virtex family, MicroBlaze 32-bit RISC and PicoBlaze 8-bit controller—, standard peripherals, development and debug environment for integrated HW and SW flows, and partner support.

Razak Mohammedali, Program Manager, South Asia Pacific, Altera, discussed C to FPGA design flow, with regards to how to accelerate system performance and C-based design initiative. He gave an overview of Altera’s soft processor Nios II “used by more designers than any other configurable processor.” While Nios II processors in FPGAs offer “unparalleled versatility” with regards to custom features, performance scalability, system cost reduction, and longevity, Nios II C2H compiler boosts FPGA computing performance without increasing clock frequency. C2H leverages over 30 man-years of investment in SOPC Builder and Avalon. Mohammedali observed that “software tools from Altera and its partners can configure an exact-fit embedded system in minutes.” He explained how a product—Navman Fish 4350 Fishfinder—using Nios II and Cyclone reduced component cost by integrating off-the-shelf processor, with Nios-based custom microcontrollers addressing specific design requirements.

Debugging
Project schedules are often threatened by hardware and software problems, especially with shrinking design cycles. Chandra Shekhar A., Engineer, Tektronix, discussed various debug challenges, and the strategies to detect bugs early. He explained the “3Cs of debugging”—Connect, Capture and Characterize. In Connect, the strategy should generally be to see through probing how anomalies are affecting the system. Capture needs a logic analyzer. It helps in the study of relationships of more than four signals, enables seeing what microprocessor or bus is doing, identifies signal integrity problems, and monitors software source code running at real-time speed. Characterization will involve basic functional validation test, real-time embedded software debug, and integrated hardware/software development. “The solution to the debug challenge is having the right approach to address the problems and the right instruments to save time,” observed Chandra Shekhar. “Tektronix offers complete test solutions, including logic analyzers, oscilloscopes and signal sources.”

Shelley Gretlein, LabVIEW Real-Time and Embedded Team Manager, NI, presented a new methodology for designing embedded systems. Traditionally, embedded design has been fragmented, with a large number of hardware and software offerings. Besides, the amount of complexity varies widely. Some embedded system designs need highly complex tools involving modeling and simulation down to the transistor level, while some are designed with minimum tools. “Just like the PC market was in 1981, the embedded design is primed for revolution,” said Gretlein. “A standardized platform approach with a combination of the standardized hardware and software could change the way embedded systems are designed and built. This approach not only delivers a richer environment for innovation, but also significantly reduces development costs.” NI’s LabVIEW offers many computation models to meet embedded designer needs. “We can represent LabVIEW with its structured dataflow language to deliver optimized views and approaches to solving embedded design challenges,” she said.

In embedded designs, designers deal with internal FPGA nodes and with its communication, as also with its communication with external buses or interfaces. It is easy to check signal quality when signal can be accessed by test instruments; but not easy to see signal behavior inside an FPGA, or synchronise the internal protocol or timing with the waveform or external buses/interfaces. Agilent Technologies’ Product Line Manager (Digital Design Test) Asia Pacific, Jiwei Du, discussed the challenges of getting insight of design, and details of protocol synchronization and decode.

Agilent offers a range of equipment to get such insights and details. Agilent MSO/DSO6000A Series provides multiple configurations to meet a variety of needs, offers performance at affordable prices, has high definition display system, and has advanced features. The 1680/1690/16900 logic analyzer test solution provides FPGA internal nodes debugging, has high frequency flying lead probes, up to greater than 8,000 channels, and up to 1.6Gbps state analysis. “With the wide range of test instruments offered by Agilent,” said Du, “you can debug your embedded system more quickly.”

Vinod Malhotra, VP of Engineering, Poseidon Design Systems, spoke on processor-based design analysis, optimization and acceleration. Malhotra noted that most current processor-based platforms are inadequate to satisfy the demands of increasing complexity and performance of embedded systems. Poseidon’s Triton tools suite enables the designer do complete HW and SW analysis, optimize the system to get better performance, and generates application-specific hardware accelerator of the bottle-neck code.

Poseidon tools are optimized for many verticals, such as audio, video, VoIP, imaging, wireless, storage, DSP and security. Triton tools enable system designers get improvement in performance at lower power dissipation for processor-based platforms. “Users have found that all the benefits of Triton tools come with a reduced system design cycle and reduced design risk,” claims Malhotra.

The presentations were followed by a panel discussion on whether India would merely follow standards in embedded, or set them. Most panelists felt that the design and software industry in India was ripe for India to set standards, though some pointed out that India, though a leading IT player, has generally been a follower than a trend-setter.

The full day event was held at the Taj Residency, Bangalore, and drew a crowd of more than 160 engineers from around the region, some traveling from Hyderabad, Chennai and even as far as Pune. Inspired by the resounding success of this Embedded Systems and Software Seminar, EDN Asia will be organizing more seminars in India. For the latest news and updates, do keep your cursors pointed to www.ednasia.com

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