SoC
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Low-cost embedded development kits accelerate design cycles
Increasing time-to-market pressures have led to the availability of full-featured microcontrollers, sometimes called system-on-chip (SoC) processors. These feature-rich microcontrollers or SoCs speed design by integrating a part of or, in some cases, all of the hardware required to implement an embedded design. Developers can then focus their design efforts on application-level functionality.
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Pico-ITX packs a punch
It was only a matter of time: Thanks to Moore's Law, the smallest embedded open standard single-board computer (SBC) form factor has broken into the quad-core ranks. At a mere 72 by 100 mm, Pico-ITX boards are now available from a number of suppliers with Intel, AMD, and Freescale ARM processors. Thanks to tiny semiconductor geometries down to 14 nm, these processors are implemented as feature-rich systems-on-chip (SoCs) with one, two, and four cores and average power consumption below 10 W.
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SoCs power legacy I/O
Legacy interfaces like PCI and ISA in stackable I/O boards are still around, but that doesn't mean designers have to stick with legacy performance and power supply options.
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Flexible military radios†balance SWaP, cost specs
Over the last decade, engineers working to create software-defined radio (SDR) systems have found it challenging to design a very flexible wireless system that meets the military requirements for space, weight, and power (SWaP) at an affordable cost.
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FPGAs: Tough to program, but key for embedded computing
Embedded computing designers continue to look at ways to cost-effectively integrate FPGAs into their PC/104 and other small form factor designs while battling the time-consuming and difficult task of programming the devices.
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Intel processors - Haswell and Bay Trail - offer multiple benefits for SFF designs
Engineers across markets such as military, aerospace, medical, automotive, etc., are leveraging the performance and power management benefits of Intel’s 4th generation Core processors (Haswell) and Atom E3800 processor product family SoCs (Bay Trail) for their small form factor (SFF) embedded computing designs. The Core’s i7 high-performance attributes are enabling unprecedented performance capability for intensive signal processing functions in radar and medical imaging, while the E3800 family is popular in wearable applications due to its ability to marry performance with significant power savings.
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Where art thou, PowerPC?
Once the predominant RISC architecture in the embedded space, PowerPC has seen brighter days and is now giving way to hybrid designs that integrate FPGAs within ARM-based Systems-on-Chip (SoCs).
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SFF market fragmentation continues, x86 and ARM set to square off
Analysts offer insight on the financials of the merchant board market.
Pushek Madaan, Cypress Semiconductor
Gagan Luthra, Cypress Semiconductor
Paul Dillien, Lime Microsystems
John McHale, Editorial Director