Embedded Systems Design Europe - May 2008 - (Page 10)

news Kontron promotes COM Express Nano Embedded board manufacturer Kontron AG (Eching, Germany) has launched a foray to standardize the ‘Nano’ extension to the design guidelines for the Computer-on-Module (COM) Express format. With the move, the company wants to prevent that differing implementations cause uncertainties in the market. The company has published speciﬁcations and design guidelines for the COM nano format that aims at designing credit card size computer modules. Presently, the PICMG COM Express embrace the ‘Basic’ extension for modules with a size of 95x125mm and the ‘Extended’ variant for the 155x110mm format. In addition to these standards, Kontron has a ‘Micro’ variant with a size of 95x95mm in its product spectrum which it plans to submit to the PICMG (PCI Industrial Computers Manufacturing Group) for standardization, just as the new Nano format (84x55mm). The move was triggered by the market availability of smaller and more highly integrated processors such as Intel’s ‘Atom’ which enable smaller design with lower power consumption. According to a press release, Kontron advances the view that an ‘ofﬁcial’ PICMG standard for this category of board computers would safeguard the market against an array of different interchangeable and board designs are reusable. In designing the nano boards, Kontron was able to draw upon its experience from developing DIMM-PC and X-board designs. Kontron’s nano standard proposal deﬁnes long-term relevant interfaces such as Gigabit Ethernet, SATA, USB and PCI Express including PCIe Gen2 as well as audio and graphics. In addition, it supports the nanoETXexpress connector, which the company claims is more future proof since it sports less signal attenuation and thus it enables longer pathways on the carrier board. This is important since green IT trends will reduce the possible pathway length in the long term. Kontron has also released details of a COM Express COM.0 Type 1 compatible Kontron nanoETXexpress-SP Computer-on-Module which is based around the Intel Atom processor Z5xx series which has clock speeds between 1.1 GHz and 1.6 GHz works with a single chip chipset now called the Intel System Controller Hub US15W. The boards also has 1 Gbyte of soldered DDR2 400/533 RAM and 2 Gbytes of onboard ﬂash as a boot device. COM designs. A well-deﬁned standard would ensure maximum design security for integrators, the company said. The company already is developing two nano modules based on these speciﬁcations and announced the availability of samples by the end of Q2. The nano module follows exactly the COM Express pin-out Type 1 with respect to connector location and pin deﬁnition. Therefore, different size modules are Mentor Nucleus platform provides UI for Atmel Mentor Graphics is adding some spice to the OS race. They’re releasing a software platform based around their proprietary Nucleus RTOS. The platform, initially validated and optimized for Atmel’s ARM9-based MCUs, aims to be an out-of-the-box solution for devices with “smart user interfaces,” i.e., user interfaces (UI) with advanced graphics, audio, etc. In the press release, Mentor gives a long list of target applications, but the brieﬁng focused primarily on personal media players (PMP). 10 Mentor is ﬁghting against Windows CE and Linux. The company says that their platform has more complete hardware support (e.g., it has better peripheral support than a standard Linux build) and that Nucleus has a much smaller footprint than WinCE or Linux. Nucleus also offers higher realtime performance by supporting such features as tightly-coupled memory and DMA transfers. One big disadvantage of Nucleus is that it lacks the large development community of open platforms like Win CE or Linux. Developers working with Nucleus will have access to a much smaller base of existing code. To ameliorate this disadvantage, Mentor offers Inﬂexion, an “advanced UI engine” that allows designers to use drag-and-drop tools to quickly generate code. According to Mentor, it is much easier to build a UI with inﬂexion than it is to build a UI using Linux or WinCE. For resource constrained applications, this platform looks like a compelling option. MAY 2008 | embedded systems design europe | www.embedded.com/europe http://www.embedded.com/europe

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Embedded Systems Design Europe - May 2008

Embedded Systems Design Europe - May 2008 Contents Microsoft Provides Embedded Roadmap Enea Buys Developers Irish Start-Up Raises Funds for Telecom FPGAs Kontron Promotes COM Express Nano Mentor Nucleus Platform Provides UI for Atmel Small Form Factor Boards Head for the SUMIT Proffibus Advances IO-Link Integration Embedded Developers Cautious on Multicore Auto Cooperation Improves Test Altera Launches DO-254 Partner Network Building an ‘Instant-Up’ Real-Time Operating Systems An Architecture for Reusable Embedded Systems Software Free up Bandwidth in PCI Express Evaluating Software in Medical Devices Circuit Sensitivity in Analog Circuits Choosing Flash Memory New Products Advertising Contacts

Embedded Systems Design Europe - May 2008

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