Embedded Systems Design Europe - August/September 2008 - (Page 5)

commentary Editor-in-Chief Colin Holland Tel +44 (0) 208 319 1324 email: chollandse18@mac.com Editorial address: PO Box 32444, London SE18 3ZP Advertising Production Manager Lydia Gijsegom Tel +32 (0) 2 740 00 50 email: production@eetimes.be Circulation Manager Luc Desimpel Tel +32 (0) 2 740 0055 email: luc.desimpel@eetimes.be Art Manager Jean-Paul Speliers Tel +32 (0)2 740 0052 email: jean-paul.speliers@eetimes.be Finance Ricardo Pinto Ferreira Tel +32 (0)2 740 0051 email: ricardo.pintoferreira@eetimes.be Sales Director Geert De Vuyst Tel +32 (0)2 740 0050 email: geert.devuyst@eetimes.be Advertising Contacts see page 43 Publisher Andre Rousselot Tel +32 (0)2 740 0053 email: aroussel@eetimes.be European Business Press 144 Avenue Eugène Plasky 1030 Brussels - Belgium Tel: +32 (0)2 740 00 50 Fax: +32 (0)2 740 00 59 www.embedded.com/europe VAT Registration: BE 461.357.437 RPM: Brussels Company Number: 0461357437 Waste not, want not! A Techinsights – a division ofUnited Business Media Limited Paul Miller President, Chief Executive Ofﬁcer Steve Corrick – Vice President of Sales Felicia Hamerman – Group Marketing Director David Blaza – Vice President, EE Times Jenn Markey – Senior Vice President, TechOnline James Lonsdale-Hands – Vice President, TechInsights Events Harry Page – President, Semiconductor Insights Steve Arend – Chief Development Ofﬁcer, TechInsights Studio United Business Media LLC Scott Mozarsky – Chief Operating Ofﬁcer David Wein – Chief Financial Ofﬁcer Kevin Prinz – Chief Information Ofﬁcer Anne Marie Miller – Corp. Senior VP Sales Marie Myers – Senior VP, Manufacturing Pat Nohilly – Senior VP, Strategic Development and Business Administration Alexandra Raine – Senior VP, Communications © 2008 E.B.P. SA, a Techinsights company • Embedded Systems Design Europe is published eight times a year. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without the express prior written consent of the publisher. The contents of Embedded Systems Design Europe are subject to reproduction in information storage and retrieval systems. º • Embedded Systems Design Europe is available free to qualiﬁed readers and to others for an annual subscription of €150. Refunds on cancelled subscriptions will only be provided at the Publisher’s discretion. Subscription queries tel: +32 2 740 00 50 • Printed by Perka. round €7.34 billion (about $11.5 billion) was spent in Europe in 2007 to re-box, restock and resell returned electronics goods according top a study carried out by management consultancy, Accenture Ltd. This compares with $13.8 billion spent to do the same task in the United States. Accenture estimates that the average return rate for consumer electronics devices ranges between 2 percent and 9 percent in Europe, which compares with between 11 percent and 20 percent in the U.S. The main reasons for returning products in Europe included: did not meet the customers’ requirements or expectations, or the customer perceived them as faulty. However, between 62 and 85 percent of these returned goods were classiﬁed as NTF [no trouble found]. This means that the products did not appear to have a detectable fault or problem when tested by the retailer, carrier or manufacturer. The percentage of consumers who claim that a device is “broken or damaged” is much higher in Europe (59 percent) than in the U.S. (26 percent), said Accenture. It seems obvious that what needs to be done is that suppliers have to give consumers realistic expectations of their products and better information on how to use them. Billions of Euros could be saved. factor inﬂuencing embedded system developers selection of embedded operating systems for current projects according to research on multicore designs by Venture Development Corporation (VDC). This of course is something that many embedded systems developers already knew. Reliability/stability, cost, development tools, real time capabilities, runtime royalty cost, programming interface, footprint, numbers of processors supported and security currently rank above multiprocessor support and virtualization capabilities. Although this selection dynamic will continue to change going forward as more embedded projects incorporate multi-core processors, it is clear that these other factors will continue to drive purchasing decisions. ■ TechInsights, the publisher of this magazine, and who recently purchased the U.K. Embedded Systems Show (ESS), is bringing its renowned Teardowns to Europe. Regular readers of EE Times Europe will see these as ‘Under the Hood’ in nearly every issue and videos of them can be seen at Teardown TV (www.cmptv.net/TearDownTV/ videoPlayer.html) but the team of engineers behind them have also embarked on a series of live events. The next of these will be in Europe at ESS in October and initial indications are that they will see The Estes Micro-Tiger Helicopter – which includes Microchip PIC devices – and the X-Box 360 Steering Wheel – with a new Atmel SAM, ARM-based MCU– coming under scrutiny. More information will be available at www.embedded.co.uk. But that is not all, plans are at an advanced stage to do live Teardowns at Electronica in Munich in November . 5 ■ Multiprocessing and multicore ar- chitecture support is still not a critical Colin Holland is editor of Embedded Systems Design Europe. He can be contacted at chollandse18@mac.com. www.embedded.com | embedded systems design europe | AUGUST – SEPTEMBER 2008 005_ESDE.indd 5 29/08/08 13:01:03 http://www.embedded.com/europe http://www.cmptv.net/TearDownTV/videoPlayer.html http://www.cmptv.net/TearDownTV/videoPlayer.html http://www.embedded.co.uk http://www.embedded.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Embedded Systems Design Europe - August/September 2008

Embedded Systems Design Europe - August/September 2008 Contents TI Overhauls DSP Lineup, Adds 15 Processors QNX Publishes Source Code for File System Congatec to Take on Proprietary Market Swiss Multicore Project Wins Microsoft Grant OpenCores Bundles Development Tool ARM Compiler Boosts Freescale i.MX31 LabVIEW Updated for Multicore and Wireless Cover Feature: Interactive Tool Supports Multiprocessor SoC Design Wanted: Benchmaking for Embedded VMM Hypervisors Graphical Design Empowers Spider Robots Building a Power Supply for Discontinuous Transmission Wireless Networks RTOS Selection & Best Practices Achieving Cache Coherence in a MIPS32 Multicore Design New Products Advertising Contacts

Embedded Systems Design Europe - August/September 2008

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