Embedded Systems Design Europe - August/September 2008 - (Page 8)

news Congatec to take on proprietary market Board computer manufacturer Congatec AG (Deggendorf, Germany) has ambitious plans, it hopes to convince OEMs using proprietary embedded solutions to switch to standard modules. With this concept, the company achieved triple-digit growth rates. “The market for proprietary embedded computing solutions in medical and industrial applications currently is two to three times bigger than the existing market for standard module computers,” explained Congatec marketing manager Christian Eder. “This is the market we want to convince that they save time and development budgets when switching to standard solutions.” In this initiative, the three-year old startup competes with top suppliers such as Kontron. Nevertheless, smaller Congatech has attracted support from giant Intel. The processor manufacturer’s success in automotive applications hitherto was limited at best. Now, seeing a new chance to enter this segment with the Atom processor, Intel has joined forces with the Lower-Bavarian board computer manufacturer to create an IVI (in-vehicle infotainment) platform based on the Atom and on Congatec’s board design expertise. The result of the joint effort will be a starter kit platform for an automotive central infotainment computer the size of a car radio, Eder explained. However, the automotive market is not the most important realm for Congatec. “It is not very likely that the automotive industry switches to modular concepts when it comes to their deeply embedded ECUs, with infotainment being one of the few exceptions”, Eder said. The board computer maker sees more chances to grow in industrial control and medical applications. Having outsourced its entire production, the company follows an approach similar to fabless semiconductor companies. 80 percent of the boards are manufactured in Taiwan, the remainder in Europe – with rising tendency, as Eder highlights. The concept seems to work. In the ﬁrst six months of the current year, Congatec rose its revenue by 162 percent to €13 million. Operating proﬁt also rose in the triple-digit percentage range. It added 116 percent; the company booked an EBIT of €132,000. The XTX module form factor standard, initiated by the Deggendorf company, was the main sales pillar. The company expects the favorable market conditions to continue for the remainder of the year and reiterated its sales guidance of €30 million which would be equivalent to a rise of 145 percent year-over-year. Swiss multicore project wins share of Microsoft grant A project at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – ETH Zurich – is one of seven academic research projects that will share $1.5 million from Microsoft External Research as part of the Safe and Scalable Multicore Computing request for proposal (RFP). Micrsoft External Research says the aim of this RFP is to stimulate and enable bold, substantial research in multicore software that rethinks the relationships among computer architecture, operating systems, runtimes, compilers and applications. The goal of the research is to propose new mechanisms and paradigms that will lead to safe and scalable concurrent systems and applications, focusing on mainstream client platforms. The Reliable and Efﬁcient Concurrent Object-Oriented Programs (RE8 COOP) being run by Bertrand Meyer at ETH Zurich is the only non-U.S. project to receive a grant. The goal of the project, starting with the simple concurrent objectoriented programming (SCOOP) model of concurrent computation, is to develop a practical formal semantics and proof mechanism, enabling programmers to reason abstractly about concurrent programs and allowing proofs of formal properties of these programs. The team aims to enable precise reasoning on concurrent programs at a level of abstraction comparable with what is possible on sequential programs using modern languages and programming techniques. For more on the other projects see: www.eetimes.eu/embedded/209900224 OpenCores bundles development tool with OpenRISC ORSoC AB (Stockholm, Sweden), a design house that took over responsibility for maintaining the OpenCores website, www.opencores.org, in 2007, has released a ‘Virtual Ubuntu Linux’ installation which installs and conﬁgures a VMWare virtual machine on the OpenRISC 1200 processor core. The Virtual Ubuntu Linux includes an OpenRISC SoC reference design along with: the Icarus Verilog simulator, the GTKWave waveform viewer, a software development tool-chain based on gcc-4.2.2 with uClibc-0.9.29, support for Busybox-1.7.5 and Linux2.6.19, and the OpenRISC architectural simulator. There has been an increase in the number of IP cores from 400 available in October 2007 up to more than 500 available now. AUGUST – SEPTEMBER 2008 | embedded systems design europe | www.embedded.com/europe 008_ESDE.indd 8 29/08/08 11:10:18 http://www.opencores.org http://www.eetimes.eu/embedded/209900224 http://www.embedded.com/europe

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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