Microcontrollers Everywhere

We have been making good progress porting our Ultra Tiny Embedded Linux compatible solutions to new MCUs. During the past months we released:

• R8C
• M16C
• R32C
• Arm Cortex M3 for TI Stellaris

It has been very rewarding to see all these components come to market.

In addition we've added a number of new components which have not been released yet. These components are geared towards adding low cost networks and networking to building automation, shipboard automation, and home automation applications. They are intended to support features like fat file system integration to allow developers to work in pc environments and have supporting tools to move files back and forth and set up high quality user interfaces.

Other steps are being taken to support automotive and automotive networks more thoroughly.

In all it has been a good few months for component based designers: there is many new options here. Our ultra tiny embedded Linux is more complete and moving to many more platforms. New add on components are cutting time and effort for users.

TI AES Integration of Luminary Microsystems

We've been working with Luminary for some time and I thought that I'd comment briefly on the acquisition by TI and the integration into the AES division.

Jean Anne Booth did a fabulous job getting Luminary to the point where others could see the real value of the approach that she promoted. First, many kudos to Jean Anne and her team for a successful startup!

Second, its interesting to note that integrating the tools approach and other software offerings are going to bring new approaches to TI. For a start, Eclipse is the main development environment for Luminary products with CS and Code Red for many users. Does this mean that the 430 and 280 families will get new OS and tools offerings based on Eclipse? We'll have to wait and see but I suspect so.

Third, it illustrates the fact that TI upper management failed to realize the potential of microcontrollers replacing boards and their potential in tens of thousands of applications in spite of the fact that they were in markets all around this. They have dominate cell phone offerings, significant motor control offerings and the 430 is a significant player in the DSC markets, but they didn't do a family for the more distinct consumer/home goods market leading to this purchase.

There is still unique niches developing each and every day. I must say that I think this is a great move for TI because it puts them in a broader niche further from DSP/DSC their traditional base and fits very well with other lines. This should be great for customers and prospects and TI.

RTOS Software Reuse - Simply A Myth For Microcontrollers

It amazes me that many users don't realize the power of reusing software that someone else has spent hours, days, months or even years optimizing and testing. By using a simple set of criteria, developers of the next generation of embedded systems can eliminate 80% or more of the work.

Today, for microcontrollers, users often code everything from scratch. They are going with what they understand; however the world of microcontrollers has changed quickly. Memory is more plentiful and using an embedded operating system saves huge amounts of effort. Yet many do not get it - these are smart people but they are used to banging bits and crafting a few lines of software rather than larger complex systems.

Their problems are created in part by the noise in the marketplace. There are many "real time operating systems" but many offerings are not even operating systems. There is a lot of I/O, extra libraries, testing, documentation and integration that goes into a complete operating system. It takes scores of test suites and thousands of hours of work to make sure that the system is reliable and easy to use while still conforming with industry standards. And yet users choose to do this themselves at great risk and expense rather than reuse available solutions.

Some situations are humerous. I was recently in a forum where kernel vendors were debating one narrow aspect of performance like this was a major consideration in the system design. They were ignoring all other aspects. Surely any system must be evaluated on the basis of all the various features and processing capabilities that it offers. Some systems will be better for some things and some for others. Experienced embedded designers understand this.

The thing that amazes me the most is that in the microcontroller world, narrow performance benefits are touted as a major advancement at the same time these vendors are discarding tens of thousands of programs and millions of lines of code that could be effortlessly reused. For this reason, standards like POSIX and Linux along with software reuse are paramount. We offer this
but don't take our word for it - check out the largest vendor too and see what they offer now, albeit on larger processors!

The criteria to eliminate most time and risk for microcontroller development are really very simple: portable C code, an operating system standard (the broader the better) and as much off the shelf software as possible including a complete RTOS. It takes no more than that to be a hero in your organization.

Vista and Quality

Well, it happened today. A blue screen of death appeared momentarily for the first time in over a year of use. I can remember the days when we counted these events per day and Microsoft had a reputation for very unreliable software.

In the past few months I've grown to like Vista a great deal. It offers good features and is very reliable. In this instance it recovered itself in about 5 minutes. I don't expect it will happen again. I did have one other problem in the last year but a system restore took care of this problem related to a virus. The world has changed completely. Windows is now as reliable as Solaris it would seem.

Now, when Linux gets there, we'll be in great shape.

ST Software and Cortex M3

I've been looking around at other cortex m3 platforms and I was really pleased by the ST offerings. They have great DSP libraries (optimized and C) as well as a full suite of motor control. The motor control suite comes with an application generator which sets all the parameters including closed loop tuning parameters using a variety of configurations.

It seems that the era of self tuning of motors is upon us. When traditional methods were used to tune processors using step responses, load tuning was a big part of the work. I suspect it still is if you want to get 100% out of the motor and driver for a specific application. These tools should make it easier though, getting you into the center of the envelope with zero effort.

But still, why no loop tuning option in the tools? Likely it introduces too many dependencies like host target communication, real time data collection and recovery and many more.

Great work ST

International Product Life Cycle for Software

I was surprised to learn how many executives do not understand international product life cycle as it applies to software products. This short description is intended to describe international product life cycle in an abreviated fashion and then discuss how software's portability make it a unique case which promotes more rapid off shoring.

First, international product life cycle states that innovation starts in a home developed country and becomes successful as a product. Then it competes in other developed countries with products from within these countries. As the technology matures, it moves into the developing world by means of export. Then the developing world starts manufacturing for home use and eventually manufactures and sells back into the developed countries.

There are many examples of this. It transpires because of the dynamics of the theory of comparitive advantage as it occurs over time.

For software, the twists are the following:

a) It is much easier to move production off shore to reduce costs associated with add ons. For this reason this happens relatively early.

b) Because the knowledge associated with developing add on products and services allows the developing country to develop the same or better skllls as the parent, often the entire product or idea can be copied to provide a much lower cost version off shore sooner rather than later. If the product enhancement is done as a branch of the parent company, IP is protected. If the enhancement is done to an outsourcing company, it is very likely that the company is creating a vehicle to copy it's product.

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Disruption of Microprocessors by Microcontrollers and Its Long Term Effects

I was fascinated to discover that the mpu vendors were being disrupted by mcu vendors by virtue of the fact that the increase in functionality of the parts and free memory is leading to ever expanding features, features that users don't necessarily need for many applications.

As Christianson predicts with the Innovators Dilema model, microcontrollers came in on the low end and started competing on a new parameter - system on a chip solutions. Ten years ago they could run a few assembler instructions. Today they can put enough memory on the processors to compete with mpu and board level solutions of 10 years ago. They are currently capturing this business.

Microcontrollers are gaining ground because mcu technology is being commoditized into consumer goods which are sold in very high volumes. This high volume is pushing prices down and microcontrollers are a natural solution. BOM costs can drop by substantial amounts resulting in a big improvement in profitability for the OEMs.

Too cool.... theory meets practice....

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