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ESS E
BUSIN

HOMELAB STARTUP TRADE

Special Edition

Our Business
The makers of the Voltera
V-One desktop PCB printer

The Business Case

for commercial Linux

Focus on: Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools

Voltera V-One • From Makers to Market using 96Boards
• Network Engine SoC Reference for 400 Gbps • WaWision
• The Business Case for Commercial Embedded Linux
Server Based • Intel Apollo Lake • Hubs Become Central to the IoT
Solutions • Industry Predictions for 2017 • Infographics
for self-organizing • Talking Heads • From the Garage up to
networks Industrial Production • Server Based Solu-
tions for Self-Organizing Networks
 E W
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COMING SOON

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Management
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Translators
Homelab owners, students, makers, start-ups, university spinouts and Jan Buiting, Martin Cooke,
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Email:
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[email protected]
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browse the Store pages, delve into Linux for commercial applications, Printers
discuss Bytesnap’s predictions with your comrades. Flip the pages, ack Senefelder Misset, Doetinchem

with me at embedded world 2017 in busy Nuremberg… anything goes as Elektor Business Magazine offers to
long as you shun the comms lockup. electronics engineers, homelab ow-
ners, and start-up companies, essen-
tial information and insights into the
Jan Buiting, Editor-in-Chief latest products, research and intelli-
gence from the industry.

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Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 3

 Contents
Elektor Business Magazine
Edition 1/2017, March & April 2017
Focus on:
Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools
28
Special Edition:

Regulars
6 Our Business
On these platform pages homelabs and
start-up companies open their workplace(s)

10
exclusively to Elektor Business Magazine
readers. In this edition: Voltera.
From Makers to Market
96Boards
24 Talking Heads
Five experts answer pertinent questions.
using
30 Jumpstart
Sparking contributions from industry Many designers are using the
analysts, business advisors, financial experts, community boards available in the
fundraisers, and free thinkers. market for their proof of concept
In this edition: SAS. and to evaluate
their idea on a
34 Infographics
valid, working
Whither, whence? Positive (and of course platform. One of
negative) facts and figures. the most popular
community
64 Elektor Business Store
boards in the
Selected products for makers and start-ups.
world is the
Raspberry Pi
66 Index of Advertisers | Contributing Firms
and Authors | Next Edition powered by the
Raspberry Pi
News pages 41, 55, 56, 62 and 63 foundation. But
how can you use
a community

50
board and go to
the next step of pre-production
and mass production?

Articles
10 From Makers to Market using 96Boards 18 Network Engine SoC Reference Design
Many designers are using the community Realizes Development of 400-Gbps
boards available in the market for their proof Communication Equipment
of concept and to evaluate their idea on a Through newly developed control IP and
valid, working platform. control software for their network search
engine SoC, Renesas have strong cards to
12 Server Based Solutions for simplify its implementation into network
Self-Organizing Networks equipment operating at speeds up to
The evolution of networks across generations 400 Gbps.
of evolving protocols has led to a complex
mixture of deployed wireless systems.

4 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

 Voltera
V-One
HOMELAB STARTUP TRADE

a Desktop
Prototyping Tool 20 Voltera V-One, a Desktop Prototyping Tool

for Custom PCBs

for Custom PCBs
If only hardware development was as fast
paced as software development, just imagine
how many more physical products could be
contributing to the rise of our global economy!
Good news: great strides can be made by
prototyping PCBs right on the desktop and
guess what, a machine to do just that is now

46
available.

Cut Development Time 23 ByteSnap Design’s Industry Predictions

and Improve Flexibility for 2017

For the benefit of all start-ups and wannabees

with LPCXpert reading Elektor Business Magazine.

In the age of Internet-of-Things 26 Loetronic: from the Garage up to

(IoT) and networked systems, Industrial Production
more and more new designs A long, long time ago... in this or similar ways,
rely on microcontrollers. In most many stories start not only in films, but on
applications controllers will occasion, company histories too.
take care of communications
between the sensors and 32 WaWision
the network or will control In response to the need for ERP software
complex systems. One of the tools, the company embedded projects initially
first tasks of the hardware searched for a Linux-based system that could
designer is to choose a be operated using a browser.
suitable microcontroller for
the specific application and
36 Intel Apollo Lake — ideal for industrial
system designs
evaluate its architecture before
work can begin on the rest of The new Intel Atom, Celeron and Pentium
the system hardware. processors, developed under the codename
Apollo Lake, support the extended temperature
range and offer real-time support.

42 Industrial Automation Systems

are getting smaller, yet require more
performance and lower energy consumption.

46 Cut Development Time and Improve

The Business Case for Flexibility

Commercial Embedded Linux

with LPCXpert.

50 The Business Case for Commercial

Linux is now the predominant platform for devices, and for good reason — it Embedded Linux
offers performance, features, and a thriving ecosystem to support advanced Linux is now the predominant platform for
embedded devices. An obvious part of the appeal is the perception that Linux devices, and for good reason.
is free. It certainly is free to download and use,
and doesn’t have any royalty-bearing fees per se.
58 Hubs Become Central to the IoT
But there are costs — plus time and risk — associated with Even before real systems are widely deployed,
Linux development. the Internet of Things (IoT) is rushing into a
period of rapid evolution.

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 5

 Our Business
On these platform pages homelabs and start-up companies open their
workplace(s) exclusively to Elektor Business Magazine readers. Here are their
tools, gear, products in the making, and, importantly, the people active at any
phase of the homelabstart-uptrade progression.
In this edition the platform is given to: Voltera from Waterloo, Canada.

When we were nominated for the International James Dyson Design

award, the Dyson team had visited our office to do a small interview with
us and said they were conducting interviews with the top 10 finalists.
During the interview they had given us a laptop to watch a message,
to our surprise it was James Dyson himself on the screen to tell u
s that we were in fact the international winners of the 2015 James Dyson
award! They sure fooled us … and our expressions show it!

The Voltera Team is always staying on the cutting

edge of Technology and seeking new geeky adven-
tures! In this photo we took a tour of the Waterloo
Nanotechnology Institute’s clean room to learn the
ways of fabricating Nano devices. We wish we got to wear
those bunny suites everyday… they’re so comfortable!

Katarina is very used to being in China now, she’s spent the past 2 years
travelling to Shenzhen to oversee production of some V-One parts. Here,
she is in our PCB manufacturing facility in Shenzhen, where she is doing
quality control of the V-One control boards. We use a test Jig designed by
Jesus, to ensure that every board comes off the assembly line perfect!

6 Elektor Business Magazine 2/2017

Katarina poses in front of 4 months We believe that additive manufacturing will revolution-
of hard work in Shenzhen, China. ize the industry! However, to gain a competitive
In these boxes are parts that will advantage over the traditional manufacturing
go into 500 V-Ones: such as PCBs, sector we need to constantly be innovating
wire harnesses, and motors. They and inventing new techniques that will al-
have been carefully packaged and low developers to create beyond what is
are ready to take the long journey possible today. Our R&D lead Matt is al-
across the Pacific to meet the cus- ways inventing new additive methods
tom parts manufactured in Canada. to contribute to our mission! Here he
Now the even harder work begins: as- tests the conductive properties of a
sembling each unit by our team at our flexible conductive ink that will allow
in-house facility in Waterloo, Canada! rapid prototyping of flexible circuitry!

Some parts may come from China, but the majority of the work
is done by us! Each V-One is carefully assembled, tested, and
calibrated by our team at our in-house facility in Canada, then
shipped to the rest of the world! Here Mike, James, and Amanda
are hard at work meeting an intense summer target of 50 units
shipped a week! Assembly parties were a typical weekend.

Being a small business you learn to be Once the units are assembled, it’s time for
very good at one thing … finding all the commissioning! Each V-One is carefully
free money you can get! Here Alroy and tested and calibrated by us. The X, Y and Z
Jesus accept a $50,000 check from the axis is each calibrated to 20 µm precision,
judges of the Tech Crunch 2015 Hard- and the touch probe sensor is adjusted to
ware Battlefield! We also got a cool 20 µm accuracy. As you can see, Amanda
robot trophy to keep for a year and The Commissioner is always thrilled to do
showcase our pride. That $50K went the job, especially on a fresh batch of 50
a long way in helping us finance the units ;-)
first production run of the V-One!
Jesús, really is Jesus! He is our
CTO and does everything from
electrical design, to software, to
production! He is also the Master
at Devouring Office Cookies. Here, he
designed and printed our logo using the
V-One, in preparation for our display at the New
York Maker faire. He used LEDs with a high lumens rat-
ing and 9-V power – the perfect recipe to shine. We
took home Make magazine’s Editor’s choice award that
day. It was hard not to stand out when our display was
blinding — a mile away!

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 7

 Is Our Business the place to showcase Your Business?
Email [email protected] with your photoshoot.

We would not be where we are today without our original early adopters and Kick-
starter backers. Here the team gathers around the meeting room to write hundreds
of personal cards and package Voltera T-shirts to send out. We are forever grateful to our
backers and hope you loved the shirts!

This summer was a tough one for us, shipping out on average 50 units
a week! When you’re a small team with much to do it means everyone
contributes and gets their hands dirty! Here we pose proudly
in front of dozens of V-Ones we just assembled over a weekend long as-
sembly party! Really, what else would you rather be doing on a
sunny summer weekend?

In our Assembly space, Mike tests a nearly com-

pleted unit while wearing his Voltera ready for action
(RFA) jersey. That’s right we may all have matching
Jerseys, and we may also have a Voltera Volleyball team
that may have come last in the league – but we are still
always ready for action!

James and Amanda gather around a V-One to test the solder paste dis-
pensing precision on a calibration board. Even past the one-off prototyp-
ing stage, many customers use the V-One as a standalone solder paste
dispenser during assembly of beta runs, thus eliminating the tedious step
of stencil iterations or depositing solder paste by hand!

8 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

Not a single birthday or departure
goes by unnoticed at the Voltera
office! We surprised Joanne, our
beloved marketing intern, with bal-
loons and cake to wish her farewell on
her next adventure. Good luck on your
internship to Amsterdam, but come back to
Voltera soon!

James and Amanda work on assembling printing carriages.

This is very delicate work that requires precision and attention to detail,
it is no wonder they are both now cross eyed after 3 months of assembly.

We got a visit from the Daily

Planet that was there to film
our workshop after news of our
Dyson award hit the press. Aileen
is barely phased by the cameras, she is
always too busy coding to notice anything else around her.
That’s not cliché of a programmer at all!

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 9

From Makers
to Market using 96Boards
By Amir Sherman, Director of Engineering Solutions & Embedded
Technology, Arrow EMEA

Many designers are using the community boards

available in the market for their proof of concept and
to evaluate their idea on a valid, working platform.
One of the most popular community boards in the
world is the Raspberry Pi powered by the Raspberry
Pi foundation. But how can you use a community Figure 1. The DragonBoard 410c is one of the world’s first ARMv8 64-bit
development boards to be produced in high volumes and made available
board and go to the next step of pre-production and
at an attractive price point of $75, making it easy for developers to work
mass production? on advanced mobile technologies.

In many cases you can’t use the Raspberry Pi ‘as is’ because 64-bit Cortex-A boards from the range of ARM SoC vendors.
it was never meant to be used in production environment: it Standardized expansion buses for peripheral I/O, display and
doesn’t support industrial temperature ranges (-40 to +85 cameras allow the hardware ecosystem to develop a range of
degrees C); it was not tested for mass production; and there compatible add-on products that will work on any 96Boards
are some other limitations as well. product over the lifetime of the platform.
In other cases, and for high quantity requirements, most com-
panies want to develop their own board. They may want to The 96Boards’ specifications
design in the application processors built into the community There are currently three 96Boards specifications for low-cost
boards and to use the boards as the reference design. ARM Cortex-A and Cortex-M development boards:
The success of the Raspberry Pi has led to companies develo- • the Consumer Edition (CE) targets the mobile, embed-
ping further community boards based on popular embedded ded and digital home segments;
application processors including those from NXP (Freescale • the Enterprise Edition (EE) targets the networking and
i.MX6), Qualcomm (Snapdragon), Intel PSG (Formerly Altera) server segments;
CycloneV and many others. • the IoT Edition (IE) targets the Internet of Things (IoT)
and embedded segments.
All of these boards have been compared to the Raspberry Pi.
In most cases they have better performance or smaller sizes One of the main successes of the 96Boards consumer edition
but this has not affected the success of the Raspberry Pi. was the DragonBoard 410c, which utilized the Qualcomm®
One of the main community platforms that presents a diffe- Snapdragon™ 410 a 64-bit processor that started to appear
rent way forward is the 96Boards organization powered by in smartphones around the world just over two years ago.
Linaro. Linaro’s mission is to bring together industry and the The DragonBoard 410c (Figure 1) was not only one of the first
open source community to work on key projects, deliver great low-cost ARMv8 64-bit development boards to be mass produ-
tools, reduce industry wide fragmentation and provide common ced, but also one of the first 96Boards branded products. Over
software foundations for all. the last year, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., Linaro, and Arrow
have built strong software and ecosystem support around the
The 96Boards hardware specification defines various standar- DragonBoard 410c. Developers who select this platform benefit
dized form factors, unlike the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi from a wide variety of operating system choices including And-
uses only Broadcom SoCs and the form factor changes from roid, Debian Linux, OpenEmbedded, Ubuntu Core and Windows
board to board. With 96Boards, the user has a choice of vari- 10 IoT . These operating systems pair with the many available
ous SoCs at different price points. IoT development kits such as Amazon Web Services (AWS),
AT&T M2X, Brillo, IBM Bluemix Watson and Microsoft Azure.
96Boards is the first open specification to define a platform for At Embedded World 2017 Arrow will introduce several new
the delivery of compatible low-cost, small footprint 32-bit and 96boards to the market:

10 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

Meerkat. Based on the 96Boards™ specification, meerkat The board specifications are: processor based on Intel® Cyc-
(Figure 2) features the NXP® i.MX7D processor, a dual-core lone V SoC FPGA Dual-core ARM® Cortex®-A9 at up to 800
ARM® Cortex™-A7 at up to 1.2 GHz clock speed per core MHz per core plus 110 K LE FPGA fabric. Graphics based on
and ARM Cortex-M4. The connectivity on the board is: WLAN Intel® Video Suite for FPGA, the boards drive a 1080 p at
802.11 b/g/n 2.4 GHz, Bluetooth 4.1, One USB 2.0 OTG micro 60 fps through an HDMI interface and as a two lane MIPI CSI
AB, Two USB 2.0 HOST, On-board BT and WLAN antenna. I/O interface. The use of the FPGA fabric for the video processing
Interfaces — one 40-pin Low Speed (LS) expansion connector: allows development of custom IPU/GPU/VPU solutions on this
two UART, SPI, I2S, I2C x2, GPIO x12, DC power, RGMII, CAN, platform. Memory/storage on board is: 512 MB DDR3 up to
PWM and more interfaces based on the 12 GPIO lines (outside 400 MHz (shipped with 512 MB, can support 1 GB) and SD
the 96Boards specifications). The second I/O Interfaces based 3.0 (UHS-I). Video capabilities are 1080 p @60 fps HD video
on 60-pin High Speed (HS) expansion connector that supports: playback & camera support via the MIPI CSI. Audio support is
SDHC/SDIO, 2L-MIPI DSI, 2L-MIPI CSI, I2C, USB 2.0 HOST & PCM/AAC+/MP3/WMA, ECNS, Audio+ post-processing (optio-
USB 2.0 HOST HSIC. The board can be made compatible with nal). The connectivity on board is: WLAN 802.11 b/g/n 2.4 GHz,
Arduino using an add-on mezzanine board. The OS Support is Bluetooth 4.1, one USB 2.0 OTG micro AB, two USB 2.0 HOST
Linux based on Debian. (The board supports OTG or the host’s ports at one time, not
both), On-board BT and WLAN antenna. The I/O Interfaces
Chameleon96. Based on the 96Boards™ specification The are the same as others on the 96boards form factor and the
Chameleon96 (Figure 3) features the Intel® Cyclone V SoC board can be made compatible with Arduino using an add-on
FPGA, a dual-core ARM® Cortex™-A9 at up to 800 MHz clock mezzanine board. The User Interface consists of Power/Reset
speed per core, capable of 32-bit operation. It is designed to with 6 LED indicators: 4 user controllable and 2 for radios (BT
support feature-rich functionality, including multimedia. and WLAN activity). The OS-support is Linux based on Debian.

Oxalis. The 96Boards EE (Enterprise Edition) carrier board

which holds the SoM based on NXP Network Processor QorIQ®
LS1012A processor, optimized for battery-backed or USB-
powered, space-constrained networking and IoT applications.
It integrates a single ARM Cortex-A53 core running up to 800
MHz with a hardware packet forwarding engine and high-speed
interfaces to deliver line-rate networking performance in an
ultra-small size envelope at 1-W typical power dissipation. The
Oxalis incorporates the same Trust Architecture and software
compatibility of higher-tier QorIQ LS family devices, enabling
scalable, secure applications that leverage a common 64-bit
software platform. Also connected to the LS1012A are 64 MB
QSPI Flash, 1 GB DDR3L, 2x GBit Ethernet, SATA, 2x USB 3.0,
mPCIe, PoE and other peripherals.

Figure 2. A meerkat is small, fast, has a variety of communication skills

and communicates within a large group (source: Wikipedia).

The Author

Amir Sherman has more than 20 years of embedded

experience with a focus on microcontrollers and
microprocessors. He has been working for Arrow Electronics
Figure 3. The Chameleon96 meets all 96Boards mandatory specification for the last 15 years as an embedded field application
(excluding MIPI SDI Interface) and most optional specifications. The board engineer (FAE) as well as an FAE and technical manager.
supports Linux at launch and offers advanced processing power, WLAN,
Bluetooth, and USB, all packed into a board the size of a credit card.

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 11

Server Based Solutions
for Self-Organizing Networks
By Dr. Paul Moakes — Technical Director, CommAgility; and
Christof Wehner — Senior Technical Marketing Architect, Artesyn Embedded Technologies

The evolution of networks across

generations of evolving protocols has led
to a complex mixture of deployed wireless
systems. Development towards 5G and
the increasing use of heterogeneous
networks (HetNets) to improve coverage
with fill-in solutions has created an
environment of growing complexity,
whose management and resource Figure 1: A distributed antenna system (DAS) model.
allocation has become a key issue for
network operators.

This article aims to present the ideas and initiatives driving includes Channel Quality Indicators (CQIs) for channel allo-
self-organizing networks (SONs), a key enabler for effective cation within a band, and if a network can be devised which
5G deployment. The authors look closely at the challenge of a spans multiple bands then these same CQIs could be use at
data center-based eNodeB pool in a Cloud RAN (C-RAN) con- a high level of abstraction to favor the operation of different
text and present a possible solution based on open standard bands within different locations.
technologies
Dynamic geographic allocation
Optimized spectral efficiency Lastly, geographic network demand is seldom static over time.
In addition to growing network complexity, there is also an The peak demand during the working day is likely to be con-
alarming shortage of bandwidth in the radio spectrum. The centrated in the commercial districts while an evening profile
ability to optimize the networks to maximize the spectral effi- may be skewed by a sports event in one area or a concert
ciency of wireless coverage is key to the future of user band- event in another. The network needs to address this temporal
width delivery. Invariably this means rationing spectrum by shift in demand. Activation of fill-in cells and the direction of
providing just enough resource for the type of device connected. network processing resources to the cells experiencing heavy
Developments such as Narrow-band LTE (NB-LTE), for example, user registration are key for network bandwidth management.
will be a key enabling technology for the Internet of Things
(IoT). The management and coordination of networks with a Self-organizing networks
mix of these 200-kHz bands alongside conventional 1.5-MHz Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions
to 20-MHz bands will soon be the norm. Virtualization (NFV) are initiatives which promise to free the
network from the rigid framework of one-off network provi-
Adaptation sion, and which are key enablers for Self-organizing Networks
And it’s not just spectral efficiency of mobile communications. (SONs). This requires the challenging re-imagining of network
As the airwaves become more congested, blocking signals from components and architectures around a central point of intel-
other sources becomes a prime obstacle to attaining maxi- ligence and coordination.
mum data bandwidth. The ability for a network to adapt to
the spectral environment in a coordinated fashion provides a This central point of a Co-operative MultiPoint (CoMP) network
great advantage to maintaining the best service. LTE already finds a natural home in the data center. It is already home to the

12 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

Evolved Packet Core (EPC) in large networks and is the center ers are designed to replace the eNodeB at the mast with
for routing and policy management. Adding network manage- a front-haul technology from the data center to the RRH
ment capabilities enables the support of hosting multi-tenant in a so-called Cloud RAN (C-RAN). ORI maintains the
Mobile Virtual Networks (MVNs) and the ability to time-share latency and delay timing requirements of the digital RF
network resources as part of service contracts. interface required by LTE, while striving to achieve data
Co-locating the higher layers of the LTE protocol stack here compression of at least 50% to facilitate more efficient
also provides a much richer source of network management use of the front haul.
data. This can be used to fuel the intelligence of network orga-
nization, for example by providing access to data mining tools -- Newer contenders such as Radio over Ethernet (RoE),
and facilitating more predictive network analysis. It’s conceiv- IEEE1904.3, are attempting to leverage the lower cost
able that using the GPS component of mobile data to anony- and ubiquitous nature of Ethernet Over Passive Networks
mously track users would support resource allocation before it (EOPN) to achieve the same result. In deployments where
is required, such as turning on a fill-in cell as a crowd gathers there is no existing dark fiber for use, the limitations of
at a rock concert. Ethernet may be an attractive compromise.

A side benefit is that the data center offers a less challeng- The evolution of the SDN supports the reconfiguration of these
ing environment than most base station locations, reducing RRHs using Software-defined Radio (SDR) techniques to sup-
the CapEx cost of equipment ruggedisation. Advanced cool- port multiple bands at multiple bandwidths, thus allowing each
ing and power management technologies in this environment RRH to play its part in the HetNet. Where a channel experi-
save energy; and providing a single point-of-service access ences interference, the RRH frequency may be moved. In areas
reduces OpEx. of low usage, the bandwidth of the supported channel can be
reduced and that bandwidth re-allocated to a busier cell with-
Re-imagining the network out creating adjacent channel interference.
There is no unified view of how these network components are
to be re-imagined. There are, however, a range of competing RRHs can be turned off and on depending on local demand,
ideas, initiatives, and solutions: being used as sniffer channels to feedback details of the RF
environment to improve overall network coverage.
• For example, the European Horizon 2020 COHERENT project,
of which CommAgility is a participant, is looking to develop Moving the eNodeB inside the data center allows the support
a unified programmable control framework for managing of multiple RRH connections, not just the traditional three-
heterogeneous networks, (HetNets) which will be key to sector model. This Distributed Antenna System (DAS) model
5G success. as pictured in Figure 1 brings in multiple RRH connections to
the data center, which can then be switched to a high-density
-- A key initiative is to provide a simplified abstracted net- eNodeB pool where the wireless data processing can be shared
work view to support coordinated network resource allo- across a central resource.
cation across all network types. This will lead to interface
development to support programmable control and coor- On arrival at the data center, the point-to-point CPRI technol-
dination to support new services. ogy needs to be adapted to a switchable architecture in order
to terminate the traffic at available resources. This is easier
• Working on the signal chain from the air interface to the to envisage with Ethernet-based technologies, or technologies
EPC, the first key element is the Remote Radio Head (RRH). built on switched fabrics such as RapioIO, but point-to-point
Traditionally the RRH was a single sector radio mounted up fabrics will need some level of custom switching based solution.
the antenna mast supporting a point-to-point link back to For example, FPGAs could be used to discretely switch point-
the eNodeB located at the base of the mast. Common Public to-point channels under a proprietary control protocol.
Radio Interface (CPRI) has become the protocol of choice
for this link, connected over optical fiber. Once traffic arrives at the eNodeB pool, there is much greater
flexibility than at the mast-located eNodeB. Protocol stacks
-- Extensions to CPRI such as the Open Radio Interface (ORI) with visibility of multiple RRHs can aggregate network statis-
have been developed to support the concept of a distrib- tics from Operators, Administration and Management (OAM)
uted base station architecture. This technology and oth- data which can be used to optimize the performance of the

Beginner Trading Theoretical

Level: Intermediate Company Status: Start-Up Approach: Practical
Professional Potential Mixed

Product Production Website:

Subject: Advice: Technology www.commagility.com
Service
Advice Regulatory
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Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 13

Figure 2: Block diagram of a PCIe version of CommAgility’s AMC-K2L-RF2 card.

Figure 3: The MaxCore™ Platform. Figure 4: SharpServer™ Microserver Card.

network as a whole. For example, gathering intelligence of CQI ment of a common API will go a long way to supporting this.
and Sounding Reference Signal (SRS) measurements, user A Distributed Antenna System (DAS) model brings in multiple
bandwidth demand, and Quality of Service (QoS) parameters RRH connections to the data center, which can then be switched
from the EPC. to a high-density eNodeB pool where the wireless data pro-
cessing can be shared across a central resource.
Intelligent schedulers at the eNodeB support the use of a cen-
tral resource with greater processing bandwidth to improve the Solution
overall network performance, for example focusing capacity Artesyn Embedded Technologies and CommAgility are well
on-demand hot spots. There is the ability to switch the oper- placed to address the data center-based eNodeB pool challenge.
ational protocols of the RRH operating in specific areas, for For example, a PCI Express (PCIe) version of CommAgility’s
example increasing the RRH operational bandwidth or moving AMC-K2L-RF2 card (Figure 2) could provide a low-cost, high-
to narrow-band LTE protocols where there is a concentration performance wideband RF transceiver and baseband processing
of IoT devices. card combined. When configured as a RRH it would support a
2x2 MIMO air interface covering frequency bands from 700 MHz
Organizations such as the Small Cell Forum are working to to 4 GHz with software defined sub-bands and configurable FDD
standardize how SONs deal with HetNets work with intelligent or TDD operation, and bandwidths from 1.4 MHz to 20 MHz.
schedulers. Issues such as handover and security gateway With a native power output of up to 27 dBm, higher output
issues in a multi-vendor SON need to be addressed. Develop- power could be achieved using external power amplifiers; the

14 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

Figure 6: Block diagram of a PCIe version of CommAgility’s AMC-D24A4
baseband processing card.

Such a PCIe card could perform the key analog front end func-
tionality of the RRH:
• Digital up and down conversion (DUC and DDC)
• Crest Factor Reduction (CFR)
• Digital Pre-Distortion (DPD)
• IQ imbalance correction and nulling

Front-haul connectivity can be supported over optical fiber using

a front panel SFP+ port. The Texas Instruments TCI6630K2L
SoC natively supports CPRI, but the processing provided by
its four C66x DSP cores make it well positioned to develop
ORI compression or RoE based solutions to reduce the front-
haul bandwidth. The front haul also includes the control and
management (C&M) channel to support the SDN configuration
changes and the collection of CQI metrics.
Artesyn’s MaxCore™ Platform family of products (Figure 3)
Figure 5: SharpSwitch™ Network Adapter Card. is ideally suited as a host system for these cards. Built around
a unique PCI Express Switch, and designed for NEBS, these
systems combine high flexibility in configuration with the low-
card can provide an external control and digital pre-distortion est latency between different cards that form the respective
feedback path to support this. system. This makes the platform a perfect solution for scal-

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Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 15

able designs from small configurations up to integration into Figure 7: Multiple SharpServer microserver cards and multiple
large data centers. SharpSwitch network adaptor cards can be combined with the
The fabric in the MaxCore Platform is built using the Avago CommAgility PCI Express card in a MaxCore platform according to the
ExpressFabric PCI Express switching silicon. This silicon will performance requirements of the actual deployment to create complete
single or multiple eNodeBs in a single enclosure.
operate in a simple PCI Express based single root environment
like any other PC, but also allows operation in a virtualized
mode. By doing this, it enables operation with multiple root
complexes across the same backplane as well as connecting EPC in small local networks, providing a self-contained server-
an I/O card’s virtual functions to multiple root complexes, hosted network.
enabling a new level of sharing of resources.
The glue between the protocol stack and the DAS is the PHY.
A microserver card using two Intel® Xeon® D 16-core CPU The PHY and its partitioning is probably the greatest area of
complexes and an intelligent network adaptor based on the discussion within the C-RAN architecture. CommAgility’s AMC-
Intel® FM10840 (‘Red Rock Canyon’) switch and network inter- D24A4 (Figure 6) is a high-performance highly-configurable
face enable applications that combine connectivity to front and processing card which has the flexibility to support multiple vari-
backhaul and, together with the CommAgility card, directly ations of Cloud RAN architectures. Designed for rack-mounted
connect to RRHs in a very small form factor. chassis based systems it can be readily adapted for the data
When applied to this application, multiple Artesyn SharpS- center server.
erver™ microserver cards and multiple Artesyn SharpSwitch™
network adaptor cards (Figures 4 and 5 respectively) can be Such a card can support up to eight ORI connections to opti-
combined with the CommAgility PCI Express card according cal front SFP+ ports. The FPGA can be configured to perform
to the performance requirements of the actual deployment to the ORI decompression and send channels back to the DSP
create complete single or multiple eNodeBs in a single enclo- for baseband processing. Alternatively, ORI switching support
sure. In this context, the solution is scalable from a small can be added to the FPGA to re-balance the baseband load
system suitable for a sporting venue server room location or across multiple baseband cards in the system as shown dia-
a full central office. grammatically in Figure 7.

The SharpServer cards act as a scalable pooled resource run- An alternative solution using RoE can be readily achieved using
ning the CommAgilty SmallCellSTACK software across multiple a similar architecture. In this case, the RRH implements a RoE
cards in the solution. By building an intelligent scheduler within protocol on the DSP and the Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) links from
the stack, access can be provided to network statistics from the RRH are terminated at the server, either directly to the FPGA
all of the supported PHYs and the developer can allow con- SFP+ connectors or via the top-of-rack switch. The baseband
trol of the RRH configuration over the front-haul control and card FPGA can then implement RoE routing and termination
maintenance channels. It is also a suitable location to host the to balance the processing load.

16 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

Connection between the PHY and stack is supported by the We find that that the majority of the building blocks already
Small Cell Forum Femto Application Programming Interface exist. But to fully realize the potential of a server-room based
(FAPI) to provide an open standard MAC-PHY API. solution, the blocks need to be integrated so that flexible
hardware configuration and low-level access to protocol stacks
Conclusion work in tandem.
Although 5G brings challenges to the conventional network
architecture, the re-imagining of that architecture for 5G By combining the Artesyn and CommAgility product lines,
also bring opportunities to support functionality not previ- an integrated solution can be built from these components
ously achievable. In this paper we have discussed some of that perfectly scales from very small to very large deploy-
the emerging technologies and routes which can be taken to ments, using the same basic infrastructure as well as the
exploit these new technologies. same software.

The Authors

Paul Moakes PhD MIET is Technical Director at Christof Wehner is a Senior Technical Marketing Architect
CommAgility. He has previously been employed by for the Embedded Computing business of
Motorola, Blue Wave Systems and Marconi Instruments. Artesyn Embedded Technologies, with a focus on new
technology, customer applications and technical advice on
He holds two patents in the field of MicroTCA and application architectures. Christof also represents Artesyn in
AdvancedMC. He received his PhD in Electrical and the ETSI Mobile-Edge Computing (MEC) work group.
Electronic Engineering from Sheffield University, and a In his 25 years in the embedded industry, Christof
First Class Honours degree in Electronic Communications has worked in technical support functions including
and Computer Systems Engineering from management and marketing of technical support,
Bradford University. strategic marketing and training for various companies
including Force Computers and Radisys.
A widely published author and accomplished speaker,
he has a degree in Physics from Dortmund University.

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Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 17

Network Engine SoC Reference Design
Realizes Development of 400-Gbps Communication Equipment
By
Stefano Passoni
Renesas Electronics Europe

Through newly developed control

IP and control software for their
network search engine SoC,
Renesas have strong cards to
simplify its implementation into
network equipment operating at
speeds up to 400 Gbps.

Renesas Electronics announced the avail- substantially improved performance for same time, the diversification of endpoint
ability of a network search engine (NSE) routing and switching applications such applications to accommodate varying
system-on-chip (SoC) [1] reference design as video traffic at endpoints. network traffic loads on an on-demand
that eliminates the development time The reference design not only provides basis requires an efficient network envi-
for search offload engine in the com- design data on an evaluation board pop- ronment that is scalable and flexible.
munication industry’s fastest-speed class ulated with the R8A20686BG, a Rene- Renesas’ NSE SoC reference design com-
400-gigabit per second (Gbps) network sas NSE SoC capable of up to two billion bines high-speed packet search with the
equipment. Targeting router and switch packet search operations per second, but flexibility of SDNet® packet processing
applications, the reference design com- also includes the newly developed search technology from Xilinx, Inc., ensuring
prises a network search engine evalua- SoC control IP and control software that the design will be able to grow with the
tion board and a Xilinx field-program- would otherwise require a substantial ever-changing network.
mable gate array (FPGA) employing a amount of time to develop.
search SoC control IP to simplify the inte- Key features of the NSE
gration of custom functions. Traditional Towards 400 Gbps reference design
400-Gbps network processing systems Faced with the challenges of increasing These may be summarized as follows.
consist of dedicated SoCs such as ASICs numbers of IoT terminals and the migra-
or network processors. By using this ref- tion to cloud computing, service provid- 1. The reference design shortens the
erence design, system manufacturers can ers are focused on widespread adoption development timeframe of 400-Gbps
quickly deploy 400-Gbps systems with of 400 Gbps class equipment. At the communication systems by offering:

• a VCU110 evaluation board popu-

lated with a Xilinx Virtex® Ultra-
scale™ XCVU190-2FLGC2104E FPGA;
• a daughterboard populated with the
Renesas NSE SoC that is connected
directly to the Xilinx VCU110 via FMC
connectors;
• system-level reference design data
integrating the NSE SoC and Xilinx’
SDNet technology;
• search SoC control IP and control
software suite.

For system manufacturers, the reference

design eliminates the time-consuming
process of search offload engine control-

18 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

ler development. By integrating Xilinx’s ment or software-defined infrastructure
programmable SDNet data plane hard- (SDI) [3] will be able to take advantage Beginner
ware and NSE controller, this network of this programmability feature. Level: Intermediate
processing solution is able to accelerate Professional
development time in the order of months. 200 Gbps and 100 Gbps also
In addition to this 400-Gbps solution, Product
2. High-performance with up to two Renesas offers a 200-Gbps design [4] Subject: Service
billion operations per second, for with the same NSE SoC as well as a Advice
the realization of 400 Gbps network low-power 100 Gbps solution [5] utiliz-
systems. ing LLDRAM-III memory and an FPGA. Trading
Renesas’ wide range of search offerings Company Status: Start-Up
The tightly integrated packet process- allows system manufacturers to select Potential
ing reference design is optimized for a solution that best meets their spe-
multi-thread requests. By providing up cific requirements and is able to scale Production
to eight internal search request ports, with the rapid advancement in network Advice: Technology
this solution is able to process multiple technologies. Regulatory
requests in parallel, which fully utilizes
the available bandwidth and extracts the Theoretical
www.renesas.com
maximum performance of the NSE SoC. Approach: Practical
The result is a scalable solution capable Mixed
of supporting 400 Gbps-class network http://twitter.com/Renesas_Europe
systems with tables of up to one mil- Website:
lion entries running at up to two billion http://facebook.com/RenesasEurope www.renesas.com
searches per second. This simplifies the
task of configuring, for example, search ebm article tagging
http://youtube.com/RenesasPresents
operations utilizing multiple Ethernet

Thanks to the close relationship with Renesas, both companies have been able
to bring best of breed technology to solve customer challenges and deliver
complete solutions for hardware, software, and IP. Accelerating time to revenue
is critical and the joint reference design is clearly driving this objective.
Gilles Garcia, Director of Communications Business at Xilinx

ports each operating at over 100 Gbps, Web Link

or multiple search operations using pipe- www.renesas.com/en-hq /products/memory/network-search-engine.html.
line packet processing [2], to achieve com-
munication speeds at the 400-Gbps level. Notes
SDNet, Virtex, Ultrascale are registered trademarks or trademarks from Xilinx,
3. Control software suite supports mul- Inc. All other registered trademarks or trademarks are the property of their re-
tiple applications and flexible recon- spective owners.
figuration without prior hardware
[1] A network search engine SoC performs high-speed lookup in hardware of the
knowledge.
destinations of data packets used for video streaming, email, etc., as well
The control software, developed in con-
as handling, in hardware, of priority control and access control for network
junction with the reference design, allows
services.
system manufacturers to easily configure
[2] Pipeline packet processing achieves efficiency by executing processes associ-
up to 32 independent search tables. Sys-
ated with commands in an assembly-line fashion.
tem management tasks, including table
configuration and maintenance, are done [3] A software defined network (SDN) or software defined infrastructure (SDI) is
entirely through software with minimum an environment in which a conventional network or infrastructure is abstract-
hardware knowledge requirements. More- ed or virtualized, enabling it to be defined and controlled by software.
over, all management tasks can be per- [4] DRAM-based 100 Gbps search solution utilizing LLDRAM-III memory
formed in real time during live traffic and an FPGA: www.renesas.com/en-hq/about/press-center/news/2016/
with no interruption, making it possible news20160630.html
for reconfiguration post deployment. [5] 200 Gbps search solution utilizing network search engine:
Applications such as load balancing in a www.renesas.com/en-hq/about/press-center/news/2015/news20150427.html
software-defined network (SDN) environ-

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 19

Voltera V-One, a Desktop
Prototyping Tool for Custom PCBs
By Katarina Ilic, Cofounder, Voltera Inc.

If only hardware development was as fast paced as software development, just imagine how many more
physical products could be contributing to the rise of our global economy! Good news: great strides can be
made by prototyping PCBs right on the desktop and guess what, a machine to do just that is now available.

Printed Circuit Board (PCB) prototyping is the leading factor Hardware developers need a better way to prototype PCBs, so
limiting the hardware development cycle. Before mass manufac- that they can cut down their development time, save money,
turing, PCB designs are usually fabbed in gradually increasing and get their products to market faster.
volumes as the design is refined. Currently, hardware devel-
opers are either fabricating their designs in-house, which is a Conventional prototyping methods
jarring do-it-yourself method utilizing corrosive chemicals, or aren’t cutting it
more commonly, outsourcing to overseas factories that charge Presently, mainstream PCB patterning is largely a subtractive
large minimum order quantity (MOQ) fees and have several- process. In order to produce conductive patterns, this pro-
week long lead times. With each iteration, money is lost and cess employs chemical etching whereby conductive material
time is wasted, drastically hampering the product’s progress is removed from a single side, or both sides of a copper-clad
and innovation as a whole. base material.

High-tech regions like Silicon Valley have created an infrastruc- Hardware developers rely on these chemical etching processes to
ture to mitigate this problem, by creating turnkey services for prototype PCBs either in-house, or typically by outsourcing the
PCB turnarounds within three to four days. This leaves designers process to factories — usually in China. Although chemical etch-
with the uncomfortable choice between these very expensive ing is by far the most commonly used subtractive process for PCB
solutions or the usual painful and slow development cycle to fabrication, the overall process is time consuming, costly, and
bring their ideas to market. dangerous. In addition it causes enormous waste and chemical

20 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

 Beginner Trading Theoretical
Level: Intermediate Company Status: Start-Up Approach: Practical
Professional Potential Mixed

Product Production Website:

Subject: Advice: Technology https://voltera.io/
Service
Advice Regulatory
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by-products that are harmful to humans and the environment. accurate printing. Dispensing the conductive ink at a consis-
Appallingly, 2 million tonnes of PCB by-product has been produced tent height from the printing surface ensures the geometry of
since 1929, some of which still remains in the environment today. the traces matches their definitions in the design files.
Other subtractive methods have been developed in an attempt
to solve this issue with the delayed hardware development Printing with silver nanoparticles
cycle. Isolation routing, for example, uses a computer guided Once a height map of the surface is established, the touch
drill bit to remove unwanted copper from a copper-clad base probe can be removed and interchanged with the dispensing
material. With lower setup required and faster production times, mechanism. This mechanism utilizes a piston to extrude the
this subtractive milling process is targeted towards in-house highly specialized silver nanoparticle ink out of a precision-
prototyping. However, this process is far from ideal and has machined 200-µm nozzle.
several drawbacks. For one, it is limited to rigid substrates After uploading the Gerber files, conductive ink is laid down as
and can only produce single or double sided boards. In addi- the traces and pads making up the PCB pattern (Figure 1).
tion, routing of the copper-clad base produces fibreglass dust Next, the V-One’s integrated 550-watt heater thermally cures
particles that are harmful to the user. the ink during a 20-minute bake cycle. During this process,
solvents are evaporated and polymerization is initiated, fusing
A unique additive approach the silver nanoparticles into a tight silver matrix. What remains
Recently, additive processes for fabricating circuit boards have are the silver traces that are fully conductive and solderable
drawn much attention in the field of rapid prototyping. Since (Figure 2).
material is added and not removed, there is little to no waste.
Additionally, the equipment for this application can be small Finishing with solder paste dispensing and reflow
enough to fit on a benchtop, rather than the full factory required After printing, the V-One can dispense solder paste onto pads,
by traditional processes. As pioneers in this industry, Voltera and reflow the components with the integrated reflow plat-
recognized the advantages that this additive approach can
provide to early-stage hardware development and created the
award-winning Voltera V-One: a desktop prototyping tool for
custom PCBs.

How it works
The Voltera V-One is a multifunctional tool that allows hard-
ware developers to prototype PCBs within an hour. This new
tool creates functional electronics quickly and cost-effectively,
allowing developers to build PCBs on site for tens of dollars,
instead of outsourcing their designs or utilizing harmful sub-
tractive processes for hundreds or thousands of dollars. The
V-One’s feature set includes capabilities that allow the user to:

• dispense silver conductive ink to print circuitry onto the

standard FR-4 substrate and a variety of other materials; Figure 1: V-One printing a circuit with conductive ink.
• dispense solder paste onto both V-One printed and tradi-
tionally fabricated boards;
• reflow solder components directly on the built-in heated
platform.

Starting with 20 µm precision

The V-One accepts Gerber files, so the developer can design
their PCB in any CAD software they prefer (Altium, CadSoft
EAGLE, PADs, OrCAD, KiCad, etc.). Before the print, a detach-
able touch probe sensor is utilized to generate a topographi-
cal map of the printing surface, down to 20 µm precision. This
grid of points stores information about the height difference Figure 2: Microscopic view of silver nanoparticle printed pad before (left)
between the substrate and the nozzle tip, which is critical for and after soldering (right).

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 21

 space. This alignment technique can also be used to print onto
boards with pre-existing features such as recessed areas. The
dispensing operation is shown in Figure 3.

Potentially boundless prototyping

A refreshing additive approach to PCB manufacturing allows
for experimental prototyping that was not possible before.
Electronic prototyping is no longer limited to circuitry on con-
ventional, rigid FR-4, but is now versatile to an abundance of
materials such as Polyimide and PET, glass and silicon, bio-com-
patible thin films, consequently allowing for accelerated research
efforts in fields of flexible electronics, radio frequency applica-
tions (Figure 4), and medical diagnostics devices, respectfully.
Figure 3: V-One dispensing solder paste on pre-fabricated PCB.
Such an approach is bringing prototyping back to the hands of
the creator and is truly a catalyst for innovation.
Small to medium businesses are able realize their products
faster than before, hence exercising their truly unique advan-
tage over the often lumbering corporate sector: speed and
agility. Although focused primarily on these applications, the
tool has also lowered electronics’ barrier to entry enough that
it has been used by university students in educational projects
and even by parents introducing their young children to the
joys and challenges of making.
From Voltera’s headquarters in Canada the team has been
shipping globally, starting with the Americas and expanding to
fulfill orders all over Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Europe. Their
vision stands to modernize manufacturing and make hardware
development painless for anyone prototyping in workshops,
offices, laboratories, or classrooms.

The Author

Katarina Ilic is a
Nanotechnology Engineer
Figure 4: Flexible antenna printed on Kapton. who specializes in the
development of nano-
functional materials for
various applications. In
form. These features are compatible with boards printed by the
2013 she co-founded
V-One and with traditionally fabricated boards, thus eliminat-
Voltera Inc., which aims
ing the frustrations associated with multiple stencil iterations,
to disrupt hardware
and saving huge costs and time on the even more exorbitant
innovation through additive
assembly process.
manufacturing. The young company has since invented the
international award winning Voltera V-One: a custom PCB
The additive approach of depositing solder paste directly where
prototyping tool, that utilizes silver nanoparticle based ink
it is required means it is not wasted through the incredibly
to create fully functional electronics from your desktop.
tedious stencil based screen printing processes. Pad alignment
for paste dispensing is accomplished using the touch probe
sensor. Using two user-selected pads or fiducials, the touch
probe will interpolate the location of the remaining pads in XYZ

Table 1: Voltera V-One Technical Specifications

Technical Specifications Metric Imperial
Maximum Print Area 135 mm x 113.5 mm 5.3’’ x 4.4’’
Minimum Trace Width 0.2 mm 8 mil
Minimum Pin-to-Pin Pitch (Conductive Ink) 0.8 mm 32 mil
Minimum Pin-to-Pin Pitch (Solder Paste) 0.5 mm 20 mil
Compatible Operating System Windows 7, 8, 10 (64-bit). OSX 10.11+ (El Capitan)
Compatible File Format Gerber

22 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

ByteSnap Design’s
Industry Predictions for 2017
By Michelle Robinson, Digital Marketing
Manager, ByteSnap Design.

For the benefit of all start-ups

and wannabees reading Elektor
Business Magazine, the team at
award-winning embedded systems
consultancy ByteSnap Design
shares its predictions for what
may dominate the electronics
industry in 2017.

1. G
 PRS designs phased out in say that more and more smart devices biggest slice of the AI, AR & VR market.
favour of LTE (IoT) will be hitting the market in the The — currently — unassailable success
For decades GPRS has been the go-to next year or two. With a large variety of of Pokémon Go is proof, if any were
communications choice for low cost, standards fighting for their place in the needed, that AR and VR is no longer
low bandwidth long-distance comms. IoT market, the battle for supremacy is niche, but firmly in the mainstream.
However, with GPRS shutdown now set to continue throughout the year and The revenue forecast from sensors built
on the horizon in many territories, it almost certainly beyond. As with VHS vs. for the augmented reality (AR), virtual
makes sense for future product designs Betamax, it will probably be the size of reality (VR), and artificial intelligence (AI)
to use an alternative communications the supporting organisations that deter- markets globally, is expected to reach
technology. mines who the victors are. $97 billion in 2017 [1].
Cat M is a new narrowband category of We look forward to discovering more
LTE [long term evolution] which is split 3. I
 ndustrial equipment Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Real-
between two releases — Cat M1 and M2. monitoring ity and Virtual Reality-based products
M1 is aimed at higher bandwidth appli- We predict that the industrial sector will throughout the year.
cations such as HD video streaming and make a push towards the connected
security apps, while M2 chipsets have monitoring of equipment. 5. Thread reaches maturity
been designed to support low-power IoT Predictive maintenance will be a big The Thread alliance is no longer the new
applications including asset trackers and driver in industrial automation for 2017. boy in town that it was, and in 2017
industrial sensors. Its proponents say this More new products will support remote we are expecting to see new design
protocol is right at the top of the IoT management and status reporting while wins using Thread in place of ZigBee or
tree — citing a host of benefits such as: existing products will have these fea- other IoT standards, as the chip vendors’
• Cost-effective connectivity tures retro-fitted to them. The benefits stacks become stable.
• High node density of being able to more easily find and fix
• Reliable, secure communications potential issues and diagnose problems 6. C
 ontinuation of the
• Flexible integration options when something does go wrong means mega-mergers?
Until the Cat M2 network infrastructure we anticipate significant growth in the Who would have predicted that the
is rolled out, designers will need to con- area during 2017. recently shaken-up NXP would so quickly
sider carefully product field life, power be undergoing yet another change only a
consumption and unit cost to decide 4. G
 lut of new AI, AR and VR year after the Freescale merger? Surely
whether to use GPRS or a higher band- goodies 2017 can’t have any more surprising
width modem. Standby for a skyrocketing of activity, mergers and acquisitions… can it? ;-)
opportunities and new releases in the (It can and will, Ed.)
2. H
 ome automation to gain AI, AR and VR sectors this year.
further traction There’s a stampede of industry big hitters Reference
With the release of Amazon Echo, Apple — including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, [1] Sensors for Augmented Reality, Virtual
HomeKit, Google Home — all pushing Google, Intel, LG, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Reality and Artificial Intelligence market 2016
Report. — Touch Display Research. http://
for smart home — we think it’s safe to Samsung and Sony — all vying for the touchdisplayresearch.com/?page_id=2841

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 23

 Talking Heads

What are the decision makers in the

electronics industry talking about when it
comes to honing products to meet customer needs? By asking
pertinent questions, Elektor Business Magazine provides
snapshots of what is happening in one of the world’s most
vibrant industries.

Moritz Schwarz, Founder, Loetronic.

Was the choice of the microcontroller used in your MP3 module 
coincidental, intuitive, subjective or rational

It was more of a traditional family, which now belongs to NXP/Qualcomm.

choice. When developing electron- Also, I am very happy with its stability, especially in rough
ics as a student, I came across the environments like automotive and industrial applications.
HC11 and HC12 microcontrollers These characteristics are very important for our applications
from Freescale, formerly Motorola. and for the specific project described, a till lane opening sys-
This was around 2000. Since then I grew up with them. tem in which our MP3 module plays its part.
I like the versatility and flexibility of the whole 16-bit HCS12

Joachim Sarfels, Sales Manager Science, FLIR.

Is availability of your components secured through obsolescence management? If so, how?

Of course, FLIR offers a are of course needed to fulfil such warranties. As far as FLIR
product warranty for its components for products of third parties are concerned: these
products: two years on the components mainly concern our so-called FLIR cores, the
complete product, including labour IR detectors to be integrated into third party components.
costs, and ten years on the detec- These cores are available until they get substituted by a bet-
tor. This secures the product will ter, smaller and probably even cheaper product, which can be
work for a long time. Spare parts used in the same way but offers more possibilities.

24 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

 Katarina Ilic, Co-founder, Voltera.
Was the choice of the microcontroller used in your Voltera V-One desktop PCB printer
coincidental, intuitive, subjective or rational?

The microcontroller we are using in the Voltera V-One is an ATMega2560, the same one you
would find in the popular Arduino Mega. The reason for choosing it was quite simple: the bulk
of the circuit processing happens on the desktop application while the V-One does only fairly
simple operations. So we used a micro that was appropriate for the task. Furthermore, the microcontroller
is used in many open source projects. We were able to take advantage of this and drastically accelerate our
development time.

Ian Blackman,
Technical Manager, International Institute of Obsolescence Management
(IIOM).
Are companies sufficiently aware of the need to secure their components through
obsolescence management?

Obsolescence Management is well embedded in sectors such as aerospace, defence, oil and gas,
nuclear energy and the railways, and is increasingly being considered in medical and industrial
automation sectors. Global electronic component distributors are also treating the subject more seriously in recent months.
Commercial tools to help users predict obsolescence arising are available and are becoming more integrated with other busi-
ness management systems. These tools are becoming more capable and user friendly. High profile sectors such as IoT and
autonomous cars seem yet to realise the commercial risk that not managing obsolescence will bring. IIOM is driving revisions
to standards that help establish best practice, as well as professional qualifications for specialists in the obsolescence manage-
ment discipline. The introductory certificate level qualification will be available later this year.

Bernd Westhoff, Principal Engineer MCU/MPU, Renesas Electronics Europe.

Which is currently your hottest development kit for start-ups?

There is an increasing demand for graphical TFT displays. However, they usually
involve the use of a graphics controller, which can be both time consuming and
expensive to implement. Renesas’ new RX71M revelation kit is a cost effective solu-
tion kit that enables system designers to create cost effective and efficient TFT control
using the embedded RAM of the RX71M microcontroller. No external memory modules are needed.
As there is no requirement for external memory to serve as a video buffer, the revelation kit sig-
nificantly simplifies the design process and reduces the system BOM cost.

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 25

Loetronic: from the Garage
up to Industrial Production
By Moritz Schwarz, Loetronic

A long, long time ago... in this or similar

ways, many stories start not only in films,
but on occasion, company histories too.
The Loetronic company from Aachen
and its founding phase dates back to the
year 2005, when it was established as a
garage business by Moritz Schwarz,
still a student at the
Fachhochschule (FH, University
of Applied Sciences) in Aachen.

Figure 1: The Loetronic-developed ultra MP3 Player with

integrated amplifier

Initially, the idea was to develop an MP3 player and make it specific electronics. Over the years, Loetronic’s modules got
available to private enthusiasts. However, this soon resulted installed wherever voice announcements or music content have
in applications for commercial and industrial applications, and to be played. The audio modules were constantly developed out.
Loetronic was founded. Initially, hard disks and CD-ROMS were focussed on as stor-
age media, later these memory forms were replaced by flash
Soon the core competency was clear: the development, the memory, first CF, then SD card storage. Every now and then
production and the distribution of digital audio modules, mostly it was also demanded that the audio content could be played
on MP3 and Flashcards basis for the integration into customer- over LAN and WLAN interfaces in real-time (streaming). The

connected to the system via additional interfaces, e.g. bakery

product dispensers and bottle deposit machines, sensors for
automatic customer recognition at the cahier stations or cer-
Essential technical components of a checkout
tain sales areas, as well as monitors for further visualization of
lane system in terms of microcontroller
sales information.
and interface technology used

The central controller unit, like the ULTRA MP3 module, is based
The centrepiece of the checkout lane opening system is a central on a 16-bit microcontroller from Freescale (NXP). Via a serial
control unit, which also accommodates the ULTRA MP3 module, interface, it communicates with the MP3 module and initia-
monitors all processes at the cash desks and informs the custo- tes voice announcements. A second serial interface is used to
mers and employees of all statuses audiovisually. Via so-called communicate via a proprietary RS485 bus. This bus interface
tableau units at the cash desks the employees can log on and was developed in close collaboration with Rickert Systemtech-
off their own or other checkouts and select other functions. nik in order to be able to connect its own interface extensions
Corresponding lamps, mostly LED-based, display their status at even over a great distance to the system. In addition, it is also
the cash desks. Additional peripheral devices or systems can be possible to interconnect several central controller units via the

26 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

 Beginner Trading Theoretical
Level: Intermediate Company Status: Start-Up Approach: Practical
Professional Potential Mixed

Product Production Website:

Subject: Advice: Technology www.loetronic.de
Service
Advice Regulatory
ebm article tagging

external control possibilities were developed similarly. In the • listening stations in museums;
beginning control was limited to pushbuttons, but later RS232, • audio info terminals in public or tourist places;
RS485, LAN and WLAN interfaces were added, as well as the • listening station for music, audio books and advertising at
use of barcode and RFID readers, motion detectors and vari- point of sale (POS);
ous customer-specific controls. • automatic voice announcements in elevators;
• a player for sound and special effects;
The following list gives a rough overview of the applications in • multichannel audio player in theme parks;
which the MP3 modules (Figure 1) have been used and are • emergency announcement devices (German: ELA);
still being used: • station and vehicle position announcements in buses,
trains and ships.

More electronics
In addition to the audio modules, Loetronic was also increas-
ingly required to develop specific electronics for customers. At
the same time, the acquired know-how around the audio mod-
ules and thus microcontrollers and various interface technology
was exploited. The development of customer specific adapter
boards for use between the audio modules and the customer
electronics as well as completely new developments for the
customers were implemented in this way. Ten years after the
founding of the company, Loetronic commands a wide range
of development possibilities:

Figure 2: The universal MP3 Module fulfils many tasks,

and is aptly called ULTRA.

RS485 bus, in order to connect multiple cash registers. A third This is important in this respect as different tableau units can be
serial interface of the microcontroller can be connected to a LAN used at the cash desks, and depending on the stores, different
module (Lantronix XPort) to enable the controller unit to have cash desks must be controlled by a tableau unit. Besides the
a direct LAN interface. A USB interface was connected via an use of buttons on this unit, other external signals can also be
FTDI chip via I2C. addressed through this unit. The outputs to the panel unit con-
trol LEDs on the panel or other cash-related external devices.
The LED lamps are either directly controlled by the microcont-
roller or via port expansion modules in the case of insufficient Furthermore, an optional RTC module can be installed on the
digital outputs. controller unit in order to play timely precise announcements.
The complexity of the controller unit makes it necessary to adapt
The tableau units themselves are not controlled via a bus inter- the internal firmware to the respective environment via confi-
face, but via an SPI interface with RS232 level. Due to the RS232 guration parameters. In order to enable the customer to do this
level, as well as the RS485 interface, considerable distances can simply and quickly, Loetronic has programmed Windows software
be bridged, and a variable number of input and output signals which communicates via the USB interface of the controller and
can be queried and adjusted by the selection of the SPI interface. also allows the installation of new firmware.

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 27

• development and production of electronics;
• programming of Freescale (NXP) microcontrollers in
Assembler, C, Python;
• programming of Raspberry Pi single board computers;
• programming of Windows software;
• programming of Android software.

In 2009, it was necessary to develop a new MP3 module and

bring it to the market. It was to be very universal and power-
ful, as well as very modular and easy to adapt. Designed to
be manufactured in higher volumes for many years, it should
replace a number of similar, but very different MP3 modules.
The ULTRA MP3 module was born (Figure 2)!

The ULTRA MP3 module is based on a 16-bit microcontroller

from Freescale (NXP) and has an SD memory card slot. An MP3
decoder chip and a high-quality D/A converter complete the
main components. The module itself measures 55 x 55 mm
and is plugged onto the carrier board via two sockets. The
module can be controlled via pushbutton inputs, various digital
inputs, two serial interfaces (with baudrates up to 115200 bps Figure 3: The mother / carrier board allows the MP3 Module to be built
and 921600 bps). Outputs for connection to a LC display, LEDs into Loetronic’s standard enclosure.
and relays are also available. The decoded audio information
can be passed in analogue (stereo) or digital (I2S) fashion. In
addition to a standard firmware for the ULTRA MP3 module, also interested in the further development of its systems and
Loetronic has also created a variety of customer-specific firm- Loetronic was the ideal partner for this development. Since
ware versions that utilise the MP3 module in different ways. 2011 the checkout lane opening systems have been further
The installation of new firmware usually takes place via the SD developed, perfected and manufactured in various versions.
card, but can also be done via the serial interfaces and espe-
cially by the customers themselves. The overall complexity of the cash register system has grown
over the past few years and shows the growing know-how of
Carrier boards Loetronic in the microcontroller and interface area. A number of
In addition to customer-specific carrier boards, standard car- customer projects have already been implemented in a similar
rier boards from Loetronic can also be used. It is then possible manner, which have proved themselves over many years.
to connect loudspeakers or headphones directly and they fit
into Loetronic’s standard housings. In addition to the use of
the MP3 modules as an embedded module, ready-made MP3
players can also be supplied in functional housings. The serial
interfaces of the ULTRA MP3 module are expanded on the car-
rier boards by appropriate standardised interfaces, including
USB, RS232 / RS485 or LAN.

ULTRA MP3 Module for a checkout lane system

Last but not least, this article briefly describes a system in
which the ULTRA MP3 module plays an important role and
Loetronic, a decisive role. Back in 2011, Rickert Systemtech-
nik asked Loetronic to integrate an audio module into a so-
called till lane (checkout lane) opening system. The company
Rickert Systemtechnik has specialized in these systems and
equips warehouses with it. These systems ensure that the
customer flows to the checkout desks in a targeted way, and The Author
are primarily intended to prevent the developing of queues at
From 1998, Moritz Schwarz (1977, Aachen, Germany)
the cash desks. In addition to visual possibilities at the cash
studied Information Technology at RWTH Aachen, and from
desks and the store, only simple bells and chimes were used
1999, Electrical Engineering at Fachhochschule (Applied
in the past. The use of the ULTRA MP3 module in such a sys-
Sciences) also in Aachen, specializing in Engineering
tem opened many new possibilities. Now new opened check
Informatics. Having started as a student aid at ILA (laser
stations could also be made audible, the Store Manager could
measurement technology) in Jülich in 1999, he founded
be called to the checkouts, or employees to the bakery area
the company Loetronic in the year 2005. In 2006 Moritz
or bottle deposit machines.
graduated with certificate at the Fachhochschule.
In addition to the use of the ULTRA MP3 module in existing
checkout lane opening systems, Rickert Systemtechnik was

28 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

ew17_185x254_Elektor_Business_englisch_2ew17P.indd 1 19.01.17 15:02
 Jumpstart Internet of Things
Governments and businesses are expecting
Internet of Things (IoT) to hit the mainstream

Earl
exp
rece

4 KEY LESSONS
SCOPE IS ALMOST ALWAYS
UNDERESTIMATED

SAS survey: USER EXPERIENCE

DEFINES RESULTS

IoT early adopters

DATA & GOVERNANCE
SKILLS ARE CRITICAL

wrestling with data

MATURITY
DICTATES VALUE

processing and DIVERSE EXPECTATIONS

culture shift 43% 36%

By Mathias Coopmans Improved operational Improve user N
— Business Development Manager, SAS efficiency experience s

MOST POPULAR CLOSING THE

LESSONS 8

APPLY DESIGN 6
JumpStart contains sparking contributions from industry analysts, THINKING
business advisors, financial experts, fundraisers, and free thinkers. 4
TEST IN
ADVANCE 2
At the invitation of Elektor Business Magazine the authors provide key
PLAN FOR
advice to start-up companies and homelabs on aspects of the trajectory SCALABILTIY
0
Storytelling /data
flow visualisation
from product development and funding right up to marketing and trade.

Read the full report at www.sas.com/iotebook to learn

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA an
Despite large interest in the Internet “making progress” with the implementa- registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies. Copyright © 2016, SAS Institute Inc. All right

of Things (IoT), few companies have tion of IoT in their operational manage-
been able to demonstrate concrete ment. What do businesses actually want
successes. SAS conducted a survey of to achieve with IoT? About 20 percent
the expectations of IoT early adopters of the respondents said that projects
and the challenges they face. Among related to the connected customer con- specific IoT projects. That can be seen
other things, the results show that real- cept were their highest priority, followed from the fact that “operational effi-
time data analysis is regarded as the by self-diagnostics (17%) and asset ciency” (43%) and “better user expe-
biggest challenge. In addition, many tracking (16%). All of these require a rience” (36%) are at the top of the list
organizations are not yet ready for the large number of data analyses to be per- of expected results.
altered ways of working required for IoT formed in a short length of time.
implementation.   Key challenges
Another interesting finding is that many The study also shows that IoT imple-
The SAS survey [1] gives some exam- businesses expect both customer ben- mentation creates significant headaches
ples of organizations which say they are efits and operational benefits from in both technological and management

30 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

 ias Coopmans, Business Development
Visualise the Impact Manager at SAS. The challenges faced ebm article tagging

2020
by the early adopters do not come as Beginner
expecting the a surprise. “Operational management Level: Intermediate
mainstream by must be supported on the basis of real-
Professional
time data analysis. Due to the enor-
Early adopters have already gained some
experience. 75 teams were interviewed on mous volume of data and the efforts Product
recent experiences across all industries necessary to process that data effec- Subject: Service
tively and securely, this is indeed not a
Advice
simple task.”
Trading
New skills Company Status: Start-Up
The technological challenges and the
Potential
culture shift needed to obtain real bene-
fits from IoT demand new skills. Surpris- Production
ingly, the respondents did not rank the
Advice: Technology
skills of internal data scientists among
Regulatory
the top five things that are useful for the
implementation of IoT applications. Most
Theoretical
of them mentioned collaboration with
Approach: Practical
external consultants (15%), with pro-
Mixed
cess automation in second place (13%).

Website:
“Many managers realize that develop-
www.sas.com
ing internal skills takes time and that
29% 25% the IoT development cannot be put off
until businesses are ready for it inter-
nally. However, it is important to devote
r New product or Improve resource
service design management attention to long-term strategy in order
to define a stance for outsourcing of The Author
expertise versus developing internal
SING THE SKILLS GAP Mathias Coopmans is Principal
staff,” emphasizes Coopmans.
Business Solution Manager at SAS
in the South-West Europe region.
Survey and report
At SAS he works with customers
SAS conducted the survey “Internet of
and partners throughout the
Things: Visualise the Impact” amongst
region on subjects such as Big
respondents from 75 companies in nine
Data architectures, integration and
industrial sectors, ranging from manu-
innovation management. Mathias
facturing to the public sector. This also
often speaks on seminars about the
shows the broad potential scope of IoT.
role and impact of data and analytics
The full survey report can be down-
Critical thinking / in our daily lives.
rytelling /data Interpreting Analysing loaded for free at [1], with the com-
w visualisation results data pragmatic data scientist
pliments of SAS and Elektor Business
He holds an engineering degree from
Magazine.
ook to learn more KU Leuven, Belgium, and a business
management degree from the Solvay
AS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA
016, SAS Institute Inc. All rights reserved. 1463549UK0916
Business School.
Web Link
[1] www.sas.com/gms/redirect.
jsp?detail=GMS40059_63337

terms. This is illustrated by the three

key challenges mentioned by the par-
ticipants: real-time data analysis (22%),
security (22%), and bringing about a
culture shift (20%).

“In order to fully exploit the potential

of IoT implementations, activities must
be organized differently and processes
must be restructured,” says Math-

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 31

 Come and visit us at embedded World Hall 4 / 4-628

WaWision:
how a homebrew ERP/CRM software and evolved into
a comprehensive project and production management
tool for electronic engineering and parts placement.
By Benedikt Sauter — Managing Director, embedded projects GmbH

From hardware production to the WaWision

ERP software system, our company has an
unconventional but fascinating story to tell.
Embedded projects was founded back in 2007 and
originally produced microcontroller boards sold
through its own online store. Sales were strong
along with rising administrative costs. The need for
ERP software tools quickly became obvious. The
search began for a Linux-based system that could be
operated using a browser. For Benedikt Sauter and
his team it was essential that the core technology
was not the property of any one supplier. At that
time there was just nothing available to the newly
formed Tech-Startup that met their requirements
precisely – necessity, they say is the mother of
invention so WaWision was born.

Where does the computer scientist start to build a system that

doesn’t exist yet? They begin with open-source resources to
develop a database, via a web server and the front end. The
database contains all the important information for efficient
company operation: products, stock levels, tenders, orders,
invoices, delivery notes, time recording and much more. The
WaWision ERP-System is so flexible, that customers and coop-
erating partners discovered it was just what they were look-
ing for themselves – by 2013 the demand for WaWision had
outstripped the company’s hardware sales.

The Open-Source Version for entry-level users

For large companies an ERP system is essential. All informa-
tion is administered in the central software – employees and
processes are linked. For smaller companies and startups the
Figure 1.
situation can be more chaotic: many find it difficult to keep
track of the store inventory, customer sales information and
correspondence. It is often the case that product batch track- different fronts with error-prone tools.
ing or serial number allocation is used with Word and Excel. That’s exactly the situation the WaWision team found them-
The result is that the team ends up working on a number of selves in right at the beginning. An open-source version of

32 Elektor Business Magazin 1/2017

WaWision is available to help small companies and startups
who find themselves in this situation. The free WaWision-Soft-
ware version for entry-level users gets you started with the
basic stuff: simple warehouse management, CRM, quotations,
orders, invoices and delivery notes. The key feature to keep
in mind is that you can always upgrade to a larger version
when necessary with a simple software download. Apart from
that the tool can be expanded and adapted as necessary from
modules in the app store.

Features and Strengths

• Web-based, programmable and customizable
The technology is based on the PHP and MySQL program-
ming languages. This means that the software is based
entirely on Open-Source web technology, you can link Figure 2.
to the software using a browser or web interface. A web
server and the database run on a server (which can also
be a computer). The environment is very streamline and
lightweight. (Figure 1)

• ERP / CRM Functions

Classic ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CRM (Cus-
tomer Relationship Management) functions provide reli-
able and comprehensive range of features for our custom-
ers. (Figure 2)

• Production and Materials management

Parts lists for prototypes and small to medium- sized produc-
tion runs can be simply managed. Purchase prices or compo- Figure 3.
nent shortfalls can be easily identified at a glance. This also
helps facilitate simple product outsourcing (Figure 3)

Benedikt Sauter called a halt to hardware production and steered his company
firmly onto the software path.

• Project planning and scheduling

WaWision also includes project management tools. It can
provide an overview of sub-projects and scheduled pro-
duction to support the project planning process and give
status information of product development. In addition,
times and materials are monitored to simplify cost calcula-
tions. (Figure 4)

• Connects to your label printer and other hardware

The adapter box hooks up your label printer and other
equipment to WaWision. (Figure 5) Figure 4.

Everything is Linked
With WaWision all information sharing a logical connection is
linked. For example employee working hours are used for both
staff planning and production assessment.

Contact the author: [email protected] Figure 5.

Embedded, Mikrocontroller und Tools 33

 A Fivefold Growth 100.00 Global Market Microcontrollers, 2014-2024
in Ten years
According to market research company Grand View
80.00
Research, the global market for microcontrollers will
grow fivefold within a timespan of ten years,
from roughly 18 billion US dollars in 2014
to 100 billion dollars in 2024. 60.00
(Source: Grand View Research)

40.00

20.00

HOMELAB STARTUP TRADE

0.00
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

IoT Devices Are Becoming More Popular ... as a Result MCUs Are Becoming Mor
by the Day … Popular as Well

According to the Ericsson Mobility Report 2016, the number of Internet of The penetration rate of microcontrollers in IoT applications will
Things (IoT) devices worldwide will increase by a compound annual growth the current decade. Given the fact that the market for IoT dev
rate of 23% between 2015 and 2021, accounting for almost 16 billion of significantly and even overtake the market of mobile phones as
the forecast 28 billion connected devices in 2021. At this rate of growth, IoT year, long-term prospects for the global MCU market are solid
devices will overtake mobile phones as the most prevalent type of connec- (Source: IHS)
ted device as early as 2018.
(Source: Ericsson/Gemalto)
There are forecast to be 28 bilion
connected devices worldwide by
2021

16.00

IoT devices will overtake mobile

phones as the largest category 12.00
of connected devices in
2018
8.00
The number of IoT devices in
Western Europe is projected to
quadruple between 2015 and 2021 4.00

0.00
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Almost 16 billion of
them will be IoT devices

IoT Applications
This will be driven by the spread of Non-IoT Applications
smart meters and connected cars,
as well as by consumers devices Penetration Rate

34 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

 Growth Rate Higher When Counting
Units Rather Than Money

Grand View Research estimates the worldwide market for microcontrollers to be 39,108 million
units in 2020, from 17,393 million units in 2013. This would result in an annual growth rate of
12.3%. Revenues, however, will only increase by 7.3% annually, from 16,697 million US dollar
in 2013 to 26,984 million dollar in 2020. This has to do with price erosion as a result of a very
competitive market. (Source: Grand View Research)

Market Volume Microcontrollers [units] Market Volume Microcontrollers [USD]

2022 2023 2024

2012 2014 2016 2018 2020

2012 2014 2016 2018 2020

North America
EMEA
Asia Pacific
ng More Latin America

cations will double during

for IoT devices will grow
e phones as early as next
Agreement on the Key Players
et are solid.
In a market analysis on microcontrollers dating back to 2014, Gartner is very pertinent:
the key players in microcontroller land are Infineon, Microchip, NXP, Renesas,
STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments. As far as Grand View Research is concerned,
its market analysis indicates that there is every reason to believe these six remain the major
players for years to come.
(Sources: Gartner 2014; Grand View Research end 2015/beginning 2016)

14%

12%

10%

8%

6%

4%

2%

0%
2018 2019

Embedded, Microcontrollers & tools 35

 Low-
Powe
Intel Apollo Lake
x86 r

Ideal for industrial system designs

By Christian Eder — Director Marketing, congatec

The new Intel Atom, Celeron and Pentium

processors, developed under the codename Apollo
Lake, support the extended temperature range and
offer real-time support – even over Ethernet. These
are key requirements for the Industrial IoT (IIoT)
and an important application area for particularly
robust boards and modules with long-term Figure 1: Features of the new Intel Atom, Celeron and Pentium processors
availability. at a glance.

The developers of systems for extreme environments had a

challenge with Braswell, Intel’s previous generation of low
power processors. Since these processors do not support
the extended temperature range from –40°C to +85°C,
their use is restricted to standard applications requiring an
industrial temperature range of 0°C to +70°C. This made
it impossible to develop new outdoor systems for operation
in snow and ice. Nor was it possible to develop vehicle sys-
tems since dashboards can quickly heat up to more than
60°C in the sun.

The Braswell processor generation also lacked ECC (Error

Correction Code) support. It therefore missed another fea-
ture that is important for many industrial applications requir-
ing single-failure tolerance for real time and high availabil-
ity. Developers of such applications had to skip the Braswell
processor generation and content themselves with Bay Trail
performance until they were able to enjoy these features
again after the new Intel Atom, Celeron and Pentium pro-
cessors of the Apollo Lake generation had been launched.
Unsurprisingly, interest in these new processors (Figure 1)
is high thanks to the leap forward in performance.

70% more computing performance

Compared to the Bay Trail processors, performance is up by an
impressive 70% and also exceeds that of the Braswell proces- Figure 2: congatec provides industrial Apollo Lake boards in the Mini-ITX
sors. Under Windows, the Intel Pentium N4200 processor, for and Pico-ITX form factor.

36 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

instance, offers about 30% more SYSmark 2014 performance • A power grid needs to react instantly each time a user or
compared to the N3710 [1]. Developers from all embedded energy source is switched on and off.
computer markets stand to benefit from significantly improved • Traffic networks need controlling in real time.
performance along with 15% performance-per-watt improve-
ments despite power requirements of only 6 to 12 watts. Consequently developers of industrial applications especially
welcome the native support of the Precision Time Protocol
More performance per watt is actually key for many new indus- (PTP) which allows the processor to synchronize with the I/
trial control applications. For instance, when existing system Os in order to be able to address them deterministically. For
designs need extended functionality for IoT or Industry 4.0 this purpose, a time stamp counter (TSC) and PCIe clock syn-
connectivity (Figure 2). This often requires more performance chronization are used, which also prevents cache collisions. In
for the integrated IoT gateway, for the hypervisor to separate addition, virtual channel functionality (Intel® VT) is supported
the real-time application, or for the integration of a consoli- for the entire CPU, including a memory arbiter QoS between
dated GUI/HMI system that is to be operated solely on thin CPU and virtual channel to allow virtualized systems to com-
clients. All of this requires new resources that — when power municate with each other. This means the real-time control
and thermal design constraints apply — can only be provided can synchronize in real time with an integrated IoT gateway,
by increasing the performance per watt. which in turn can synchronize with other gateways and/or
cloud or fog servers. Depending on the application, this can
Improved memory performance result in a true traffic boost, which underlines the importance
Memory performance is another essential starting point for of the need for more performance per watt and makes the
improving computing performance. What is new today is the 70% performance improvement one of the most important
support of the new LPDDR4 RAM, which at up to 2400 MT/s features — in addition to the fact that any application that
provides 30% more performance than LPDDR3 or DDR3L RAM benefits from graphics, profits even more from the new low-
which both work with a maximum of 1867 MT/s. The maximum power processor generation.
memory bandwidth of the new processors has been optimized
from 25.6 GB/s to 38.4 GB/s DDR4 RAM, an improvement of Graphics performance nearly tripled
50% compared to Braswell and 80% compared to Bay Trail. For 3D applications, the graphics performance increases up
The processors support up to 16 GB socketed SODIMM and up to a staggering 290%. This is almost triple of what the com-
to 8 GB soldered RAM. However, not all users can profit from parable Bay Trail processors offered. Compared to the low-
the full increase in memory performance in this segment since power Braswell processors, the performance increase is about
dual-channel ECC, the decisive feature for applications that 45%. The 3DMark Sky Diver graphics score benchmark was
offer single-failure tolerance for critical real-time applications, used to measure this increase from the Intel Pentium proces-
is only supported for DDR3L RAM implementations. But with sor N3710 to the N4200. On the technology side, the increase
Kaby Lake, they can still gain 17% more memory bandwidth is supported by the Intel® Gen 9 graphics engine which was
compared to Braswell, and 40% compared to Bay Trail. The installed for the first time in the low-power segment. Previously,
new low-power generation also targets exactly these applica- it had only been used in the Intel® Core™ processors. There
tion areas — even beyond system limits. are now up to 18 execution units available; before, Braswell
offered a maximum of 16, and Bay Trail only 4.
Integrated real-time communication
Many connected applications need to be able to communicate The new graphics support up to three 4 K displays with
in real time. Here are some examples: resolutions of up to 4,096 x 2,160 at 60 Hz. Earlier proces-
sor generations offered a lower resolution and only 1x 4K
• Several security cameras need exact frame support at 30 Hz. Further features include hardware-based
synchronisation. encoding and decoding of 4K videos in H.264 and VP8 for-
• An Industry 4.0 robot needs to align with the feeding mats, as well as decoding of the latest ultra-efficient but
conveyor. compute-intensive HEVC (H.265) which offloads the CPU
• Complex medical imaging signals from techniques such as significantly. The new processor generation also supports
MRT need image registration into exact 3D systems. HDCP 2.2 encryption and decryption of multiple streams for
• An autonomous vehicle needs to be able to react instantly copy-protected video playback.
to constantly changing ambient conditions.

Beginner Trading Theoretical

Level: Intermediate Company Status: Start-Up Approach: Practical
Professional Potential Mixed

Product Production Website:

Subject: Advice: Technology www.congatec.com
Service
Advice Regulatory
ebm article tagging

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 37

Embedded developers are using this high graphics performance Additionally, Windows activation — which is otherwise obligatory
to optimize their professional gaming, infotainment, digital — can now be switched off to enable booting in locked network
signage and kiosk systems, HMIs and GUIs, as well as many environments. Customers also benefit from integrated interop-
other professional systems that require outstanding graphics erability, adding value to IoT-typical heterogeneous device
with low energy consumption. environments. Next to embedded devices, these also include
smartphones, PCs and laptops, as well as edge, fog and cloud
Integrated vision system functionality servers. This makes the development of universal apps less
With camera technology finding its way into consumer elec- complex, while simplifying the integration of security functions
tronics for taking pictures, filming and video skyping, proces- and the management of IoT applications.
sors have also become advanced vision systems. The inte-
grated image processing capacities are perpetually increasing. Long-term availability on board
Today, the recording rate for 13 MP still images is 30 frames To meet the requirements of the various embedded markets,
per second (FPS), whereas in the past it was only 2.5 FPS. embedded board and module providers such as congatec offer
Videos are now recorded in 4 K 2 K at 30 FPS – compared to these processor families with a long-term availability of 7 years
1080 at 60 FPS in earlier processors. And HDR videos (High on industry-standard boards and modules [2]. Long-term avail-
Dynamic Range) are now being recorded at up to 1080p at ability of identical hardware is a particularly highly valued fea-
30 FPS, a remarkable improvement over previous genera- ture by OEM customers in this segment who on occasion have
tions that do not provide support for this feature. In addition, to ensure that their sector-specific product certifications remain
up to four MIPI cameras are now supported, not just three. valid for as long as possible. Identical hardware is also essen-
Processing speeds of up to 165 GFLOPS and four vector units tial in helping them standardize their on-site customer service.
(instead of two) increase the image processing capabilities to
performance levels that are an even better fit for intelligent Embedded features
camera technologies. We already mentioned some industrial Besides long-term availability, industrial boards and modules
vision-based applications for connected systems. Many more also have further features that distinguish them from standard
can be added, from quality control in industrial manufactur- office and consumer solutions [3]. Most significantly, their
ing to counting passers-by and the recognition of views and design is much more robust. For example, embedded PCBs
gender with digital signage systems.

Options for flexible expansion

As to be expected with x86, PCIe lanes continue to provide the
framework for enhancing the on-board functionality. Here, too,
the new processor generation offers more, providing support
for a total of 6 PCIe lanes instead of 4. Additionally, 5x USB
3.0; 2x USB 2.0; plus client capable USB 3.0 (USB Type C with
power supply) are now also integrated. New is the support of
4x HSUART and 3x SPI. In addition, the enhanced integrated
sensor hub (ISH 4) and the built-in dual audio DSP with up to
6 I2S ports provide an improved audio experience for users.
On the storage side, two SATA 3 interfaces are provided. A
new feature is eMMC 5.0 support; in comparison to the eMMC
4.0 interface, the read rate is doubled to up to 3.2 Gbit/s. As
a result, applications benefit from faster boot times and higher
data throughput.

Cutting old OS ties

In existing applications, one of the challenges developers may
face is the change of the operating system. This is because
the new Intel® Atom™, Celeron® and Pentium® processors
support only Windows 10 or Windows 10 IoT as well as Linux
(including Yocto), VxWorks and Android (Marshmallow). Win-
dows 7 and 8 are no longer supported and are therefore obso-
lete. Certain applications may need adapting to the new Win-
dows OS, yet this forms an important step in capitalizing on the
new benefits it provides. For example, Windows 10 IoT offers a
range of security technologies, such as Secure Boot, BitLocker,
Device Guard and Credential Guard, to ensure that devices
are comprehensively protected from power-on to power-off.
Windows 10 IoT also provides flexible and necessary functions
for any specific device environment, whether a single app is to Figure 3: Spoilt for choice: congatec offers a wide range of Computer-on-
be launched or access must be restricted for non-authorized Modules with options including COM Express Compact and Mini, Qseven
USB peripherals. as well as SMARC 2.0.

38 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

have more layers than conventional solutions, which optimizes on the board level. Comprehensive firmware and middleware
electromagnetic compatibility and emission. In addition, all support for IoT connectivity is required on top of rugged hard-
other integrated components such as controllers, voltage con- ware. Embedded boards and modules therefore often include
verters, ceramic capacitors and connectors have a higher ther- software packages that, for example, allow dynamic whitelist-
mal resistance. The power supply of the boards is also geared ing to prevent the execution of unauthorized code while also
towards industrial requirements and supports a wide input permitting policy-based updates.
voltage range from 12 to 24 VDC. As a result, the boards can
be connected to the industrial power grid without any need for The combination of reliable hardware and a software pack-
additional power supply units. age adapted to match everything from firmware to operat-
ing system, provides a “root of trust” for developers of IoT
Moreover, all embedded boards and modules from congatec applications. At Embedded World 2017, congatec will there-
come with a special board management controller (BMC) with fore launch a dedicated embedded IoT API that standardizes
non-volatile memory for usage data, manufacturer and board the IoT interface to the embedded hardware while at the
information, BIOS setup, data backup, and multi-stage watch- same time making it transparent, open and secure for OEM
dog. Individual applications or the entire system can be auto- designs. Open standards such as TPM modules round off the
matically restarted in the event of a program crash, which security package.
ensures autonomous continuous operation. While the industry
increasingly uses USB, other interfaces such as serial inter- Boards with SIM sockets
faces or LVDS for connecting simple LCD panels continue to be Consequently, software services provided by the embedded
in demand. Depending on the form factor, embedded boards hardware manufacturers go much further than what standard
also support other market-specific I/Os, such as the ccTalk board manufacturers, for instance of Mini-ITX boards for the
interface and SPI, which are required in many gaming and office and consumer market, will ever be able to offer. Appli-
vending applications. cation-specific software support has always been the domain
of embedded manufacturers. This will not change with the
Enhanced software support IoT. But even some onboard features differ from the commer-
Increasingly, applications demand boards and systems to be cial market. The conga-IA5 [4], for example, comes with an
supplied with much more industrial software support than pro- integrated SIM card socket providing comprehensive support
cessor manufacturers are able to offer and has been customary for applications that require IoT connectivity via cellular net-

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Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 39

works. This is a feature you’ll be looking for in vain in the com- Modules with wireless interfaces
mercial segment. The necessary software support is already Nowadays, even Computer-on-Modules designed as embedded
integrated and the upcoming API will also transparently and cores for developers to implement their dedicated interfaces
securely control how to address the board remotely or how to on a carrier board support wireless standards and therefore
push services from the board to the cloud. It does not mat- offer a solid value-add. congatec’s first SMARC 2.0 [5] module,
ter which particular cloud the OEM wants to use, because all the conga-SA5 [6] based on the Intel® Pentium® processor,
popular clouds will be supported (Figure 4). for example includes WiFi, Bluetooth LE and NFC interface
options, which are implemented directly on the module. This
facilitates the development of applications where decentralized
wireless sensors, actuators and other devices require a local
IoT gateway [7] along with the necessary wireless support.
The WAN interface towards the cloud can then be integrated
on the carrier board.

Web Links
[1] https://newsroom.intel.com/newsroom/wp-content/
uploads/sites/11/2016/10/atom-e3900-fact-sheet.pdf
[2] All Apollo Lake products in one video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmUPInZmY9E
[3] Special features of industrial motherboards:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbAIZD2cYvk
[4] conga-IA5 in detail: http://www.congatec.com/en/
products/mini-itx-single-board-computer/conga-ia5.html
[5] More information about the new SMARC 2.0 specification:
http://www.congatec.com/en/technologies/smarc.html
[6] conga-SA5 in detail: http://www.congatec.com/en/
products/smarc/conga-sa5.html

Figure 4: For developers, the congatec IoT gateway represents a highly [7] More information about the congatec IoT gateway:
flexible Apollo Lake platform with up to 8 external antennas and 6 sockets http://www.congatec.com/en/products/iot-gateway/
for modules. conga-iot.html

The Author

Christian Eder is Director Marketing at congatec. He has

more than 20 years’ experience in the embedded computer
industry. He puts his experience to use as an editor of the
upcoming PICMG COM Express 3.0 specification as well as
the SGET’s new SMARC and Qseven specifications.

Figure 5: In IoT applications, four aspects need taking into account:

Reliability, connectivity, manageability and security. Next to the
hardware, the software plays a key role. Embedded hardware suppliers
who offer dedicated IoT APIs, such as congatec, provide the decisive
technological basis for this.

40 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

Student Day free bus travel to the
@ embedded world 2017: venue; free entry to
The Internet of Uncanny Things the trade fair; pre-
sentation of embedded
To learn from genuine industry experts sector and embedded world
and make contact with the biggest and exhibition & conference by Professor
most important companies from the Matthias Sturm; exclusive keynote by
embedded sector – these are the goals Sascha Wolter; complimentary light
of the 1,000+ students from all over lunch; presentations by selected com-
Europe who are expected to attend the panies in the lecture room foyer; exhi-
STUDENT DAY hosted by the embed- they know more and more about us and bition guide with floor plans and details
ded world exhibition & conference our intentions. But what does this mean of the sponsors of the STUDENT DAY.
on 16 March 2017. Not only does for developers and in what ways does
the event, which is being held for the it affect the user? How can we foster Sascha Wolter is an expert in the development
and implementation of cross-device applications
eighth time, offer students the oppor- the understanding and expertise neces- for the Internet of Things. Since 1995 he
tunity to make contact with potential sary for the Internet of Things?” asks has been working as a consultant, lecturer,
employers, it also features an exclu- Wolter. His presentation explores the typ- keynote speaker and author, with a focus
on understanding, innovation and value.
sive keynote speech by Sascha Wolter, ical challenges of the Internet of Things He founded the user group flashforum.de,
Senior Manager Connected Home at and inspires with wacky and at times which has more than 100,000 members,
Deutsche Telekom AG. uncanny examples. He will also present and from 2001 to 2011 organised numerous
internationally prestigious conference series
the prototype of an ideational hardware like “beyond tellerrand”. He is currently a board
The title of the keynote is ‘My Mine- and software based on visual program- member of BITKOM’s expert panel Usability
craft-Smart-Home: Prototyping the ming languages, games like Minecraft & User Experience and is Senior Manager
Connected Home at Deutsche Telekom AG. He
Internet of Uncanny Things’. “Soft- and several IDEs live on stage. also lectures at various universities.
ware solutions and everyday objects
are becoming increasingly smarter, STUDENT DAY @ embedded world
taking on more responsibility, and 2017 = 16 March 2017, from 9:00 am;

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Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 41

Industrial Automation Systems
are getting smaller, yet require more performance
and lower energy consumption
By Will Cooper, Product Marketing
Engineer, MSP MCUs, Tektronix

Figure 1: A typical industrial sensing system.

The complexity of the modern factory has brought intense demand for precision and efficiency in the
machines, control systems and communications required for it to operate. The cost of error has driven
more and more factories to automate as many of their processes as possible. With this push towards
automation, microcontrollers (MCUs) play a key role — particularly in sensor communication networks,
and equipment monitoring.

Consider sensors and transmitters The challenges specifications of the loop.

throughout a factory – a typical sen- Factory automation and process con- While working to minimize energy con-
sor system will consist of the sen- trol in industrial systems bring unique sumption, these developers are often
sor element, a control block for pro- sets of requirements and challenges for faced with a need to capture above
cessing sensor data and a com- engineers: 16-bit resolution on sensor readings so
munications interface (Figure 1). that the system can distinguish between
The microcontroller in this system is • achieve more performance on a small changes in the environment and
often responsible for amplifying and reduced power budget; make the desired decisions. They also
reading the value from the sensor ele- • collect more precise sensor data to require high-performance analog for
ment. This data is then processed and make better decisions; communicating on current loops. All of
used to either take an immediate action, • operate in increasingly harsh this is amplified by the need to operate
such as turning on a cooling system as environments; at higher temperatures in cases such as
temperature rises, or is transmitted back • fit the entire design in a space-con- those where sensors are located next to
to a central node for overall system moni- strained location. large motors. Finally the entire sensor
toring. This communication handled on node must fit within the communication
the MCU can take several forms. It could From a power perspective, developers are wires connecting different parts of the
involve wired protocols such as IO-Link or often constrained by the energy avail- overall automation system. These chal-
4–20mA current loops, or could leverage able, whether that energy comes from a lenges are real, but the need to sup-
a wireless transceiver to pass informa- battery, where replacement could mean port multiple protocols such as IO-Link,
tion throughout a factory. Even a basic high labor costs across thousands of sen- 4–20mA and HART® creates software
system such as this presents challenges sor nodes, or operating from a current complexity as well (Figure 2). The MSP
that must be addressed by microcon- loop, where each node must consume MCU portfolio offers chipsets to meet any
trollers in the system. under 3 mA of current to meet the overall and all of these challenges.

42 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

Addressing the challenges of to be integrated in the microcontroller
industrial automation systems (MCUs usually have serial communica- ebm article tagging
tion ports including SPI, I2C or UART for Beginner
1. Low power + performance communication to external interfaces), Level: Intermediate
There are prominent and recurring chal- but doing so can simplify development
Professional
lenges across all market sectors that are and help to reduce overall system power
just as prevalent in factory automation. consumption and size. The MSP MCU Product
At the forefront are the needs for a sys- portfolio contains chipsets with a high
Subject: Service
tem to reduce power consumption. In degree of on-chip analog integration,
Advice
our basic system, temperature sensors perfect for quick and easy implementa-
may be wireless and require batteries tion of factory automation applications. Trading
that last as long as possible (in some Many MSP MCUs contain 10-, 12-, and
Company Status: Start-Up
cases, over 20 years). In addition, when 14-bit ADCs and DACs, operational ampli-
Potential
a factory uses a 4–20mA current loop for fiers and comparators. In particular, the
communication, there is a typical max MSP430i2x MCU family features four Production
current budget of less than 3.5mA on on-chip 24-bit Sigma-Delta ADCs. Spe-
Advice: Technology
the loop. With such limited current, the cialized peripherals are also available.
Regulatory
MCU needs to consume as little energy The extended scan interface, available in
as possible. MSP microcontrollers con- the FRAM MCU series, is an analog front
Theoretical
tinue to lead the industry in power-opti- end that enables flow measurements that
Approach: Practical
mized applications. The key to achieving consume less than 9 nA per sample in a
the lowest power consumption is recog- two-sensor system using induction, mag- Mixed
nizing that power is more than one netic or optical sensors.
Website:
number. Some systems require the low- Using FRAM-based microcontrollers in a
www.ti.com
est standby current consumption, oth- system can improve system efficiency in
ers require higher performance with low other ways as well.
active current consumption, and many FRAM offers a unified location to store
require a combination. application and data with the flexibility writes that do not require buffering or
Beyond the basics, there is a need to to adjust the allocated proportions as pre-erase means that wireless transmis-
reduce energy consumption required to development needs change. sions can be shorter. This is critical to
read and store sensor data as well as to What’s more, on-the-fly, bit-level data battery-powered systems, where wire-
optimize application software.
TI’s ultra-low-power MSP MCUs with Fer-
roelectric Random Access Memory Protocol Description
(FRAM) are perfect for applications that 4-20 mA Current Loop All components communicate on a single loop, using current
spend the majority of time in standby to represent a value (like water level) – 4 mA represents
or need to log data. They consume as min. value (0 meters), 20 mA represents max value
little as 350 nA of current with the real- (100 meters), 0 mA represents system failure.
time clock enabled and are able to write HART Superimposes a small AC signal over the existing DC signal
13 KB of data to nonvolatile storage in in a 4–20mA loop, and provides a “smart” digital interface,
milliseconds, not seconds. enables additional information (i.e., beyond just water level)
They even provide more computational to be transmitted, and allows for two-way communication in
performance with optimized math librar- the system.
ies that can be leveraged in combina-
IO-Link Point-to-point digital serial communication ideal for
tion with the 100 µA/MHz active mode
communicating with sensors and/or actuators. Allows two-
current for efficient operation. If 32-bit
way exchange of process data, service data and events.
performance is needed, the MSP432™
MCU series offers up to 48-MHz operat-
Figure 2: Some of the common communication protocols with a brief description.
ing frequency and an ARM® Cortex®-
M4F core that still delivers best-in-class
active-mode current consumption of
90 µA/MHz.
Moreover, unique optimization utilities
including EnergyTrace™ technology
are available to deliver unmatched real-
time power profiling for MSP MCUs.

2. Making smarter designs

Once power concerns are addressed, sys-
tem integration becomes a key priority. Figure 3: Field transmitter featuring Figure 4: Current loop TI Design using the
High performance analog does not need HART® communications. MSP430FR5738 MCU.

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 43

 TI Design Reference # Application Details Featured MCU
Data isolation for loop-powered TIDA-00245 Communications 4–20mA MSP430FR5969
applications
NFC logger with FRAM TIDA-00230 Communications and NFC MSP430FR5969
datalogging
Low-power micro-stepper motor driver TIDM-LPSM Motor control CTPL utility MSP430FR5969
using FRAM MCU
Thermocouple AFE with RTD CJC TIDA-00168 Sensors RTD MSP430FR5949
Inductive proximity BoosterPack TIDA-00460 Sensors Proximity MSP430F5528
(LDC1101)
Turnkey IO-Link sensor transmitter TIDA-00188 Sensors & RTD & IO-Link MSP430FR5738
communication
RTD temperature transmitter current TIDA-00095 Sensors & RTD & 4–20mA MSP430G2513
loop systems communication
Isolated thermocouple transmitter TIDA-00189 Sensors & RTD & 4–20mA MSP430F5172
4–20mA communication
Small form factor RTD sensor, 4–20mA TIDA-00165 Sensors & RTD & 4–20mA MSP430FR5738
communication
Single-chip temperature transmitter TIDA-00247 Sensors & RTD & 4–20mA MSP430F2274
communication
Hall-based proximity switch sensor with TIDA-00244 Sensors & Proximity & MSP430FR5738
SIO interface communication SIO
Linear Hall-based proximity sensor with TIDA-00286 Sensors & Proximity/ MSP430FR5738
SIO interface communication Temp &
IO-Link
Proximity and temperature multi-variable TIDA-00341 Sensors & Proximity & MSP430FR5738
sensor IO-Link communication IO-Lin
Hall-Effect proximity sensor with IO-Link TIDA-00340 Sensors & Any sensor w/ MSP430FR5738
communication SPI & IO-Link
IO-Link device with SPI sensor interface TIDA-00339 Sensors & RTD & HART N/A
communication
HART field transmitter for RTD TIDM- Sensors & RTD & HART MSP430FR5969
temperature HRTTRANSMITTER communication
Water meter reference design for two LC TIDM-LC-WATERMTR Flow metering LC sensors MSP430FR6989
sensors
Water meter reference design for optical TIDMOPTICALWATERMTR Flow metering Optical sensors MSP430FR6989
sensors
Water meter reference design for GMR TIDM-GMR-WATERMTR Flow metering GMR sensors MSP430FR6989
sensors
Ultrasonic flow meter design TIDM- Flow metering Ultrasonic MSP430FR6989
ULTRASONICFLOW- sensors
TDC
Intelligent system state restoration after TIDM-FRAM-CTPL Control systems N/A MSP430FR6989
power failure

Figure 5: TI Designs for factory automation and control applications.

less communication often consumes the to restore system state after power fail- and run communication protocols.
most energy in the system (Figure 3). ure with two lines of code and no backup
This also means that over-the-air updates power source required. 3. High operating temperature
will consume less power and be simpler These features all come together on MSP High temperatures are common in many
to handle in software. Finally, if power MCUs to create system-on-chip solutions aspects of a factory’s production line.
does fail, the Compute Through Power that can handle analog sensor inputs, Sensor nodes are often placed close to
Loss FRAM utility enables your system output directly on 4–20mA current loops processes that generate a lot of heat and

44 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

need to withstand high temperatures. data and transmit that data to a central designs are geared toward industrial
One example is a sensor node used for hub. In cases, where that equipment runs communication solutions for various
equipment monitoring. Rather than use a hot, the MSP MCU portfolio offers wide protocols or sensing solutions of vari-
handheld meter to ensure motors in a fac- operating temperature ranges across Flash ous types.
tory are operating correctly, remote sensor and FRAM products. The MSP430F2xx MCU
nodes can run calculations on vibration family in particular, contains MCUs that View a summarized list of designs in
operate at temperatures up to 105 °C, Figure 5.
125 °C and even 150 °C.
Conclusion
4. Small package size The system we used to demonstrate the
When package size is the primary con- ability of MSP MCUs to meet the preva-
cern, MSP MCUs deliver a wide range of lent challenges in factory automation is
options as well. The portfolio includes a very simple example.
many chips in a 4-mm × 4-mm config- Especially with the latest trends toward
uration. But in some factory automa- full automation in factories, systems
tion applications this may not be small that require MCUs are growing larger
enough. In our system, some sensor and more complex. As they grow, they
nodes may need to be as thin as the demand more and more from micro-
communication wires on which they controllers. Texas Instruments’ MSP
The Author
communicate. The MSP430FRx FRAM MCU portfolio offers ultralow-power
William Cooper manages marketing, MCU series includes a packaged device and high-performance options that can
applications and systems teams in as small as 2 mm × 2 mm to accom- meet the application demands of lower
the Integrated Power Management modate these types of communication power, increased performance and inte-
organization at TI. and control applications. Combined gration, higher operating temperatures
He previously focused on with analog integration and the ability and smaller system size.
the strategic development to take over the functionality of exter-
and positioning of MSP430™ nal EEPROM with FRAM, MSP MCUs can Beyond having the right MCU to meet
microcontrollers with ferroelectric offer the perfect fit for small form-factor any of these needs, TI also offers tools
random access memory (FRAM). designs (Figure 4). and solutions to simplify implementa-
He joined Texas Instruments in tion for developers. To find resources
2012, rotating through the technical Full solutions for a particular application, head over
sales associate rotational program. TI offers many resources for using MSP to [1].
William has bachelor’s and master’s MCUs in industrial automation envi-
degrees in electrical engineering, ronments. There are many TI Design
as well as a master’s degree in reference designs available that offer Web Link
management, from the University of holistic and detailed solutions, many of
[1] ti.com/lsds/ti/microcontrollers 16-
Florida. which would help implement the sys-
bit 32-bit/msp/applications.page
tems described earlier. In fact, many

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Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 45

Cut Development Time
and Improve Flexibility
With LPCXpert
By Peter Furtner — NXP

In the age of Internet-of-Things (IoT) and networked systems, more and more new designs rely on
microcontrollers. In most applications controllers will take care of communications between the sensors and
the network or will control complex systems. One of the first tasks of the hardware designer is to choose a
suitable microcontroller for the specific application and evaluate its architecture before work can begin on the
rest of the system hardware.

In the meantime sufficiently powerful development tools have showing all the controllers suitable for the application. Once a
been produced that support the developer in this task. Manu- particular controller has been chosen it can be configured for
facturers of microcontrollers have produced tables or better the application using a further configuration menu.
still web sites which the developer can use to choose a specific
microcontroller based on the application requirements. These I/Os and Interfaces
tools allow you to select the size of flash or SRAM memory and The majority of modern microcontroller designs have an
the type and number of I/Os and serial interfaces such as USB, architecture which supports more I/Os than they have physi-
CAN, UART, SPI or I2C. The selections are usually made using a cal pins available on the package. This feature makes the con-
series of drop-down lists. Once all these parameters are ente- troller more versatile and increases the range of applications
red you end up with a list of one or more microcontrollers in it can be used for because the interfaces for an application
the manufacturer’s product line that will be good for the job. can be configured in software, possibly even during program
LPCxpert supports this CPU selection process using a desk-top execution. Integrated multiplexers can assign signals from the
application with a graphics interface (Figure 1). internal logic to available pins on the package. With some chips
it’s possible to assign up to 80 different internal signals to just
A variety of buttons allow you to select the number and type one pin. This degree of flexibility can make it difficult for the
of available I/O interfaces to be configured and the required developer and also for the choice and configuration of a con-
size of FLASH and/or SRAM. The result is a drop down list troller where signals from different interfaces can sometimes

46 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

be in conflict because of their pin assignments. Demo Applications
The latest family of LPC5460x MCUs from NXP for example, The newer controllers from the LPC800 and LPC54000 family are
can support up to ten USART, SPI or I2C interfaces. In addi- also supported in LPCxpert with a menu for selecting example
tion there are two USB and CAN Interfaces, an LCD, an SD/ demo applications. There are several different demo applica-
MMC interface an SDRAM interface plus a variety of TIMER and tions available exercising all the different interfaces available
COUNTER interfaces. For these LPC5460x chips there are pins on the controller. These can be used for further hardware and
that can have up to eight digital signals or an analog (ADC) software tests. A click on the (?) button will open a window in
signal assigned to them. All these functions are integrated into the display describing how the demo application works. The
a 208 or 180-pin package and will, naturally not all be availa-
ble to use simultaneously. With this variety of options it can
sometimes be difficult to find an appropriate pin assignment
for the required I/O signals.

For controllers belonging to the ‘low cost’ LPC800 family of

devices it’s possible to configure any of the almost 80 internal
digital signals to any pin. While this makes the controller more
flexible in the system design it is also necessary to have tools
that support these configuration options in order to simplify
the design process for the developer.

And now to configure…

LPCXpert includes a software tool which makes it very easy to
configure the pin-multiplexer logic for these controllers. Using
a clear graphic interface the I/O signals of the individual inter-
faces can be assigned to available pins or configured as unused
(-n/a-), in this case it just identifies that the pin is not used for
this interface and is therefore available for use by other func-
tions. This configuration makes easy to spot any I/O interface
signals which may be mutually exclusive because of their pin
assignments (Figure 2). Figure 1: LPCxpert Microcontroller selection menu.

LPCxpert not only supports configuration of the pin multiplexers

but also the control registers for the various clock sources and
PLLs available in the controller. The PLLs take the input fre-
quency which is generally in the order of a few MHz and mul-
tiplies it up to clock the processor at more than 100 MHz. For
some of the controllers the configuration parameters required to
initialize the PLL are calculated using some complex algorithms
which can be selected from a menu in LPCXpert (Figure 3).
LPCexpert offers the option to configure the I/O interface control
registers for controllers in the LPC800 and LPC54000 families.
Using the corresponding menu options its possible define the
serial interface data bit rate, configure the interrupts and DMA.
All the members of the LPC family of controllers have configu-
rable pin drivers. This allows you to choose the pin properties
i.e. select either pull-up or pull-down resistor, input glitch fil-
ter or slew rate and drive capability etc. Figure 4 shows the
menu page in LPCXpert giving the options.

Figure 2: UART configuration menu.

Beginner Trading Theoretical

Level: Intermediate Company Status: Start-Up Approach: Practical
Professional Potential Mixed

Product Production Website:

Subject: Advice: Technology www.lpcxpert.com
Service
Advice Regulatory
ebm article tagging

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 47

 description also includes recommendations on how the I/Os
should be configured for this application. The code for the
selected demo application is implemented in the main program
when ‘Generate Project’ is selected (Figure 5).
The demo application examples have all been tested on the cor-
responding LPCxpresso evaluation boards but can also be used
on another application-specific board with a few minor modi-
fications. Generally it will only be necessary to use different
pins to the ones used by the evaluation board and adjust the
clock rate. LPCExpert will automatically produce new header-
files at code generation which will then be updated accordingly.

Finished Board configuration

To make it easier to evaluate a specific controller on the LPCx-
presso board supplied by NXP, LPCxpert supports pre-con-
figured board configurations via the ‘Load Config’ option in
the menu. Here it is possible to select configurations for the
Figure 3: Menu to configure the CGU. LPC812, LPC824, LPC54102 and the LPC54114 or the LPC54608
evaluation boards. In these configurations only the CPU clock
generator (CGU), the signals for the DEBUG and the GPIO inter-
faces are assigned. The GPIO interface routes the connections
to the pins where the Light-emitting diodes and pushbuttons
for example, are hard-wired. These pre-configured pins cor-
respond to the pin assignments on the evaluation board. Any
pins not pre-defined can be configured to any of the other I/O
interfaces for carrying out further controller evaluation.

Once the controller has been configured and a demo application

selected, LPCxpert will generate a project. Options include a
project for KEIL µVision, IAR EWARM, non-specific C projects
or a project for NXP’s own LPCxpresso IDE. During the project
generation process LPCxpert creates the various configuration
files, the demo C program and provides the drivers required
in the project. LPCxpert also generates the necessary C code
file to initialize the controller’s multiplex register. The finished
project is now available in the selected directory (Figure 6)
and can be loaded, compiled and run using the desired IDE.
Figure 4: Menu to configure the pin drivers.
LPCxpert not only generates the code necessary to initialize the
CORTEX-M based LPC microcontrollers from NXP but can also
create the corresponding schematic symbol used by schematic
PCB-layout tools such as CadSoft EAGLE and Altium Designer
from ALTIUM Ltd.

The wide range of configuration possibilities makes it difficult

for the controller manufacturer to provide a valid schematic
symbol for the device that can be used by the various schematic
tools. Manufacturers often provide graphical IDE tools which
allow the software developer to configure the pin-multiplexer
registers and generate corresponding initialization software.
In contrast the hardware designer is often on their own when
it comes to producing the circuit symbol to represent the con-
figured controller.

LPCXpert provides support for the designer here also; The con-
troller pin out definitions are already defined during configura-
tion and can therefore be used to generate a circuit diagram
symbol by pressing the ‘Generate Symbol’ button. The symbol
is compatible with EAGLE or Altium Designer PCB design
software. Alternatively the pin assignments can be output as a
Figure 5: Menu to select a demo application. text file or an Excel file. This reduces the time taken to create

48 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

schematic symbols to just a few minutes whereas before it
would typically take hours. LPCXpert also helps reduce the
possibilities of any errors being introduced through incorrect The Author
pin assignment and omission of pins or signals. Peter Furtner has been working for NXP since March
2014 where he was a product specialist for the LPC
To ensure maximum flexibility and independence with regard microcontrollers. He was responsible for clients throughout
to future versions of the various schematic tools, all the sche- Europe. Since the merger with FREESCALE he has been
matic symbols are generated in a partial XML-based text for- working as an application engineer for the LPC and KINETIS
mat. Now, for the first time an external tool supports a feature microcontroller Portfolio from NXP. More recently he has
used by many schematic tools. been developing the LPCxpert tool supporting the LPC
range of products.
To sum up
LPCxpert has many versatile functions to support all the diffe-
rent phases of project development. The simple menu makes it
easy to choose a CPU best suited to the application. Clear win-
dows in the LPCxpert IDE make it easy to configure the Signal-
Multiplexer, define the pin function and CPU pin outs according
to the target system. Example software routines can be used
to evaluate the suitability of a chosen microcontroller for an
application. The code created using LPCxpert can not only be
used to evaluate the controller but also to test the target sys-
tem. The intuitive graphical user interface makes it simple to
configure the Evaluation system’s pin-out to match the target
system to recreate the configuration. This allows you to port
functioning software to a new target system and test it with
just a few clicks of the mouse. LPCxpert can really help to cut
down system development time and boost the development
engineer’s productivity. [Advertisement]

LPCXpert and its functions supports more than 450 different

controllers, and approximately 20 different package outlines
for the CORTEX-M based LPC Families from NXP.

Figure 6: Building a project with LPCxpresso.

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 49

The Business Case for
Commercial Embedded Linux

By Michel Genard, Wind River (an Intel Compagny)

Linux has been a phenomenon in embedded device development.

It is now the predominant platform for devices, and for good
reason — it offers performance, features, and a thriving
ecosystem to support advanced embedded devices. An
obvious part of the appeal is the perception that Linux is free.
It certainly is free to download and use, and doesn’t have any
royalty-bearing fees per se. But there are costs — plus
time and risk — associated with Linux development.
There is a solid business case for considering a
commercially supported Linux during the build-versus-
buy decision process for any embedded product.

distribution already packaged and ready for production use.

to go. Companies adopting Linux must Wind River is a founding member and
When considering Linux understand that they are taking on the has been a very active leading contribu-
for a device, it’s important to maintenance and support of a custom tor to the Yocto Project, and continues
take the long-term view. Embedded Linux distribution, which requires exper- to be a strong supporter of the initiative.
devices are often in production and in tise and staff. Encouraging and building on standards
service for many years, sometimes deca- makes embedded Linux stronger in the
des. In the long run, commercial offe- Yocto Project to the rescue. The very long run. Wind River Linux is based on
rings that provide a proven embedded nature of embedded Linux created the the Yocto Project and has the fastest
Linux with support and maintenance are need for tools to build and assemble all release cadence in the market.
cheaper than maintaining a roll-your-own of the components of a platform. In fact, Although the Yocto Project solves one
(RYO) Linux solution in-house. Wind River® did so for its Linux distri- of the key issues with RYO embedded
bution as well. But with no standardi- Linux, it doesn’t diminish the value of a
Your own distribution (whether you zation, each vendor and user made its commercially supported and maintained
like it or not). Newcomers to embedded platform its own way. The Yocto Project solution. It’s important to consider the
Linux often don’t understand that every (www.yoctoproject.org) was created to real costs of “free” Linux.
RYO Linux platform done in-house is a standardize the platform for embedded
unique and custom Linux distribution. Linux, thereby greatly increasing inter- The true cost of “free” Linux. There
Embedded Linux requires compiling and operability and creating an ecosystem of are many hidden and unknown costs
linking on a host system for download to hardware and software vendors around when adopting embedded Linux, in
a target host. The creation of all of the a common set of standards and tools. particular for first-time projects. New-
right puzzle pieces to make the OS run The ecosystem also provides support and comers are daunted by the sheer size
on your embedded target is effectively expertise toward emerging standards of the Linux code base and associated
your own in-house distribution of Linux. such as those being created today for compiler, libraries, and platform build
For this reason, embedded Linux is dif- the Internet of Things. The Yocto Project systems. Table 1 illustrates the code
ferent from desktop and server Linux, is freely available and provides a stan- base and estimated development effort
where one typically uses a well-known dardized embedded Linux build system (figures taken from www.openhub.net).

50 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

 based on our experience, the investment
The fact that Linux leverages over 8,000 is considerable. The kind of investment ebm article tagging
person-years of development is part of required for a Linux-based operating sys- Beginner
the appeal for embedded development. tem that would be suitable for a device Level: Intermediate
However, Linux is large, complicated, used in telecommunications, for instance,
Professional
and mostly unknown to your develop- is shown in Table 2.
ment team. It takes time to learn how to Product
use, build, and run Linux on an embed- The screenshot in Figure 1 of our tele- Subject: Service
ded platform. It also takes time and communications device example is deri-
Advice
effort to continue to maintain Linux — ved from the Wind River Linux TCO calcu-
and you must provide support, patches, lator found at [1]. Most Wind River Linux Trading
and security vulnerability management customers who used to roll their own
Company Status: Start-Up
for Linux and your application code. As Linux solutions see an average of 90%
Potential
stated above, each embedded Linux is a savings by switching. This data illustrates
unique distribution and comes with the that providing the equivalent of commer- Production
associated costs and risks. cial quality and support for RYO Linux is
Advice: Technology
very expensive. Note that support over
Regulatory
It’s difficult to predict the cost of adop- time could actually become more expen-
ting Linux for development teams, but sive as community support wanes.
Theoretical
Approach: Practical
Component Code Base Estimated Effort (Person-Years) Mixed
(Lines of Code)
Website:
Yocto Project ~283,500 ~72
www.windriver.com
OpenEmbedded Core ~2,150,000 ~625
YearBitBake ~72,000 ~17
GNU Compiler Collection ~7,000,000 ~2,100
Linux may be free to download, but it is
Linux kernel ~17,400,000 ~5,600
not free in the medium to long term—
GNU C library ~1,210,000 ~340 and embedded systems are long-term
Totals ~28,000,000 ~8,000 products; consideration of the costs in
terms of product lifespans is important.
Table 1: Code base size and estimated development effort for Linux and associated projects. Commercial Linux is a high-quality pro-
duct that has gone through rigorous tes-
ting and intellectual property inspection
Activity Costs
and is maintained and supported for the
Initial release (porting, testing, hardening, $600K long term.
quality assurance)
Year 1 maintenance $250K The Return on Investment from com-
Year 2 maintenance and onward $500K/year mercial embedded Linux. The grea-
Five (5) year total costs for RYO Linux ~$3M test benefits of commercial Linux come
from the medium and long term. Depen-
ding on the development team’s level
Table 2: Estimated development costs of RYO Linux over time
of expertise, the advantage of a com-
mercially supported product may come
sooner rather than later. However, let’s
assume that the initial investment in time
and money for Linux is zero or “free.”
Looking at a theoretical investment curve
(investment in dollars per three-month
period) in Figure 2, we can see that RYO
Linux (roll youir own) quickly becomes
more expensive and continues to grow
over time.
This graph is representative and does
not use absolute figures. The commercial
Linux investment is usually an upfront
fee with an ongoing maintenance and
support fee over time. RYO Linux gives
the perception of no or very low costs
Figure 1: Sample calculation from the Wind River Linux TCO Calculator. upfront, but those costs quickly grow

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 51

over time. The labor costs for RYO ries comprise a huge code base. Embed- complying with the license requirements.
Linux accumulate significantly faster in ded device manufacturers must realize For example, providing free access to
the long term, even when factoring in that although Linux is free to use, it is the source code for the open source por-
diminishing resources committed to the not without licensing implications. Not tions of your product, including any tools
platform. all open source licenses are the same, that might ship with the product. Often
but many have redistribution clauses there are clauses in the licenses about
Another way to look at this is to consider that place requirements on companies derivative works that can include kernel
the return on investment: For every dol- building devices. Unlike using Linux on modules, modification of existing code
lar spent on commercial Linux, how much a desktop or server, shipping a product in Linux, libraries or tools, statically lin-
does it pay back? Figure 3 shows that with Linux is redistribution, which opens king to open source libraries, and other
the initial investment is quickly recovered you up to more licensing requirements. stipulations. It’s critical that embedded
and that overall, there is a positive and device manufacturers catalog the licenses
significant return on investment for using Embedding Linux is redistribution. of the software they are using, under-
commercial Linux in the medium term. Creating your device with a Linux run- stand the level of risk associated with
There are more than labor costs to con- time system as part of its software is the license, and are prepared to fulfill
sider with RYO Linux; it’s also important equivalent to distribution under many of the obligations associated with each of
to understand the implications of using the open source licenses used in Linux, the licenses. Unfortunately, many com-
Linux in embedded systems and the risks including the GNU Public License (GPL). panies don’t treat this aspect of Linux
associated with open source licensing, IP There are on the order of 20 million lines seriously and open themselves up to
and export compliance, security compli- of code for Linux and associated open needless liability.
ance, and so forth. source tools — a large code base with a
multitude of licenses. Reducing open source risk with
Commercial intellectual license management. Managing the
property review and disclosure With (re)distribution comes the respon- licenses of all of the software you use,
Linux and its associated tools and libra- sibility to make sure your company is whether third-party commercial, open
source, or even your own source code, is
a critical function. Linux uses a huge code
base, and it is a large task to manage
and document the licenses plus any and
all changes needed for your device. In
addition, you often need to maintain up-
to-date source repositories for download
due to licensing terms. Commercial solu-
tions make it possible to reduce risk,
time, and cost. Commercially supported
Linux delivers full licensing compliance
and reporting. Commercial vendors are
experienced with Linux licensing and can
aid in the adoption of open source into
your code base mix.

Figure 2: A representative graph of relative investment in commercial Linux versus RYO Linux. High quality development and
build tools
Commercial Linux is accompanied by
value-add development tools that go well
beyond what is available from (mainly
command line) open source tools. In
addition to the familiar coding, testing,
and debugging capabilities, modern com-
mercial integrated development environ-
ments provide tools for building the Linux
and device image, system performance
and behavioral analysis, memory profi-
ling, and hardware-level debugging via
JTAG. Having the right set of tools incre-
ases developer efficiency. Support and
training on these tools to accelerate time-
to-productivity are appealing benefits of
Figure 3: The value of commercial Linux versus RYO Linux (using the scenario from Figure 2, the commercial solutions.
value is the difference in cost of each approach over time; commercial Linux continues to provide
value while the value of a RYO solution diminishes).

52 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

Full system simulation provide services for their offering. Alt- depart the company altogether. Com-
A significant innovation in software tools hough open source community support mercial Linux offers support that ext-
has been full system simulation—the is available and often helpful, if changes ends well beyond what an open source
simulation of not just the embedded tar- and fixes are needed the community community can offer. Also, commercial
get processor, but also the system-on- is unlikely to do this work for you. A Linux vendors can offer long-term sup-
chip (SoC) features, board-level hard- deep understanding of the Linux kernel, port that goes well beyond the initial
ware, and even interconnected targets in for example, may be needed in order product support period. This assurance
a complete system of subsystems. Deve- to satisfy a performance requirement. is critical in embedded devices due to the
lopers, with their commercial develop- Commercial Linux offers quick resolution long product lifespans involved.
ment tools, can deploy and test on a with engineering services while avoi-
simulated full system. This innovation ding entangling your project with GPL Maintenance and security
greatly improves the support for itera- licensing issues. A significant portion of vulnerability patches
tive and agile development processes, Linux patches and updates are secu- Commercial Linux provides regular pro-
but also removes the hardware supply rity related, and since your embedded duct updates and maintenance and
bottleneck that plagues most embed- device is now its own unique Linux dis- security patches. Fixing, installing, and
ded development projects. Wind River tribution, you are now responsible for deploying these changes is a considera-
Simics® is an example of a full system maintaining it. ble effort for the embedded Linux ven-
simulation product. dor—an additional cost that RYO Linux

50% of companies will face challenges due to lack of free open source
software (FOSS) policy and management
Gartner, FOSS Analysis, November 2011

The ability to acquire and apply innova- The Community has short-term brings to your project. Commercial ven-
tive and highly productive development memory. Community support for Linux dors can stay on top of Linux kernel and
tools provides an advantage that RYO abounds for current releases of the ker- security updates that can quickly impair
Linux development cannot duplicate. nel and distribution releases. However, the productivity of a development team.
In fact, these tools have proven to pro- this support quickly wanes as versions Also, commercial vendors provide more
vide measureable increases in produc- become outdated from the most cur- regular patch schedules and convenient
tivity and quality in embedded projects rent releases. It’s unrealistic to expect delivery methods than RYO alternatives.
in general. These benefits are additive open source community support for an
to the lower total cost of ownership that older version of the Linux kernel, for An ecosystem of hardware and
other advantages of commercial embed- example, that has been built into a pro- software partners
ded Linux bring to the table. duct that has been on the market for Embedded OS and tools vendors form
several years. As the years go by, com- a cooperative network of partnerships
Global support, services, and panies must rely on internal expertise and alliances. No single vendor can
training to support their products. As these pro- supply all of the needed software for
A key aspect of commercial Linux is ducts mature, this expertise may mobi- a device, so partnerships are essential.
the ability of the vendor to support and lize to other projects, or the experts may Commercial embedded Linux provides

[Advertisement]

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 53

the opportunity to leverage open source
and proprietary offerings. The goal is to
provide high-quality, off-the-shelf solu-
tions to avoid your development from
“reinventing the wheel” with each new
product. Examples of partner products
The return on your investment
include specialized tools such as open
source license management solutions,
static analysis, and test automation. With all these points in favor of commercial Linux,
Examples of run-time products include what is the net benefit for embedded device
graphics engines, security whitelisting development teams? The following list illustrates that
tools, enhanced connectivity solutions, the benefits go beyond costs:
and industrial protocol support. Even
services are available such as security • Lower total cost of ownership: Commercial embedded
testing and evaluations and licensing • Linux has significantly lower costs over time than RYO Linux.
audits. The leverage provided by these • Risk reduction: Using a commercial embedded Linux is less risky than a
complementary products increases the RYO solution. Technical, business, and legal risks are greatly reduced with
return on investment for commercial commercial-level support, maintenance, and IP compliance and review.
embedded Linux by greatly enhancing • Time-to-market: Reduced development and integration time with ready-to-go
the run-time platform, tools, and ser- platforms means shorter development times. When time-to-market is critical,
vices while limiting the amount of time schedules are at risk with RYO solutions.
your project spends on the platform its- • Quality and security: Commercial embedded Linux’s quality assurance, monthly
elf. Allow your team to concentrate on maintenance updates, and critical security vulnerability mitigation improves end
the differentiating features that produce product quality and security.
revenue rather than the table-stakes • Building value: By concentrating on new, differentiated features rather than
capability of the run-time environment. building, maintaining, and debugging a RYO Linux platform, users of commercial
embedded Linux build value.
Embedded development
transformation
The embedded device marketplace is
highly competitive, and manufactur-
ers are under more pressure than ever
before. Security, the Internet of Things,
machine-to-machine networks, new tech-
nology introduction, and market regula-
tions and certifications are causing more
strain on development teams. Compa-
nies are not only surviving, but thriving
in this environment. A transformation of
the way companies develop embedded
software is underway, not only in pro-
cesses and technology but also at the
business level. Successful companies are Figure 4: The transformed development cycle when using full system simulation with
looking honestly at their build-versus-buy Wind River Simics
decisions and realizing the risk reduction
and total cost of ownership benefits that
commercial off-the-shelf solutions offer. and support greatly increases produc- The Author
See the Wind River whitepaper It’s Trans- tivity and also reduces the overhead of
formation Time for Embedded Develop- maintaining your own, unique, embed- Michael Genard is Vice President &
ment for more details [2]. ded Linux distribution. Success in a com- General Manager, OS Business Unit,
petitive market means concentrating on at Wind River (an Intel compagny)
Conclusion what you do best, building great products
Commercial embedded Linux offers — and avoiding the risk and expense
a clear return on investment versus of platform development that adds to
Web Links
RYO, in-house developed and maintai- neither your feature set nor your bot-
ned Linux. Not only is the total cost of tom line. Choosing a trusted commercial [1] www.windriver.com/products/linux/
ownership lower, but also the technical, Linux vendor will take care of all these tco-calculator
business, and legal risk of commercial needs [3]. [2] www.windriver.com/whitepapers/
embedded Linux is much lower. The abi- simics/Simics--WHITEPAPER--The-
lity of the embedded Linux vendor to Internet-of-Things-in-the-Lab/
supply training, services, maintenance, [3] www.windriver.com/products/linux/

54 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

 FLIR: Five New
Thermal Cameras SMT-Assembly
for Low Volume and
Prototypes
so...
At the recent Consumer Electron- card and real-time remote control of
ics Show (CES) FLIR Systems, Inc. camera functions and can be mounted
announced the launch of five new ther- to any airframe capable of holding the
mal imaging cameras. All five products most popular action cameras. Operators
feature FLIR Lepton®, FLIR’s revolu- can switch between the FLIR Duo’s ther-

?
tionary thermal micro camera core, and mal and visible cameras in-flight or view
FLIR’s patented multispectral dynamic both in a picture-in-picture mode. Priced

...or so
imaging (MSX®) technology, which dra- at $999.99, the FLIR Duo is accessible
matically improves image quality and to drone hobbyists and professionals
readability by dynamically embossing alike.
high-fidelity, visible-light details onto
the thermal imagery. The FLIR Duo R, priced at $1,299.99,
adds accurate temperature measure-
The third generation FLIR ONE for ment capabilities for commercial appli-
iOS or Android devices features the cations including agricultural, construc-
new OneFit™ adjustable-height con- tion, civil engineering, building inspec-
nector, including a USB-C version for tion, and public safety use cases.
Android. As the most affordable FLIR Both the FLIR Duo and Duo R are avail-
ONE to date at $199.99, the third gen- able to order today at established FLIR
eration FLIR ONE is the perfect camera
to introduce people to the benefits of
partners and at www.flir.com/duo.
M10V & MX70
thermal imaging. The FLIR C3 is a ruggedized, pocket- Fully automated, inexpensive
portable thermal camera for home
The all-new FLIR ONE Pro features inspectors, real estate professionals, Pick & Place Systems
a ruggedized design, the new OneFit general contractors, and other trade
adjustable-height connector, and a professionals who need a powerful diag- • SMD-Placers for low volume series and
more powerful set of imaging features nostic tool to quickly pinpoint hidden prototypes
for the job site. Priced at $399.99 it is electrical, energy efficiency, or moisture
ideal for professionals who use thermal issues. With a high brightness three- • optional high precision dispenser for solder paste
imaging for their work needs. Featuring inch touchscreen, the FLIR C3 includes • range: 0201 … > 35 x 35 mm BGA
MSX and VividIR™ advanced image pro- Wi-Fi connectivity to streamline image
cessing, the FLIR ONE Pro offers amaz- transfer while featuring higher thermal • optical component alignment
ing image quality and detail. sensitivity and measurement capability • vision system for pick-up from bulk
for accurate temperature readings. The
Both the FLIR ONE and FLIR ONE Pro device also includes a new picture-in- • also great for universities and training centers
will be available in the first half of 2017 picture function to enable better image
at established FLIR partners and at comparison in the field. The FLIR C3 will
FLIR.com. be available in Q1 2017 for $699.99
through established FLIR distribution
The FLIR Duo is the drone industry’s partners and the FLIR.com store, and
first multi-sensor camera that features customers can pre-register at www.flir.
FLIR’s Lepton thermal microcamera com/ces2017.
core, a high-definition (HD) 1080p vis- Customers can pre-register for the FLIR
[Advertisement]

ible camera, and FLIR’s patented MSX ONE, FLIR ONE Pro, and FLIR C3 at Tel. +49 (0)8153/90 664-0
technology. The FLIR Duo offers ver- www.flir.com/ces2017. [email protected]
satile onboard recording to a micro SD www.flir.com
www.factronix.com

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 55

 EMSPROTO’s Rapid Prototyping Assembly Line For Small Quantities
Elektor & electronica Fast Forward Awards nomimee

Nowadays companies design their products • EMSPROTO have set up a next-gener-

faster and faster — it is the famous Time To ation assembly line, dedicated to prototype
Market buzzword, with increasing numbers of ver- runs. Completely interconnected and automated,
sions. In addition, e-engineers today have very pow- the whole process is monitored in real time.
erful design software, letting them create a product in
just a few days. To mechanical engineers 3D printing was EMSPROTO is revolutionizing the electronics business, in
a breakthrough for product conception. Likewise, electronic particular by making the engineer win several days to obtain
engineers now have the EMSPROTO flexible assembly line. the quotations on his board and up to several weeks to
EMSPROTO has solved two major issues in prototyping. manufacture it.

• Creating a website capable of quoting in a few minutes Timeline: April 2015: Start of the last generation production line; July
2015: Online publishing of our website u September 2015: French fair
the production cost (i.e. the price cost, PCB, compo- ENOVA where EMSPROTO has advertised u November 2015: more than
nents and assembly labour) of any electronic board and 200 people visited our factory u July 2016: new website with brand new
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56 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

In-House Fully Automatic Cypress PSoC 6
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Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 57

Hubs Become Central
to the IoT
By Ron Wilson — Editor-in-Chief,
Intel Programmable Systems Group

Even before real systems are

widely deployed, the Internet
of Things (IoT) is rushing into a
period of rapid evolution. Early —
and, frankly, simplistic — ideas
about IoT architecture are giving
way to more nuanced views, often
based on analysis of data flows
and on hard questions of why the
IoT really matters. The result will
be new architectures, leading to computing — is a perception of just the myriad short-range wireless links the
new silicon. We will illustrate this more requirements. They see the IoT IoT has spawned in recent years. And of
in terms of new functions, such as pas- course any new connection will require
trend with snapshots of three new sive data-logging, remote update, or a wireless hub to connect to, and a pro-
IC deployments described at last perhaps remote command capability, tocol stack on your system.
year’s Hot Chips conference. that require Internet connectivity. But there is another critical — and often
So the first question is, obviously, how to underappreciated — layer in this incre-
physically connect to the Internet. If the mental approach to the IoT: security.
Connecting an embedded controller to
the Internet, however indirectly, con-
Let’s begin with today’s concepts. Many nects the controller to every hacker in
systems designers’ first impressions of the world, and raises a bright banner
the IoT fit into one of two camps: con- announcing, “I’m here; come probe
servatives or idealists (Figure 1). The me!” If the controller has any conceiv-
conservatives remain focused on conven- able ability to harm persons or property,
tional embedded design and see the IoT it must take responsibility for authenti-
as an additional layer of requirements to cation, data protection, and functional
be slathered over their existing designs. safety. Even if the controller is doing
The idealists see the IoT as an oppor- nothing of importance, it still must be
tunity to virtualize nearly everything, guarded against malware. A recent mas-
Figure 1: Conservatives and idealists see the
drawing all tasks except physical sens- sive denial-of-service attack appears to
IoT very differently.
ing and actuating back into the cloud. have been launched from an enormous
Often the best solutions turn out to be botnet composed at least partly of IoT
linear combinations of the extremes. But connected devices.
these compromises will bring about the embedded controller is at least a mod- This protection is more easily prescribed
emergence of whole new categories of est-sized board already connected to an than accomplished. As the international
computing near the network edge. industrial network or Ethernet, this isn’t news relates nearly every week, even
much of a problem. But if the controller government agencies and global enter-
Two simple ideas is either small — only a microcontroller prises have failed to secure their sys-
Perhaps the most frequent perception unit (MCU), for example — or physically tems. IoT developers are impaled on the
of the IoT among designers of indus- isolated, getting to the Internet can mean dilemma of having to do better, but with
trial, infrastructure, and aerospace additional hardware: a Wi-Fi port, a Blue- far fewer physical resources. A Hardware
systems — the heartland of embedded tooth interface, or some combination of Security Module (HSM) inside an MCU

58 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

 But those devils in the details are legion.
And most of them relate to the presence Beginner
of the Internet at the heart of the sys- Level: Intermediate
tem. Internet messages are subject to Professional
unpredictable delays over a wide range
— including, at the extreme, forever. So Product
a system using this ideal architecture Subject: Service
must tolerate delayed or lost messages. Advice
This requirement is so constraining that
it leads many experienced designers to Trading
reject the idealized architecture out of Company Status: Start-Up
hand, no matter how theoretically flexible Potential
it might be. And there is another issue.
The same connectivity and security Production
requirements that descended on our con- Advice: Technology
servative embedded system still apply. Regulatory
The sensors and actuators still must talk
with the Internet, and must still defend Theoretical
themselves against it. But now we are Approach: Practical
adding these demands not to a board- Mixed
level computer, but to tiny sensors, solid-
state relays, or motor controller MCUs. Website:
The relative overhead is huge and the www.altera.com
likelihood high that an attack will over-
whelm the simple security measures ebm article tagging
a tiny, battery-powered or scavenging
device can mount. So what to do?
These questions have led many architects
seems barely adequate, but today it is to seek a middle path, neither conser- the best solution is to keep the comput-
physically unattainable. vative nor idealistic. They are moving ing resources local, and to simply layer-
Difficulties notwithstanding, the great critical computing functions to an inter- on connectivity and a degree of security.
advantage of this conservative view is mediate location, between the sensors But we can identify at least three other
what it conserves. The latencies and and the Internet. Often this intermediate interesting cases.
bandwidths of data flows in the embed- site also acts as a wireless hub.
ded system remain intact—or at least Enter the smartphone
they should, if connectivity and security Intermediators One interesting case arises when there is
tasks don’t introduce new uncertainties The idea of moving computing to an a functional advantage to combining the
into the system. So real-time tasks con- intermediate point, often between a operations of several nearby controllers.
tinue to meet deadlines and the trans- short-range wireless network and an This situation might come up, for exam-
fer functions of control loops remain the Internet connection, raises many new ple, when several controllers are working
same. This is an obvious benefit for a questions. Which tasks should go where? on different parts of the same process,
multi-axis motor controller. But it can Just how much computing power and but all of them would benefit from the
even be valuable in a system as appar- adaptability does this smart hub require? sensor data their neighbors are collect-
ently plodding as a building’s lighting And does this arrangement require new ing. Moving the control algorithms to a
management system. algorithms, or is it really just a repar- wireless hub that gathers all the sensor
titioning of a conventional embedded data and controls all the actuators can
An ideal, lost system? allow superior control optimization.
The idealist’s approach to the IoT is enti­ The answers to these questions come Today such systems will typically be
rely different. Start with a clean sheet from first finding the weakest link in the implemented using short-range wireless
of paper. Draw in all the necessary sen- system. In this case, that link would be links, from local wireless MCUs on the
sors and actuators. Now put an Inter- the public, non-deterministic, occasion- sensors and actuators to a proprietary
net connection on each one, and create ally absent Internet. The object becomes wireless hub. If the area to be covered
a cloud application to read the sensors to distribute tasks among local sites, the gets too large for a low-power wireless
and command the actuators. In effect, hub, and the cloud so that no latency- link, the system can escalate to an indus-
this is a completely virtual system. You sensitive data flows have to traverse the trial-strength wireless network, Wi-Fi,
can change not only operating param- Internet, and secondarily, so that com- or even a cellular connection to bridge
eters, but algorithms and even the pur- putations are as close as possible to the longer distances.
pose of the system simply by changing data they consume.
software. For industrial applications the If we try to follow these guidelines in The eventual deployment of 5G service
phrase “software-defined machine” has practice, we will see that in some applica- — sometime after 2020 probably — could
been suggested. tions the conservatives are exactly right: simplify this picture further, offering a

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 59

single medium for local links, longer-
Spotted @ Hot Chips: Mediatek Helio X20 series
range connections and the pipe back
to the internet. But mentioning cellular
service brings up an interesting point
that may prove valuable well before 5G
is in place.

If we look at implementation of the hub,

we see an increasingly complex system.
There are provisions for connectivity,
both upward to the internet and outward
to sensors and actuators. The latter wire-
less connections must be flexible in RF
front end, baseband, and protocol to cope
with the mass confusion of wireless-net-
work quasi-standards. Software-defined
radio would be a reasonable response to
the current mess.
Then there is the actual controller, where
the algorithms are executed. This too
must provide considerable headroom, as
access to all that sensor data will prob-
ably lead to a call for more elaborate and
Last year’s Hot Chips conference gave and on the fly from MCU-like power
demanding algorithms, perhaps requir-
a look at a mobile application processor efficiency to, given enough threads,
ing hardware acceleration on real-time
design that hinted at an answer to near server-class compute performance,
tasks. And there are security needs, since
the need for processing power. From while executing a mix of real-time and
the hub will bear most of the authenti-
Mediatek — the chip aimed at a background tasks. That is, after all, what
cation and encryption responsibility for
compromise between performance an advanced smart phone requires, and
the system. These needs may dictate a
and energy efficiency. Starting from that sounds a great deal like what we
hardware crypto accelerator and a secure
ARM’s big.LITTLE concept, the Mediatek want from our hub.
key store.
designers came up with a 10-core
processing subsystem arranged in three Since this cluster is embedded in a
From a distance, this could sound like
clusters. The X23 has four low-power, smart-phone SoC, it will be accompanied
a description of a very different kind of
1.4-GHz ARM® Cortex®-A53 cores in by a GPU, a cellular modem, Wi-Fi and
device: a smartphone (Figure 2). And
one cluster, four 1.85-GHz A53 cores in a Bluetooth support, near-field radio
in fact there is considerable interest in
second cluster, and two speed-optimized (NFC), and security hardware. Given
using smart phones, or even a subset of
2.3-GHz A72 cores in a third. All share the volumes cellphone SoCs reach in
a smartphone chip set, as a hub in con-
a hierarchical coherent interconnect and production, pricing should be aggressive.
trol applications. The Internet connec-
a dynamic task scheduler. The 10-CPU So these SoCs can be very attractive
tivity is already in place via either Wi-Fi
cluster should be able to move gracefully bases for IoT hubs.
or the cellular network, at least some of
the needed local wireless link support
is there, and Android provides an open
platform that is relatively easy to extend.
But what about processing power? You can see the trend in more sophisti- cameras to observe a street, and image
cated control functions and in, for exam- processing to determine which parking
Power to the edge ple, use of Kalman filters, with their spaces were occupied, replacing dozens
Ten CPU cores as used in the Mediatek intense matrix arithmetic, in sensorless of buried sensors and hundreds of meters
LTE platform (inset) might seem mas- motor control and battery management. of underground cable.
sive overkill for a hub that is basically But with the resurgence of machine
just reading sensors, executing a control learning, the trend is about to blossom. The ascendency of convolutional neural
algorithm, sending commands to actua- Among the earliest manifestations of networks (CNNs) as the most success-
tors, and serving as a firewall. Granted, this resurgence was vision processing. ful image-classification algorithm has
the number of CPUs is larger because of Designers recognized that — quite apart led to use of CNNs, and exploration of
Mediatek’s little-medium-big strategy, from its obvious uses in surveillance and other forms of deep-learning networks
and the plethora allows you to lock a automotive driver assistance — image such as recurrent neural networks, in
time-critical task to a dedicated CPU if classification could often be the most IoT hubs. The evaluation of such models
you need to. But more than that, the effective way to estimate the state of quickly uses up CPU cores. That leads
abundance of processing power serves a system. One camera can see what it to interest in many-core processors and
a trend. Algorithms are getting more might take hundreds of sensors to mea- in hardware accelerators, such as GPUs
complex. sure. An early application used fixed or FPGAs, for the hubs. And that brings

60 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

 hurry. If it is part of a low-frequency con-
trol loop or a functional-safety system,
there are hard deadlines. And that is
where the third Hot Chips paper comes in.

Baidu presented a software-defined,

FPGA-based accelerator for cloud data
centres, intended to slash execution
time for a wide variety of big-data anal-
yses. Baidu’s specific example was an
SQL query accelerator — which would
be useful in about 40 percent of big-
Figure 2: The block diagram for a smart phone SoC can look very similar to what we’d want for a
data analyses, the presenter said. But
smart hub.
the reconfigurable architecture would
be applicable across a wider range of
tasks. Thus acceleration, particularly if
used with a deterministic network con-
nection, could extend the usefulness of
big-data algorithms in control systems,
working hand-in-hand with smart hubs.

Conclusion
We have seen how practical issues such
as bandwidth, latency, or security, argue
in favour of smart IoT hubs. Once the
hub is smart, at least three quite dif-
ferent architectures become interesting:
Figure 3: Three very different architectures can serve different needs for IoT systems.
• the hub as connected system
controller;
• the hub as deep-learning controller;
us to a second Hot Chips paper. big-data analyses of operating history • and the hub as agent for a cloud-
At the conference, Movidius described a to identify predictors of impending fail- based big-data system (Figure 3).
deep-learning SoC — essentially, a collec- ure, for example, or to track down the
tion of fixed-function image processors, location of parts from a suspect lot. The Some combination of the three should
RISC CPU cores, vector processors for gradual blending of traditional big-data be right for just about any connected
matrix arithmetic, and memory blocks, techniques, such as statistical analy- embedded system.
all optimized for evaluating deep-learning ses and relevance ranking, with deep-
networks. The company claimed perfor- learning algorithms will only promote the Note: Article previously published in Intel
mance superior to that of two unidenti- importance of cloud-based analyses to System Design Journal (http://system-
fied GPUs, but at low-enough power to embedded systems. design.altera.com/) and reproduced in
need no fan or even heat sink. Elektor Business Magazine courtesy
That does leave us with several ques- Altera.
Shifting concepts tions. First, how much does the big-data
We’ve watched an evolution from con- algorithm need to know about the state
The Author
nected local controllers to smart hubs to of the system, and in how timely a man-
hubs hosting deep-learning networks. ner? The presumption in most marketing Ron Wilson, a long-time technology
This may prove a long-term solution for presentations seems to be that the sys- editor, follows emerging system
systems that can be satisfactorily man- tem will continually log all of its state to design issues and creates, edits,
aged using only their current observable the cloud. That is how you get a Power- and curates technical content for
state as input. But there is growing inter- Point slide saying that a smart car gen- Intel PSG.
est in going beyond this concept, to sys- erates 25 GB per hour of new data. But
tems that can call on not only their own it seems far more likely that the IoT hub
state, but upon history, and even upon will filter, abstract, represent, and priori-
unstructured pools of seemingly unre- tize the state information, reducing the
lated data. This is the realm of big-data flow significantly.
analysis.
Another question involves performance
Examples of the use of big-data tech- in the cloud. If the cloud-based analysis
niques in system management predate is being done to predict next month’s
the current popularity of deep learning. energy consumption or to schedule
Machine maintenance systems have used annual maintenance, there is no great

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 61

 3D-Printer RF500
Precision meets Creativity

World premiere at PEAK-System: The renkforce RF500 3D printer, available from Conrad, is
CAN FD for M.2 slot the ideal workspace addition for passionate creators, pro-
fessional tinkerers, techies in fablabs, maker-spaces and
PEAK-System Technik can be found in model club workshops, in fact anywhere creative types
hall 1, booth 483. work to build solutions and solve technical challenges.
The RF500 has a completely open-frame design allow-
ing build space accessibility from all sides and providing
To this year’s embedded world 2017 in Nuremberg, an an unobstructed view during the entire printing process.
exclusive new product awaits exhibition visitors at the Whether it’s a webcam fixture that you printed yourself
booth of PEAK-System Technik. The managing directors or a bracket to hold additional filament rolls or even the
Uwe Wilhelm and Alexander Gach present the first CAN renkforce 3D-Printbox: thanks to the printer’s continuous
FD interface for the M.2 slot. The plug-in card called slotted profile framework, any additional accessory can be
PCAN-M.2 will be available as a single, dual, and four- conveniently fixed as and where necessary.
channel version.
The most important features of the renkforce RF500 maker-
Furthermore, the PCAN-miniPCIe FD, the four-channel kit at a glance:
PCAN-PCI Express FD, and the opto-decoupled PCAN- • Industrial and CNC milled components – giving
USB X6 with M12 circular connectors and the ingress breathtaking precision and durability.
protection IP64 are presented for the first time. Thanks • Industry-standard linear guide system from THK
to this increased protection and the six CAN and CAN FD • Slotted profile framework allowing unlimited attach-
channels, the M12 USB adapter is especially suitable for ment points
motor vehicle test stands and HIL simulations (hardware- • Latest, completely reworked, new generation renk-
in-the-loop) in harsh environments. force extruder
• Stable, open, easily accessible and moveable design
The battery-powered PCAN-Diag FD closes the circle of • Generous workspace : 210 x 135 x 170 mm (WxDxH)
highlights: A well-founded analysis is provided by the • Intuitive one button operation with built-in display
oscilloscope function and further measuring functions for • Open-Source-Firmware allowing comprehensive setup
voltage and termination. The CAN communication can options and custom settings.
be examined by the representation of CAN and CAN FD • Print via USB and SD, with extensive Cloud and net-
messages, bus load measurement, or the recording and work connectivity via the renkforce 3D-Printbox (avail-
a playback function for the CAN traffic. able separately)
• Comprehensive range of accessories allowing individ-
ual upgrade or modification as required
www.peak-system.com • All major parts are available from stock

The RF500 uses the latest third generation v3 extruder,

with can be easily disassembled for simple maintenance:
the Bowden extruder also reduces printhead weight result-
ing in quieter operation.
www.conrad.de

62 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

Map your JTAG Test-Access with Altium Designer
JTAG Technologies presents an exciting new product deve- by JTAG makes use of the ‘Emulative Test & Programming’
loped in collaboration with Altium: JTAG Maps. JTAG Maps technology of microprocessors, which allows access to the
is a simple extension to the Altium Designer Tool suite, and microprocessor’s emulation modes or the internal IP bus
gives the user / engineer the ability to fully assess the JTAG structures of the FPGAs. Connectivity and functionality bet-
/ Boundary Scan resources of the design before committing ween a processor / FPGA core host and all types of memory
to layout. devices are tested. CTPG-M overcomes many of the issues
associated with the testing of memory clusters based on
The new CTPG-M system increases fault coverage level conventional boundary-scan (IEEE Std 1149.1) techniques.
and accelerates the testing of designs with microproces-
sors and FPGAs. The automatic test generator developed www.jtag.com

Tiny GNSS Receiver with Integrated Antenna

Simplifies Use with Embedded Systems

Measuring just 15.5 x 15.5 x 6.3 mm the new GNSS receiver fier ensures stable operation even in the presence of high-
module type SAM-M8Q from ublox, will be promoted at frequency interference from other electronic devices, such
Embedded World 2017 in Hall 3 / Booth 3-249 by SE Spe- as mobile radio modems. By using the latest multi-GNSS
zial-Electronic GmBH. receiver technology from u-blox, the module is also able to
simultaneously receive GPS, GLONASS and Galileo satel-
This extremely compact SMT-capable receiver module makes lite signals.
it easy for developers of embedded systems with little or
no experience in RF and antenna design to provide their According to the manufacturer samples of the SAM-M8Q
design with multi-GNSS capability. The combination of inte- models are available now and series production is scheduled
grated broadband antenna, SAW filter and low-noise ampli- to begin by the end of February this year.

www.spezial.com || [email protected]

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 63

 Selected Products for Makers and Start-ups

ELEKTOR BUSINESS STORE

www.elektor.com/store

PicoScope 2204A (10 MHz) Weller ESF-120 ESD-safe PCB Holder

You can use your PicoScope 2000 Series as an advanced The Weller ESF-120 ESD PCB-holder is a mounting frame that
oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer, function generator, arbitrary satisfies all requirements made when mounting, soldering
waveform generator and protocol decoder out of the box. and removing printed circuit boards, without the need for
Mixed signal models also add a 16 channel logic analyzer. additional tools.
A complete electronics lab in one compact, low-cost, USB- The tool has a spring clamp, rotates through 360° in
powered unit. The PicoScope 2000A models deliver unbeatable increments of 15° and has a cushioned pressure arm for
value for money and are ideal for education, hobby and field keeping components in place when you flip the board upside
service use. In the lab the low cost allows one scope per down for soldering.
person rather than having to share.
Oscilloscope •  ax. size: 160 x 235 mm
M
• 10,000 waveform circular buffer • Rotates through 360° in 15° increments
• Up to 80,000 waveforms per second update rate • Spring clamp
• Mask limit testing • Cushioned arm for component fixing
• Advanced math & filtering • ESD safe

price: €169 rrp • €152.10 mp price: €129.95 rrp • €116.96 mp Products can be ordered at www.elektor.com. Prices are
including Dutch VAT, excluding shipping and handling.
www.elektor.com/picoscope www.elektor.com/pcb-holder

STEMlab 125-14 (Ultimate Kit) SmartScope Maker Kit Andonstar V160 USB
Digital Microscope

STEMlab 125-14 (originally Red Pitaya V1.1) is an open Use the SmartScope as an FPGA development platform with Technical Specifications
source measurement and control tool the size of a credit this special Maker kit. This Kit contains a special version of • DSP: High power Digital Image Monarch Processor
card (dimensions: 107 x 60 x 21 mm). It can replace the SmartScope. In this version all internal headers have • Sensor: high-quality CMOS sensor, 2 Mpixel (hardware, no
many expensive laboratory measurement instruments. The been assembled, exposing mor FPGA pins which provide interpolation)
STEMlab 125-14 unit is a network attached device based on both read and write access. These headers are matched to a • Resolution: 640x480, 1600x1200
Linux operating system. It includes Radio Frequency signal 0.1” grid, allowing you to align your breadboards with ease. • Interface: USB 1.1 / USB 2.0
acquisition and generation technologies, FPGA, Digital Signal Another header provides access to both analog inputs, so the • Frame rate: 30 fps (resolution 640x480), 5 fps (resolution
Processing and CPU processing. SmartScope can digitize any voltages from your breadboard 1600x1200)
without the need of using patch wires. • Focal distance: 5–30mm (at infinite focal distance the
microscope acts as a webcam, w/o magnification)
Furthermore, the Maker Kit comes with a JTAG programmer, • Magnification: 200+
allowing you to hook straight into the FPGA. The JTAG • Diameter: 12 mm
programmer can be used to flash the FPGA and to use Xilinx’ • USB cable Length: approx. 165 cm
ChipScope tool. • USB cable color: black or transparent color (random)

price: €725 rrp • €652.50 mp price: €299.95 rrp • €269.95 mp price: €84 rrp • €75.60 mp

www.elektor.com/stemlab-ultimate www.elektor.com/smartscope-maker-kit www.elektor.com/microscope-v160

64 Elektor Business Magazine 1/2017

 shopping pcb reworking analyzers lab gear development tools assembly

Siglent Oscilloscope DC Lab Switch-Mode Power

SDS1102X (100 MHz) Supply 0-30 V / 0-3 A

The SDS1102X 2-channel Super Phosphor Oscilloscope has A 0-30 VDC / 0-3 A benchtop switch-mode power supply with
a bandwidth of 100 MHz, a sample rate of 1 GSa/s, and a LCD readout.
standard record length of 14 Mpts. The most commonly used Features
functions can be accessed with its user-friendly one-button • Switch-mode power supply
design. • LCD display for voltage and current
The SDS1000X series employs a new generation of SPO • Protection mode: current limiting
technology. With excellent signal fidelity, background noise is • Colour: grey & dark grey
lower than similar products in the industry. The SDS1000X has • Insulated terminals
a minimum vertical input range of 500 µV/div, an innovative • Output connectors: IEC1010
digital trigger system with high sensitivity and low jitter, • Fuse-protected
and a waveform capture rate of 60,000 frames/sec. Add an Specifications
impressive array of measurement and math capabilities, • Input voltage: 230 VAC 50 Hz, 1 A, 126 W, pf: 0.55
options for an integrated 25-MHz arbitrary waveform • Output voltage: 0-30 VDC adjustable max.
generator. • Output current: 0-3 A adjustable max.

Item descriptions are subject to change, errors and omis- price: €579 rrp • €521.10 mp price: €99.95 rrp • €89.96 mp
sions. rrp =recommended retail price; mp = member price.
www.elektor.com/siglent-sds1102x www.elektor.com/dc-lab

TL866A Universal Programmer Three-In-One Lab Unit FabScan Pi – 3D Laser

Scanner with RPi 3

This programmer can program through the 40-pin universal This unit should cover 99% of your home lab needs and is the All electronics and the laser-cut wooden parts for assembling
socket and is provided with an ICSP serial programming perfect solution for starters and colleges. It consists of a DMM, the FabScan Pi kit.
port. For some in-circuit serial programmable chips, you a PSU and a solder station.
can program the MCU by choosing an ICSP port. ICSP port Kit Contents
wiring method is detailed by instruction diagrams in the Digital Multimeter • FabScan Pi case
programming software. Using the ICSP the TL866A allows • 3.5 digit backlit LCD • Screw set
direct programming and updating of the chip soldered on • Automatic polarity indication • Raspberry Pi 3
the board. • DC voltage: 200 mV to 600 V in 5 steps • Raspberry Pi camera V2
• AC voltage: 200 V and 600 V • Raspberry Pi camera connection cable – 50 cm
The TL866A supports over 13,000 chips. Kit contains USB • DC current: 200 µA to 10 A in 5 steps • RPi FabScan HAT
Programmer with 4 pcs socket, IC picker, test clip. • Resistance test: 200 ohm to 2 Mohm • RPi ringlight
• Diode, transistor and continuity test • Stepper motor: unipolar/bipolar, 200 steps/rev., 4.0 V,
• Data-hold function and buzzer 1200 mA (NEMA 17)
• CATI 600 V • Mounting plate for rotation table

price: €99 rrp • €98.10 mp price: €139.95 • €125.96 price: €185 • €166.50

www.elektor.com/tl866a www.elektor.com/three-in-one-lab-unit https://youtu.be/W9KgYL7sZN0

Embedded, Microcontrollers & Tools 65

 Our contributors Advertisers
................................................................. Page
Altera-Intel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hubs Become Central to the IoT | Ron Wilson Mouser................................................... 1 and 68
Pico...................................................................2
Arrow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RAK..................................................................15
From Makers to Market using 96Boards | Amir Sherman NXP..................................................................17
Embedded World..............................................29
Artesyn / CommAgility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arrow..............................................................39
Server Based Solutions for Self-Organizing Networks Appmyproduct (Nabto).....................................41
aul Moakes and Christof Wehner
Würth Elektronik...............................................45
Trinamic Motion Control...................................49
Bytesnap Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . EMS Proto........................................................53
ByteSnap Design’s Industry Predictions for 2017 | Michelle Robinson Faxtronic..........................................................55
HuMandata.......................................................57
Renesas Electronics Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jtag.................................................................63
Network Engine SoC Reference Design Realizes Development of 400-Gbps Elektor Business E-Shop........................ 64 and 65
Communication Equipment | Stefano Passoni
Multi Leiterplatten GmbH..................................67

embedded projects GmbH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

WaWision | Benedikt Sauter

Loetronic
Loetronic: from the Garage up to Industrial Production | Moritz Schwartz

Infographics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Infographics | Robert van der Zwan

NXP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Cut Development Time and Improve Flexibility with LPCXpert | Peter Furtner

Congatec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Intel Apollo Lake | Christian Eder

SAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
SAS survey: IoT early adopters wrestling with data processing and culture shift
Mathias Coopmans

Talking Heads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Talking Heads | Robert van der Zwan Elektor Business Magazine edi-
tion 2/2017 has a focus on
Texas Instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Power Supplies, Batteries &
Industrial Automation Systems | Will Cooper Energy. Among the contribu-
tors are Schürter AG, Technical
Voltera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . University Munich, Analog Devices,
Voltera V-One, a Desktop Prototyping Tool for Custom PCBs Texas Instruments, Varta, Keysight, Würth EiSos,
Katarina Ilic & Crew and ROHM Semiconductor. Plus you’ll find fresh
instalments of all the EBM regulars like Our Busi-
Wind River . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ness, JumpStart, Infographics, Business Store,
The Business Case for Commercial Embedded Linux | Michel Genard and Talking Heads.

Elektor Business Magazine edition 2/2017 is pub-

lished on 26 March 2017 to Elektor Magazine Gold
members in print, and Elektor Green members as
a pdf download. The edition will also be available
for purchase at www.elektormagazine.com.

74 Elektor Business Magazin 2/2017

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