Alereon is hosting the industry’s first public demonstration of Bluetooth+WiMedia UWB operating smoothly together under an existing Bluetooth software stack at the Consumer Electronics Show.
Demonstrating the next step in the on-going evolution of wireless personal area networking (PAN) functionality, Alereon is hosting the industry’s first public demonstration of Bluetooth+WiMedia UWB operating smoothly together under an existing Bluetooth software stack. The demonstration, held at the WiMedia Techzone at CES this week, uses Bluetusk software from Open Interface to send UWB signals using Bluetooth protocols. Bluetooth version 2.0 devices operate at datarates that can be frustratingly slow for large files and inadequate for video streaming.

Open Interface’s Bluetusk application combines the interoperability and ease of use of Bluetooth with the bandwidth of WiMedia UWB to transfer data at speeds that enable audio and video streaming.

‘Bluetusk represents a major step forward for both Bluetooth and WiMedia UWB’, said Jim Lansford, Chief Technology Officer of Alereon ‘The combination of a WiMedia UWB solution from Alereon and Bluetooth software from Open Interface enables Bluetooth applications that run 500 times the speed of regular Bluetooth and use less than 2% of the battery energy of Bluetooth’.

‘Consumers can now share images, phone books, videos, and the other Bluetooth content at up to 480Mbit/s, allowing devices such as megapixel camera phones to download in seconds, rather than minutes’.

‘As Bluetooth becomes a standard feature in portable devices it is apparent that although Bluetooth provides excellent interoperability and ease of use, the maximum datarate of 3Mbit/s is too slow for today’s media centric applications’, said Greg Burns, CTO of Open Interface.

‘Combining Bluetooth and WiMedia UWB leverages Bluetooth’s core strengths while providing the high data transfer rates for downloading image, MP3 and video files’, The demonstration offers an initial view of this important wireless pairing and features two laptops, each enabled with a UWB module and Bluetooth dongle.

Delegates will first see a pure Bluetooth to Bluetooth demonstration with a file transfer between laptops that operates at a maximum rate of well under 3Mbit/s and takes several minutes.

Next, the UWB radios will use Open Interface’s Bluetusk software solution to leverage the software stack of Bluetooth while operating the Alereon WiMedia radio.

Achieving up to 480Mbit/s, the file transfer happens almost instantaneously with Alereon’s recently announced EVB4002 radio operating under the Bluetooth software stack.

‘This demonstration is an excellent example of the founding design principles of the WiMedia Common Radio platform’, said Stephen Wood, President of WiMedia.

‘From the very outset, our objective was to create a wireless standard that supported TCP/IP, Certified Wireless USB, Bluetooth and Wireless 1394′.

‘The WiMedia standard, now called ECMA-368, is now an international standard recognised by ECMA’.

Ponte Solutions is to build comprehensive design flows interfacing its model-based yield analysis technology with Cadence’s Assura, Virtuoso and Cadence SoC Encounter design technologies.
Ponte Solutions, the design-for-yield company, has joined the Cadence Design Systems Connections programme and will build comprehensive design flows interfacing its model-based yield analysis technology with Cadence’s Assura, Virtuoso and Cadence SoC Encounter design technologies. This relationship ensures mutual customers proven flows to incorporate critical area and yield sensitivity analysis into their design methodologies. The Cadence Connections programme offers the industry’s largest collection of third-party solutions operating fully with the Cadence suite of design tools.

It is a catalyst for Cadence’s partners to deliver comprehensive solutions through carefully crafted automation for mutual customers’ success.

Ponte’s integration with Cadence technologies will enable mutual customers to perform critical area analysis and reduce yield-loss due to defect-limited yield issues.

‘We are very glad to join Cadence’s Connections programme to support our mutual customers’.

‘We are committed to doing everything we can to maximise the value of a comprehensive DFM flow for our customers’, said Alex Alexanian, President and CEO of Ponte Solutions.

Billed as the latest evolution in power system electromagnetic transients, PSCAD V4.2 delivers end users a number of very useful productivity enhancements.
Billed as the latest evolution in power system electromagnetic transients, PSCAD V4.2 delivers end users a number of very useful productivity enhancements. PSCAD is used by utilities, electrical equipment manufacturers, engineering consultants, and research organisations in 60 countries around the world to design and simulate all types of power systems including power electronics and controls. PSCAD is a fast, accurate, and easy-to-use power systems simulator for the design and verification of all types of power systems.

For power quality studies, power electronic design, electric machine design, and distributed generation, it improves power system performance and reliability.

PSCAD V4.2 is the culmination of the very successful electromagnetic analysis software PSCAD/EMTDC.

A significant amount of work has resulted in Version 4.2 in the last 18 months and as a result, this version delivers greater stability and power to the user.

This version of PSCAD follows the vision of PSCAD for an easy to use transients simulator.

Much of the graphics’ core has been revisited in preparation for future releases; thus PSCAD is now much faster, more robust and stable, with a more refined and smoother component operation and manipulation on the draft canvas.

Lectronix is currently showcasing its automotive technology at several partner locations during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Lectronix is currently showcasing its automotive technology at several partner locations during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Over the past year, Lectronix has successfully partnered with automotive suppliers and consumer device manufacturers to help bring to market the latest innovations for advanced in-car computing. During CES, Lectronix and its partners will be demonstrating some of today’s most advanced consumer applications for the car, including 3D navigation systems, voice recognition capabilities, digital music storage and playback, and other advanced capabilities.

Central to the development of these new consumer devices is the Lectronix AFrame applications framework.

The AFrame software framework uses an innovative client-server model, where core functionality is implemented in middleware ’servers’ that encapsulate and isolate the integrated technology.

This modular ‘building block’ approach allows AFrame to easily support a range of integrated in-car systems ranging from entertainment and multimedia to vehicle information, management, and communications.

‘Working closely with our customers and partners, Lectronix is expanding its market footprint for advanced designs for consumer automotive devices’.

‘Even though our AFrame software product was introduced less than a year ago, manufacturers have quickly realised they can use its modular framework to shorten the development cycle for prototyping and developing complex telematics systems’, said Frank Pellitta, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Lectronix.

For CES, Lectronix is supporting several partner and customer demonstrations.

Gracenote is showcasing its latest digital entertainment technology for music databasing on the Lectronix AFrame platform, and Navigon is showing select CES delegates its new navigation engine software running on AFrame.

AuthorScript DVD on Demand is billed as the world’s first software development kit for secure, managed download-and-burn of video to DVD.
New from Sonic Solutions, AuthorScript DVD on Demand (DoD) is billed as the world’s first software development kit (SDK) for secure, managed download-and-burn of video to DVD. Building on Sonic’s years of experience as the leading provider of DVD creation technology to Hollywood studios, software vendors, and PC manufacturers, as well as the provider of download-and-burn solutions for online music vendors such as AOL, Yahoo! and MusicMatch, AuthorScript DoD enables user-friendly, provider-controlled sell-through of DVDs in industrial, retail kiosk, personal computer, and set-top box environments. As a new, low-cost, high-margin channel for distributing premium content, electronic sell-through of content to DVD holds tremendous promise for content owners, electronic distributors, cable and satellite operators, equipment vendors, retailers, and consumers.

For set-top box manufacturers, AuthorScript DoD makes it possible to convert downloaded video into DVDs that can be sold directly to consumers.

For PC software providers and Internet video distributors, the SDK offers a secure, reliable solution for converting Internet-delivered video into DVDs that can be burned at home and played on any standard set-top or desktop player.

For kiosk providers and industrial manufacturing system integrators, the AuthorScript DoD SDK makes it possible to create a virtual DVD inventory solution for retailers, enabling them to tap into an immense library of content not currently available via conventional DVD release.

‘By combining the flexibility of managed, content-protected downloads with the universal playability of DVD, AuthorScript DVD on Demand promises to open vast new business opportunities for owners and distributors of video content and new enjoyment for consumers’, said Richard Doherty, Research Director of the Envisioneering Group.

‘The availability of a DVD-value-added, secure, low-cost electronic distribution channel positions content owners to market back-catalog material which might otherwise remain gathering dust in the vaults’.

‘With Sonic’s new SDK, they’ll be able to supplement the industry’s existing hit-driven DVD business model with a ‘long tail’ approach in which substantial additional revenues flow from net-enriched DVDs’.

Complementing existing download-to-own solutions, AuthorScript DVD on Demand frees content from the hard drive or home network, providing consumers with DVD’s play-anywhere portability while maintaining content-owner control over the process.

According to a survey by Scientific-Atlanta, the ability to copy content to DVD is the feature most desired by experienced set-top DVR users, while research by Parks Associates (Global Digital Living, 2005) shows that the most powerful driver of electronic video sell-through will be the ability to own and play purchased content freely.

‘Electronic DVD sell-through requires meticulous integration of Hollywood content creation, electronic distribution, and DVD burning technology, and there is no other company that can bring to bear the combination of across-the-board expertise and trusted industry relations needed to make this work’, said Jim Taylor, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Sonic’s Advanced Technology Group.

‘Today, Sonic technology powers the sector-leading DVD tools for Hollywood studios, video professionals, and consumers, delivering maximum functionality and compatibility’.

‘With AuthorScript DVD on Demand, we are applying our experience and innovation to expand DVD’s versatility and create a profitable new channel for the industry’.

Platforms now ready for AuthorScript DVD on Demand include a growing universe of DVD-enabled set-top boxes as well as over 130 million PCs equipped with DVD recorders.

Potential distribution channels range from traditional retailers to cable operators and direct broadcast satellite providers as well as Internet movie providers, online and traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.

‘The ability to purchase and burn content to a DVD will give consumers much more flexibility and control over how they enjoy their downloaded movies, television shows, and much more’, said Kevin Corbett, Vice President of the Digital Home Group and General Manager of the Content Services Group for Intel Corporation.

‘Sonic’s announcement of AuthorScript DVD on Demand is aligned with Intel’s digital home vision of providing consumers with flexibility and choice in enjoying their content anytime, anywhere’.

The Sonic AuthorScript DVD on Demand SDK is now available on an evaluation basis.

The Green Hills Platform for Industrial Safety is a complete software development and deployment solution for safety-critical industrial devices.
The Green Hills Platform for Industrial Safety is a complete software development and deployment solution for safety-critical industrial devices. The Platform for Industrial Safety includes: the new, royalty-free Integrity-61508 real-time operating system (RTOS), which is in the final stages of certification by TUV to IEC61508 at Safety Integrity Level 3 (SIL3); the Multi development environment, the most powerful and complete set of tools for optimising the reliability, performance, cost and time to market of device software; a full set of safety documentation, which is required for certification of the final device; and optional middleware, Integrity-61508 source code, certification evidence and services. Integrity-61508 is the first RTOS that provides complete support for multiple levels of IEC61508 functional safety running concurrently on a single microprocessor.

In addition, Integrity-61508 SIL3 certification will be available for a broad range of target microprocessors.

The Green Hills Platform for Industrial Safety delivers a number of significant benefits to developers of safety-critical industrial devices, including process controllers, programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and flame, gas and temperature sensors, including reduced hardware costs, physical footprint, power and heat dissipation requirements.

The Integrity-61508 RTOS enables the consolidation of traditionally distributed systems and software onto a single microprocessor.

In the past, manufacturers had to certify all software running on a processor to the most stringent safety level required by any component.

Consequently, ‘federated’ distributed systems had to be deployed to physically separate software at different functional safety levels.

Although this approach minimised certification cost and risk, it increased the overall system cost and complexity.

In contrast, with the innovative secure partitioning capability of the Integrity-61508 RTOS, software - from non-safety-related through safety critical - can be partitioned on a single processor.

Each partition can then be certified at its appropriate Safety Integrity Level, eliminating the need for separate physical systems or to certify code beyond the required safety level.

Industrial device manufacturers can take advantage of an RTOS that is certified to a high functional safety level to minimise the quantity of software and documentation that they must develop for their end products’ safety certifications.

‘When people’s safety is entrusted to computers, software reliability cannot be compromised’, commented Dan O’Dowd, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Green Hills Software.

‘Adequate safety assurance can only be established through formal certifications such as IEC61508 for industrial devices and RTCA/DO-178B for avionics’.

‘We were the first commercial supplier with a partitioned and certified DO-178B RTOS, and now we are introducing the first partitioned IEC61508 solution, enabling device manufacturers to achieve higher safety with lower costs and faster time to market’.

‘IEC61508 certification is an excellent means to demonstrate high software quality’, commented Dr William M Goble, Principal Partner at exida.com, a safety consulting and training firm.

‘The use of a certified operating system presents the opportunity for tremendous savings in development cost for products requiring IEC61508 certification’.

‘In addition, Green Hills Software has demonstrated that stringent safety requirements can be met while still supporting the rich feature set required by their customers’.

‘Safety related industrial applications once focused heavily on control processing, but over time have been challenged with incorporating serious signal and even elements of multimedia processing into their products’.

‘Development on multiple processors with complex software partitioning, though feasible, is not productive from the cost, time, or certification standpoint’, commented Wayne Meyer, Product Marketing Manager at Analog Devices.

‘The combination of Green Hills Software’s now IEC61508 safety certified Integrity RTOS on a single MMU-protected SIMD Blackfin processor, which start at $5 for 400MHz, allows for development at a software-enabled scalable platform level’.

‘With a comprehensive range of ColdFire processors designed and developed specifically for industrial devices, Freescale understands the importance of software and tools to our customers’, commented Jeff Bock, Global 16/32bit Consumer and Industrial Product Marketing Manager at Freescale Semiconductor.

‘The Green Hills Platform for Industrial Safety enables our customers to standardise on a single technology base while taking full advantage of the spectrum of capabilities built into the ColdFire family, including hardware cryptography and MMU to help them build safe and secure industrial devices’.

The Green Hills Platform for Industrial Safety will be available when certification is complete for ARM, Blackfin, ColdFire, MIPS, PowerPC, StrongArm, x86/Pentium and XScale processors.

Pricing for the Green Hills Platform for Industrial Safety begins at US $22,400 for a single-user enterprise licence; there are no run-time royalty fees for deployment.

Single-product, product-line and subscription licensing is also available.

Forte Design Systems today announced that David Sear has been named President and Chief Executive Officer and elected to its Board of Directors.
David Sear has been named President and Chief Executive Officer and elected to the Board of Directors at Forte Design Systems. Dr Sear will oversee all daily operations to drive the company’s global growth strategy. Dr Sear joins Forte with more than 25 years of senior management experience in the semiconductor industry.

Most recently he was a strategic consultant, serving as an interim CEO for various pre-IPO semiconductor companies.

Prior to his consulting work, Dr Sear held numerous executive management positions, including: President and CEO of Vaishali Semiconductor; COO of Quality Semiconductor (now part of IDT); President and CEO of integrated circuit Systems; and President and COO of Catalyst Semiconductor, taking that company public.

‘We are excited to have such a high calibre executive as David join Forte’, said Lucio Lanza, Managing Director of Lanza Tech Ventures and Forte Board member.

He added: ‘David brings the level of business acumen we believe the company needs to fully capitalise on its potential’.

‘His extensive experience in the semiconductor industry and demonstrated leadership abilities will complement Forte’s existing strengths’.

‘Under his management, the company will continue to expand its technology leadership, grow its customer base toward a more global expansion, and strengthen its leading position in the ESL market’.

‘I am pleased to be joining Forte as ESL design is gaining traction on a worldwide basis’, said the incoming CEO Sear.

‘Forte has an outstanding team, is backed by a very strong board of directors and investors, and has already built a strong customer base and partnership network’.

‘I look forward to working with the rest of the team to take our company to the next phase of growth’.

Amino has announced that its advanced software stack for IPTV set-top boxes is to be combined with STMicroelectronics’s ST7100 family of semiconductors.
Amino has announced that its advanced software stack for IPTV set-top boxes is to be combined with STMicroelectronics’s ST7100 family of semiconductors. Integration of Amino’s software creates a ready for use set-top box blueprint for manufacturers; ideal for the fast-moving IPTV industry. The combined platform permits set-top box manufacturers to remove a large proportion of the software research and development cycle and enables them to create reliable, high-performance products in the shortest possible time frame.

Amino’s IntAct software facilitates the construction of a comprehensive and highly flexible IP set-top box platform, able to support a wide range of IPTV middleware and conditional access solutions.

This means that set-top box manufacturers can concentrate on product design and value engineering, to address the widest array of market requirements instead of spending time developing and testing the designs.

Third-party application software can also be ported to add new features for IPTV service providers, thanks to the open software platform architecture.

‘We strongly believe that the combined efforts of leading IPTV set-top box and silicon vendors will allow operators to shorten time to market, and provide them with the flexibility to manage IPTV solutions within a multi-vendor set-top box environment, which is an exciting prospect’, Stefano Groppetti, Cable and IP Business Director of STMicroelectronics commented.

Best known for its award-winning IPTV set-top box designs, this agreement further strengthens Amino’s position as a key IPTV technology provider, and consolidates the company’s software licensing strategy.

Karthik Ranjan, Vice President of Product Marketing for Amino explained ‘Working together with STMicroelectronics, we can provide turnkey, deployable, high-performance solutions to set-top box vendors and other consumer electronic manufacturers, and drive down their overall costs for developing an IP STB from the ground up, giving them a significantly faster time to market’.

Azuro has raised $9 million in second round venture funding.
Azuro has raised $9 million in second round venture funding. This round of investment was led by Miramar Venture Partners; existing investors Benchmark Capital and TTP Ventures also participating fully. In addition, Heiner Sussner, Managing Partner at Miramar Ventures, has joined Azuro’s board of directors.

‘We are delighted to welcome Miramar as an investor’, said Paul Cunningham, cofounder and Chief Executive Officer of Azuro.

‘Miramar has deep ties to the semiconductor industry and is the perfect partner to take us through our next phase of growth’.

Azuro was founded in 2002, and has raised a total of $13.3 million in venture funding since its formation.

The company’s flagship product, PowerCentric, is a complete solution for the implementation of low power clock networks on digital semiconductor chips.

Commenting on Miramar’s investment, Sussner stated: ‘Power has become a critical issue for digital chip design teams, and we see a compelling need for advanced EDA tools that enable these teams to build lower power chips’.

‘Azuro’s product is architected from the ground up to tackle the complex power saving strategies necessary for next generation chip design, and the demand for their solution is impressive’.

‘Azuro has undertaken the development of an ambitious technology and proven that they can deliver a significant power saving advantage to their customers’, said Mark Evans, General Partner at Benchmark Capital.

‘We are delighted to have been an integral part of Azuro’s progress and look forward to facilitating their continued success’.

Azuro plans to use the funds raised from the round to expand sales, extend its management team and broaden the capability of its PowerCentric solution.

Embedded data management specialist Encirq will be one of the key companies presenting at the Advanced Automotive Electronics Conference (AAE).
Embedded data management specialist Encirq will be one of the key companies presenting at the Advanced automotive electronics Conference (AAE). This important industry event is to be held at the prestigious Williams F1 Conference Centre on 25th January 2006 and will host a broad range of automotive industry managers and engineers. As many automotive engineers are only too aware, the average car has become a complex distributed computer system.

Embedded computers manage many of the vehicle’s functions such as the engine management, cabin comfort, safety systems, braking, tyre pressure monitoring, navigation and more recently, in car entertainment and communication systems.

Such in-vehicle systems now handle considerable amounts of critical data and the management of this data has become an important aspect of current system development.

Eugene Buechele, Chief Technical Officer at Encirq, will be explaining how new embedded software development methods need to be considered as a result of this dramatic increase in system complexity in order to successfully develop future automotive electronics efficiently and effectively.

Encirq’s Data Foundation Framework is billed as the industry’s first high performance data management solution designed specifically for stringent embedded systems requirements.

With the industry’s smallest run-time footprint (24Kbyte) and offering as much as a 60% reduction in system resource consumption, Encirq’s Data Foundation Framework is already being in used in complex automotive systems being developed by some of the world’s leading manufacturers.

This presentation will describe how a data-centric approach to design greatly reduces the engineering effort needed to implement a complex system and thus it will be fascinating to all engineers working with embedded systems within the automotive space.

The AAE conference is a technology event for all engineers, project leaders, and technical management involved in automotive electronic system design and development.

It will be of direct benefit to all those working in vehicle manufacturing, OEMs, consultancies, research and development establishments, academic centres, and motor industry associations.

At AAE2006, delegates will have the opportunity to discuss the key issues and challenges facing the automotive industry, as well as learn about the latest technological developments, industry standards, and new products to assist their design and development strategies and applications.

As an added feature, the day will be rounded off with a private viewing of the historic RBS Williams F1 Grand Prix collection, spanning 1977 to the present day - a tour not open to the public.

All delegates will also be entered into a prise draw for two tickets to a race day, and will be able to purchase memorabilia and merchandise.

Encirq products are distributed and supported throughout the UK by SDC Systems.