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Reference platform speeds design of Wi-Fi HaLow devices based on IEEE 802.11ah spec

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Palma Ceia SemiDesign announced the availability of the company’s Wi-Fi HaLow Reference Platform, including all necessary hardware and software, for the design of Wi-Fi HaLow devices and systems based on the IEEE 802.11ah specification.

Wi-Fi HaLow is the Wi-Fi Alliance’s designation for products based on the IEEE 802.11ah standard for wireless network transmissions commonly referred to as Wi-Fi. It operates in spectra below one gigahertz (GHz) to offer a longer range and lower power connectivity. Wi-Fi HaLow, meeting unique needs for the Internet of Things (IoT), enables a range of use cases in agricultural, industrial, smart building, and smart city environments.

The Palma Ceia Wi-Fi HaLow Reference Platform consists of all necessary hardware and software to showcase the advanced connectivity capabilities of the IEEE 802.11ah standard.

MCUs optimized for CAN FD bus data

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Microchip Technology Inc. announced its PIC18 Q84 family — the first PIC18 microcontroller (MCU) family that can be used to transmit and receive data through a Controller Area Network Flexible Data-Rate (CAN FD) bus. Accompanied by an extensive array of Core Independent Peripherals (CIPs) that handle a variety of tasks without requiring CPU intervention, Microchip’s PIC18 Q84 family cuts both time and cost when connecting systems to a CAN FD network.

The family provides a simple solution for transporting sensor data to a CAN FD bus, without the need for gateways or sophisticated network switching techniques. In addition, its configurable CIPs make it easy to create custom hardware-based functions for automotive and industrial designs with near-zero latency. Additional code is not required. Available peripherals include a 32-bit Cyclic Redundancy Check with Scan (CRC/SCAN) and a Windowed Watchdog Timer (WWDT) for functional safety capabilities, and a Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) interface to implement industry-standard testing and debugging.

The PIC18 Q84 family offers both hardware and software support. Hardware includes a Curiosity Nano Development Board and a Curiosity High Pin Count (HPC) Development Board. A plug-in module (PIM) is also available for the Automotive Networking Development Board and for use with Microchip development boards. The software includes Microchip’s MPLAB Code Configurator (MCC).

Microchip also provides a broad family of CAN FD transceivers and CAN FD controllers. To learn more about Microchip’s complete CAN and CAN FD offering, visit Microchip’s CAN technology design center.

The PIC18 Q84 family is available in volume production starting at $0.78 in 10,000-unit quantities.

Secure prototyping/production platform handles Renesas RX MCUs

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Secure Thingz announced support for Renesas E2 Lite in Secure Desktop Provisioner, a component of the company’s secure prototyping and production platform Secure Deploy. Together with the recently announced Security Development Environment Embedded Trust version 1.50, the platform enables rapid development, implementation, prototyping, and volume production of secure embedded applications based on Renesas RX MCUs.

Secure development, programming, and provisioning are crucial in meeting the demands of secure industrial IoT applications and achieving the IEC 62443 standard specifications. IEC 62443 demands unique personalization of devices to achieve sufficient security for many applications and to protect from a range of attacks such as ransomware and attacks from sophisticated hackers. Secure provisioning provides unique characteristics to every device being produced. This enables every programmed device to be identified and acted upon, whether this is to provide authentication or to enable updates to be targeted to a single device, or a group. Secure Desktop Provisioner makes provisioning straight forward.

IAR Systems provides the complete C/C++ compiler and debugger toolchain IAR Embedded Workbench with exceptional design flexibility for embedded developers working with the extensive Renesas product portfolio. The offering was recently extended with build tools supporting implementation in Linux-based frameworks for automated application build and test processes. More information is available at www.iar.com/renesas.

Secure Desktop Provisioner with Renesas E2 Lite support is available for Renesas RX MCU Family as part of the Security from Inception Suite, a complete set of tools and services for implementing and customizing security in embedded applications. More information about the complete security offering from IAR Systems and Secure Thingz is available at www.iar.com/security.

Software speeds development of IEEE 1588 system integration

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Silicon Labs announced a new complete solution designed to simplify the implementation of IEEE 1588 in communications, smart grid, financial trading, and industrial applications. Silicon Labs’ ClockBuilder Pro software enables designers to accelerate the development of IEEE 1588 system integration by combining PTP profile selection, PTP network configuration, and physical-layer clock/port configuration in a single, unified software utility.

The adoption of IEEE 1588 packet-based time synchronization is proliferating beyond communication networks into an increasingly broad range of emerging applications where system designers may have limited prior experience with timing and synchronization. One key design challenge facing engineers is optimizing IEEE 1588 system-level performance, a function of board-level hardware/software design as well as network impairments, such as the packet delay variation caused by changing traffic loads.

Silicon Labs’ ClockBuilder Pro provides a robust, reliable solution by combining PTP profile selection, clock/port programming, and simple control of Silicon Labs’ AccuTime IEEE 1588 software to configure operation for a wide variety of network conditions and topologies. Silicon Labs IEEE 1588 modules are standards-compliant with telecom (G.8265.1, G.8275.1 and G.8275.2), power (IEEE C37.238-2011 and 2017), broadcast video (SMPTE 2059.2), and default profiles while meeting the stringent timing and synchronization requirements outlined in ITU-T G.8261, G.8273.2 (T-BC, T-TSC), G.8273.4 (T-BC-P and T-TSC-P), G.8262, G.812, G.813 and Telcordia GR-1244-CORE / GR-253-CORE.

Software tools help build Linux-based environments for Renesas RX MCUs

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IAR Systems adds support for Renesas RX microcontrollers (MCUs) in build tools supporting implementation in Linux-based frameworks for automated application build and test processes. This addition further extends IAR Systems’ offering for flexible automated workflows.

Modern industrial applications are smarter, more feature-rich, and more complex than ever before. This drives a need in making the software development environments scalable and flexible. Today’s development practices also require that organizations have automated processes that ensure quality all the way from development into building and testing. IAR Build Tools for Linux streamline these processes and make it possible for organizations to optimize resources when it comes to the time developers spend in their projects, as well as to manage and utilize licenses and servers in an optimal way. The tools can be easily integrated into different build systems, such as CMake or Ninja, and the command line builds utility IARBuild streamlines building for easy integration with Continuous Integration engines like Jenkins and Bamboo. With the included static analysis tool C-STAT, developers can ensure code quality throughout the development and testing process. C-STAT proves code alignment with industry standards like MISRA C:2012, MISRA C++:2008, and MISRA C:2004, and also detects defects, bugs, and security vulnerabilities as defined by CERT C and the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE).

IAR Build Tools for Linux include the highly optimizing IAR C/C++ Compiler, IAR Assembler, Linker and library tools, IARBuild, and runtime libraries. The IAR C/C++ Compiler adheres to a freestanding implementation of the C18 (ISO/IEC 9899:2018) programming language standard and supports all C++17 features. In addition, C++14 (ISO/IEC 14882:2015), C11 (ISO/IEC 9899:2012), C89 (ANSI X3.159-1989), and the IEEE 754 standard for floating-point arithmetic are supported.

With more than 4,000 supported Renesas devices, the complete C/C++ compiler and debugger toolchain IAR Embedded Workbench and its wide selection of integrated tools for different needs supply exceptional design flexibility for embedded developers working with the extensive Renesas product portfolio. More information is available at www.iar.com/renesas.

SMARC board speeds development of HMI, AI IoT face/object detection, image processing

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Renesas Electronics Corporation introduced a scalable System-on-Module (SoM) Smart Mobility ARChitecture (SMARC) Winning Combination board solution comprised of 10 Renesas ICs, including a microprocessor (MPU), power and analog ICs. The board solution speeds the development of artificial intelligence (AI) IoT face/object detection, image processing, and 4K video playback applications, including surveillance cameras, inspection equipment, and a range of industrial and building automation HMI and embedded vision systems.

The Renesas scalable SoM winning combo board is based on the SMARC 2.0 industry standard, which specifies an 82mm x 80mm form factor. The SMARC SoM board offers designers a choice of three different scalable versions of the Renesas 64-bit RZ/G2 MPU: an RZ/G2N dual-core Arm Cortex-A57 MPU operating at 1.5 GHz for mid-range performance; the RZ/G2M MPU with dual-core Arm Cortex-A57 and quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 (1.2 GHz) for high performance; and the RZ/G2H MPU with quad-core Arm Cortex-A57 and quad-core Arm Cortex-A53 for ultra-high performance. All three MPUs (two cores up to eight cores) feature integrated 600 MHz PowerVR 3D graphics and a 4K UHD H.265 and H.264 codecs to satisfy the needs of different computer processing requirements.

The SMARC SoM winning combo board offers designers their choice of RZ/G2 MPU with up to 35.6K DMIPS performance, plus 2GB to 4GB LPDDR4 RAM memory, and 32GB eMMC. Each RZ/G2 MPU is capable of running edge video analytics and AI frameworks. The MPUs feature an integrated AI software library, comprehensive set of interfaces, error checking and correction (ECC) protection on both internal and external memories, Linux OS, and a Verified Linux Package (VLP) tested and maintained by Renesas. The solutions also feature Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) Super Long-Term Support (SLTS) kernel, and a Linux kernel bundled with a software development environment. Best of all, the SMARC SoM board provides optimized power and a programmable timing tree to assist the RZ/G2 MPU with a wide variety of applications.

Key Features of the SMARC 2.0 SoM Board include: Supports dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) for wireless communication; Fast communication interfaces such as USB, SATA, LVDS, HDMI, CSI, I2S, PCIe, and Gigabit Ethernet are easily accessible through the SMARC 2.0 connector; Fast start-up boot from QSPI or eMMC memory; Features ISL1208 low-power real-time clock for calendar-based applications powered by a small 400nA battery, or supercapacitor during a power failure; Features P8330 power management IC (PMIC) for delivering power to multiple supply rails; Two clock sources supplied by Renesas small form factor VersaClock 3S programmable clocks with integrated 32.768kHz DCO powered by a single coin cell battery during a power failure; PCIe clock is generated with the Renesas 9FGV0641 supporting six 100 MHz differential clock outputs, with PCIe Gen 1-4 support; Easy connection to two external cameras and LCD panel with capacitive touch

The Scalable AI SMARC SoM Winning Combo Solution board was designed by Renesas and developed through a collaboration with RelySys Technologies.

The Scalable AI SMARC SoM board is also available for purchase from RelySys Technologies.

Modules sport 11th Gen Intel Core processors for outdoor/in-vehicle apps

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Congatec introduces six new Computer-on-Modules with 11th Gen Intel Core processors for the extended temperature range. Built with high-quality components designed to withstand extreme temperatures from -40 to +85°C, the new COM-HPC and COM Express Type 6 Computer-on-Modules provide all features and services required for reliable operation in the most challenging environments.

The value package includes rugged passive cooling options, optional conformal coating for protection against corrosion due to moisture or condensation, a list of recommended carrier board schematics, and suitable components for the extended temperature range for highest reliability. This impressive technical feature set is complemented by a comprehensive service offering that includes temperature screening, high-speed signal compliance testing along with design-in services, and all training sessions required to simplify the use of congatec’s embedded computer technologies.

Typical use cases for the new industrial-grade COM-HPC and COM Express modules can be found in any kind of rugged applications, outdoor edge devices, and in-vehicle installations, which increasingly leverage embedded vision and artificial intelligence (AI) functions for which congatec provides extensive support as well. Typical verticals are industrial automation, railway, and transportation, smart infrastructure including mission-critical applications such as the energy, oil and gas sector, mobile ambulance equipment, telecommunication, or security, and video surveillance, to name just a few.

Based on the new low-power high-density Tiger Lake SoCs, the new modules for wide temperature environments offer significantly greater CPU performance and nearly 3x higher GPU performance [1], along with state-of-the-art PCIe Gen4 and USB4 support. The most demanding graphics and compute workloads benefit from up to 4 cores, 8 threads, and up to 96 graphics execution units for massively parallel processing throughput in an ultra-rugged shape. The integrated graphics can be used as parallel processing units for convolutional neural networks (CNN) or as an AI and deep learning accelerator. Using the Intel OpenVINO software toolkit that includes optimized calls for OpenCV, OpenCL kernels, and other industry tools and libraries, workloads can be extended across CPU, GPU, and FPGA computes units to accelerate AI workloads, including computer vision, audio, speech, language, and recommendation systems.

The TDP is scalable from 12W to 28W, enabling truly immersive 4k UHD system designs with passive cooling only. The impressive performance of the ultra-rugged conga-HPC/cTLU COM-HPC module and the conga-TC570 COM Express Type 6 module has been made available in a real-time capable design and also includes real-time hypervisor support from Real-Time Systems for virtual machine deployments and workload consolidation in edge computing scenarios.

The conga-HPC/cTLU COM-HPC Client Size A module, as well as the conga-TC570 COM Express Compact module will be available with new scalable 11th Gen Intel Core processors for extreme temperatures ranging from -40 to +85°C. Both modules are the first to support PCIe x4 in Gen 4 performance to connect peripherals with massive bandwidth. In addition, designers can leverage 8x PCIe Gen 3.0 x1 lanes. Where the COM-HPC module offers the latest 2x USB 4.0, 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2, and 8x USB 2.0, the COM Express module offers 4x USB 3.2 Gen 2 and 8x USB 2.0 in compliance with the PICMG specification. For networking, the COM-HPC module offers 2x 2.5 GbE, whereas the COM Express module executes 1x GbE, with both supporting TSN. Sound is provided via I2S and SoundWire in the COM-HPC version and HDA on the COM Express modules. Comprehensive board support packages are provided for all leading RTOS, including hypervisor support from Real-Time Systems as well as Linux, Windows, and Android. 

AMD Ryzen embedded V2000 CPUs now on COM express modules

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Congatec significantly broadens the application areas of its AMD Ryzen Embedded processor-based COM Express Type 6 platforms towards smaller but more powerful system designs by premiering the brand new AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 processor launched on the COM Express Compact footprint. The new congatec conga-TCV2 powered by the new Ryzen Embedded V2000 processor impresses with up to 2x generational uplift in performance per watt [1], a 2x more CPU cores compared to previous generations [2], at only 76% of the previous size [3] on a 100% pin-compatible form factor.

The powerful AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 SoC integrates AMD Radeon graphics, with up to 7 GPU compute units. The performance per watt improvements of the new ’Zen 2’ cores used by the CPU are based on the 7nm manufacturing process technology. The architecture optimization also adds an estimated 15% more instructions per clock to this improvement [4].

With up to 8 cores and 16 threads on a single BGA footprint, the new Computer-on-Modules are great candidates for digitization and parallel-processed edge analytics – including workload balancing and consolidation enabled by virtual machines on the basis of congatec’s RTS real-time hypervisor implementations.

Further application areas include all standard embedded applications, ranging from industrial box PCs and thin clients to embedded computing systems with impressive compute and graphics performance. Other applications include smart robotics, e-mobility, and autonomous vehicles that use deep learning to optimize their situational awareness.

These modules offer up to double the compute performance per watt and double the core count over the previous generations. Thanks to symmetrical multiprocessing capabilities, they also provide particularly high parallel processing performance with up to 16 threads. The modules feature 4MB L2 cache, 8MB L3 cache, and up to 32GB energy-efficient and fast dual-channel 64-bit DDR4 memory with up to 3200 MT/s and ECC support for maximum data security. The integrated AMD Radeon graphics with up to 7 compute units continue to support applications and use cases that need high-performance graphics computing.

The conga-TCV2 Computer-on-Module supports up to four independent displays with up to 4k60 UHD resolution over 3x DisplayPort 1.4/HDMI 2.1 and 1x LVDS/eDP. Further performance-oriented interfaces include 1x PEG 3.0 x8 and 8x PCIe Gen 3 Lanes, 2x USB 3.1 Gen 2, 8x USB 2.0, up to 2x SATA Gen 3, 1x Gbit Ethernet, 8 GPOIs I/Os, SPI, LPC, as well as 2x legacy UART provided by the board controller.

The supported hypervisor and operating systems include RTS Hypervisor as well as Microsoft Windows 10, Linux/Yocto, Android Q, and Wind River VxWorks. For safety-critical applications, the integrated AMD Secure Processor helps with hardware-accelerated encryption and decryption of RSA, SHA, and AES. TPM support is onboard as well [6].

Dev kit speeds industrial Ethernet comm projects for CC-Link IE TSN systems

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IAR Systems announces the availability of the new evaluation kit IAR KickStart Kit for Renesas’ R-IN32M4-CL3, assisting developers in the development and evaluation of R-IN32M4-CL3 IC for industrial Ethernet communication which supports CC-Link IE TSN targeted for smart factory applications.

The CC-Link IE TSN is an open Industrial Ethernet (IE) technology from CC-Link Partner Association. It combines gigabit Ethernet bandwidth with Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN). Renesas’ R-IN32M4-CL3 is tailored for CC-Link IE TSN and meets TSN specifications of less than one-millionth of a second-time synchronization accuracy between applications. The flexible design of R-IN32M4-CL3 allows one system to serve a diversity of networks and applications, which boosts overall factory productivity.

IAR KickStart Kit for R-IN32M4-CL3 includes everything developers need to get started evaluating and developing applications based on R-IN32M4-CL3, including an R-IN32M4-CL3-based evaluation board and evaluation licenses of the development toolchain IAR Embedded Workbench for Arm. The complete C/C++ compiler and debugger toolchain IAR Embedded Workbench for Arm is an ideal choice for application with strong requirements on high reliability, such as factory applications. The toolchain is available in several editions to suit different customer needs, including a functional safety edition certified by TÜV SÜD according to the requirements of several safety industry standards such as IEC 61508, the international umbrella standard for functional safety.

IAR Embedded Workbench offers development tools for the entire lineup of Renesas microcontrollers, including R-IN32, RA, RE, RZ, RX, RL78, RH850, 78K, SuperH, R8C, V850, R32C and M32C, H8, and M16C. More information is available at www.iar.com/renesas.

Latest release of ROS allow for rapid development, testing, debugging of distributed robotics system

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Real-Time Innovations (RTI) announced the availability of the Connext 6 ROS Middleware Wrapper (RMW) Layer, bringing the field-proven, production-grade strength of RTI Connext 6 to the latest release of the Robot Operating System (ROS 2). Robotics software developers can now leverage the ROS 2 ecosystem together with RTI Connext Tools to more rapidly develop, test, and debug distributed robotics systems. RTI will showcase the new Connext RMW layer at ROS World on November 12. 
 
ROS 2 offers an open-source framework for building robotic systems. RTI is the leading supplier of software compliant with the Data Distribution Service (DDS) standard, which provides the connectivity backbone for ROS 2. The new Connext 6 RMW layer now provides a best-of-both-worlds solution by connecting the ROS 2 ecosystem with RTI’s latest software and Connext Tools.
 
The new Connext RMW layer offers: The flexibility of the ROS 2 platform combined with complete access to RTI Connext tools for improved distributed system visualization and debugging capabilities; Support for RTI Connext DDS Professional in Connext 6, used for industrial and military robotics applications where reliability and scalability are of paramount importance; Support for RTI Connext DDS Micro; Support for future releases of the Connext Product Suite
 
RTI delivers the connectivity framework for safe, secure, reliable operations in complex, cooperative, and autonomous robotics systems. RTI’s software is proven in robotics systems around the world including automotive, medical, manufacturing, aerospace & defense, and more.
 
RTI Connext DDS is active in over 250 autonomous vehicle projects and more than 50 commercial autonomous systems, such as Aptiv, Baidu Apollo, Voyage, and Xpeng Motors. In June 2020, RTI joined the Autoware Foundation, an open alliance for autonomous driving technology, where RTI is leveraging its experience with ROS 2 to help advance the foundation’s Autoware.IO and Autoware.Auto initiatives. RTI is the only DDS vendor to be named an AUTOSAR Development Partner and contributes to the development of the AUTOSAR standard for highly autonomous vehicles. 
 
RTI Connext DDS can also be found at the core of NASA’s rovers and space robots, leveraged by the European Space Agency’s robotic arm, and implemented in TechnipFMC’s semi-autonomous underwater ROVs.  It is also widely used in building and running robotics projects in leading universities around the world. More recently, RTI Connext DDS was used by the collegiate teams entered in the Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) as they participated in the September hackathon, one of several leading up to the IAC final race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on October 23, 2021.