kick-start your creativity with the unified learning kit!. 04 october 2011 kick-start your...
TRANSCRIPT
No. 04 October 2011
Kick-start your creativity with the Unified Learning Kit!
Enabled by Wipro’s Mission10X outreach,
iWave launches an integrated development
platform for embedded application design Leading engineering institutes and industry leaders
have long felt the need to address complex product
development challenges, in electrical engineering and
computer sciences. Engineering institutes provided
inputs related to the current laboratory practices while
Industry leaders, have had to contend with the
practical readiness of engineering graduates to be
productive on the projects as soon as the graduates join
the industry. Mission10X, a Wipro initiative, has
partnered with iWave Technologies in the design and
development of a Unified Learning Kit solution which
addresses the needs of engineering disciplines like
Electrical & Electronics, Electronics &
Communications, Computer Information Technology .
Science, Telecommunications and Instrumentation.
There are three 3 major components to the solution:
Cutting edge Hardware Technology: A hardware
which combines integrated and custom logic, comes
with a Multimedia TI OMAP 3530@600 MHz processor;
a built-in DSP core and Xilinx Spartan 6 FPGA. This
supports interfaces required input devices, Display
devices and connectivity. This makes it work
independently as a standalone box as well. With the use
of FPGA one could develop products with customer
features on this.
Open Source Software: While presently equipped
with the UBOOT and Linux Operating System, with
X11 graphics, other embedded operating system like
WinCE and android can also be supported. A basic API
library is also provided from which user can easily
develop their own application with minimal effort. This
will allow users, to implement their custom algorithms.
Learning Assets: This provides faculty members
with enablers to take students to higher levels of
learning and includes training materials, resource
guides, assessment framework including video
tutorials. The contents that come on the DVD provided
with ULK, include user manuals, which contain
detailed function-level details about the software and
hardware details to the pin/interface level. The DVD
also contains simple experiments around most of the
interfaces available on the hardware with source code.
Key components to ensure that the solution is learner-
friendly include a Faculty Resource Guide(FRG)
which contains detailed explanation of how the
experiments could be conducted in the ULK lab and an
Application Programming Interface (API) which
helps students develop higher level applications with
ease.
Add-ons coming
iWave engineers has already begun work on developing
add-on modules and application for this Kit. The first of
these caters to motion sensing applications: a small
add on board connected at the edge, will sense the axis
and rotate the display, according to the movement. The
module, uses the I2C interface, available with the
processor. Another possible -- automotive -- application
is an instrument console, where the logic to monitor
the speed of the vehicle is implemented in FPGA.
The OMAP3530 high-performance, applications
processor which lies at the heart of the iWave ULK, is
based on the enhanced OMAP™ 3 architecture which is
designed to provide best-in-class video, image, and
graphics processing sufficient to support Streaming
video,3D mobile gaming, Video conferencing and High-
resolution still images.
The Mission10X portal provides a platform for
collaboration among ULK users. Projects and
experiments developed by faculty members could be
shared with the ULK community. Project themes help
faculty members and students to work on industry
relevant projects. The focus is to enable students to
take up projects in multiple industry domains like
Consumer electronics, mobile, automotive, industrial
automation and medicine. -- Suhas.D.K & Ruby.K.
For more information:
http://www.iwavesystems.com/ULK.htm
Engineering students embrace the ULK,
create innovative embedded apps.
As part of the Mission10X not-for profit educational
initiative, a ULK Lab equipped with iWave ULK kits,
was inaugurated at Wipro’s Bangalore campus in
August this year by Mr A Vasudevan, Wipro’s Vice
President, Semiconductor and Systems. Present on the
occasion were representatives from VIT University,
Vellore, Tamil Nadu; SASTRA University, Thanjavur,
Tamil Nadu and the NITTE Meenakshi Institute of
Technology, Bangalore. Within weeks, students began
creating interesting applications around the ULK. At
VIT, students used the ULK to breadboard integrated
body electronics control systems for automobiles -- to
control side mirror and car mirror – using the Zigbee
protocol.
Says Prof B.Karthikeyan of the Embedded System
Division of VIT’s School of Electronics Engineering: “It’s
been a wonderful experience for the faculty and also for
the students, to work with the ULK. Due to its ease of
use, we, have included the ULK into the courses of
B.Tech ECE and M.Tech VLSI students. They have
started working with ULK, involving both FPGA and
ARM, based on the co-processor concept. I would like to
see the ULK incorporated in engineering college
programmes to enhance the students’ knowledge of
LINUX, ECLIPSE, OMAP and FPGA.”
Intel Parallel Studio 2011: a cool
tool for Visual Studio developers
Ashfaque Ahamed, iWave Systems
Intel Parallel Studio software development suite
provides Microsoft Visual Studio C/C++ developers a
comprehensive tool suite that includes an innovative
threading assistant, optimizing compiler and libraries,
memory error and threading performance profiler.
Intel Parallel Studio is an add-in for Microsoft Visual
Studio that gives you a large set of features for writing
parallel code that targets multiple processor cores. It
includes a new C++ compiler that gets run instead of
the built-in Visual C++ compiler, allowing you to take
advantage of several new features. Parallel Studio
integrates with all the recent versions of Visual Studio:
2005, 2008, and 2010. Parallel Studio 2011, which is the
second version, is a significant improvement over the
first version. The new features are:
Cilk Plus: New C++ keywords (called Cilk Plus) that
simplify the writing of parallel, threaded code.
BPP: Parallel Studio includes an entire template
library called Parallel Building Blocks (PBB). PBB is
built on Threading Building Blocks 3.0, an open-source
threading library that was also created by Intel, along
with Array Building Blocks. This threading library
includes several classes that are similar to the ones in
the standard C++ library, with the difference being they
are totally thread-safe and will, when possible, run
simultaneously on multiple cores. This takes away a lot
of the hard work of programming for multiple threads,
and that's one of the primary goals of Intel Parallel
Studio 2011.
Intel Parallel Advisor: This is all new for 2011. (The
earlier version included a "Lite" version.) The idea here
is that you'll receive guidelines for developing parallel
code. What is impressive with Parallel Advisor is how
smart it actually is. The idea is that it monitors your
running program and finds places where you could
benefit from parallelization. It includes a workflow
window that takes you through the steps.
Pros and Cons: People are often surprised by the
gains in performance, but feelings are often mixed. For
example, some have been able to speed up a sample
application, 3x, by dividing the work between the cores
of a quad-core processor. But developers would expect a
much bigger number. Some may expect to see double-
digit or even 100-times improvements. However, the
reality is that we were dealing with only four cores, and
not everything can realistically be divided among the
cores.
Perhaps one potential drawback is in the addition of
three new keywords in C++. On one hand, these
keywords greatly simplify the writing of parallel code.
But in the process, you may completely lose portability
to other compilers. This might be a problem if you want
to port your software to other platforms (such as
handheld devices). However, realistically, if you're
porting to handheld devices, you'll probably be making
lots of other changes to the code anyway, so having to
work around these three keywords is probably the least
of your problems. The additional keywords may then
not be a big problem.
This is a fantastic tool, and the new version adds some
amazing capability, that will hopefully get everybody
thinking about targeting multiple cores with their
software. There is, however, a learning curve involved
in this tool, and sometimes you might be disappointed
with the performance increase. The price also might be
a little prohibitive to individual developers, but larger
software houses should have no problem affording it.
The full product contains Advisor, Amplifier, Composer,
and Inspector. Free 30-day trial is available too. Go, get
it and try! Happy Multi-Threading!
www.iwavesystems.com
iWave opens new office in London,
enhances support for Europe customers
iWave systems is pleased to announce an
extended presence in Europe, with the
appointment of Judith White as Account Manager
and Derek as Solutions Architect.
Judith has worked in computer science and engineering for a
number of years in sales management and business
development roles, working with global European customers as
well as small and mid size enterprises. Originally from the
USA, Judith holds graduate degrees in Business and
Computer Science and speaks English, German and French.
Based in London, UK and Munich Germany she will provide
local support for iWave customers and prospects.
Derek has many years experience as a solutions provider in a
wide range of industries, including health service, civil and
mechanical engineering, manufacturing, chip fabrication, IT
development, finance, market analysis, pharmaceutical, and
education. Derek has used mathematical modelling and
simulation to solve previously intractable problems in logistics,
routing and process analysis, and is keen to face the challenges
of generating business in this economic climate.
The reduced budgets of most governments in Europe require
new ways of thinking about reducing costs in the delivery of
services, in areas like Health Care. Devices that ensure
safety, improve monitoring and save time are very often able
to reduce overall costs or return their investment in a short
time—and this is potential source of business, with iWave’s
history of medical device development.
Rising fuel prices are causing long haul operators to evaluate
new means to save – like better navigation and intelligent
traffic updates to reduce fuel consumption, pollution and
operating hours. Again, iWave’s ability to meet these
requirements and possibly improve the plight of drivers with
some entertainment from the same systems seems like a good
opportunity. In other public services too , cost savings are
being sought. M2M communication has been suggested for
rubbish bins that can send signals requesting a pickup only
when full, or the monitoring of water systems to catch leaks!
“There are many opportunities in Europe, and we will use
originality and imagination to further the business of iWave
systems in this difficult market”, say Judith and Derek.
Meet iWave engineers and executives at these international shows in 2011:
ARM TechCon 2011
Santa Clara (CA), USA Oct 25 - 27, 2011
http://www.arm.com/about/events/techcon-2011.php
Embedded Technology 2011
Yokohama Japan, Nov 16 - 18, 2011 http://www.embeddedtech.net/
iWave is competing in two categories at the ISA -- India
Semiconductor Association’s annual Technovation Awards.
See our demo at the event in BANGALORE, Dec 16 2011
iWave exhibits at DwF Paris
iWave’s Director, European Operations, Kumar Bhagavath (left) and Sales Partner in France, D. Radjou ( centre) with a delegate at the “Designing with Freescale” event in Paris, October 4 2011.
www.iwavesystems.com [email protected]