contents · centers, the system needs interconnected services to provide real-time information,...
TRANSCRIPT
Contents
Cover StoryAdvantech Embedded Design-in Forum
Published byAdvantech Co., Ltd.
PublisherMiller Chang
AddressNo.1, Alley 20, Lane 26, Rueiguang Road, Neihu District, Taipei, Taiwan 114Tel +886-2-2792-7818Website www.advantech.com/Embcore
Editorial SupervisorEmbedded Core Group
Editorial CommitteeLinda TsaiMacro ChenAaron Su Sandy ChenVictor HuangCL ChiangChiwen.LinEthan ChenTones YenTawei Wang Bing ChenSamantha ChiangMandy ChenIrene ChangSandy ChangMartin MarshallMiles OdonnolRichard Ponce
Emb’Core is published forADVANTECH Co., Ltd. by Interculture Custom Media. All rights reserved.Reproduction without permission is strictly prohibited.
Please verify specifications before quoting. This guide is intended for reference purposes only.All product specifications are subject to change without notice.No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise,without prior written permission of the publisher.All brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.© Advantech Co., Ltd. 2010
Vewpoint
Enabling an Intelligent Planet 03
Cover Story
Advantech Embedded Design-in Forum 04
Technologies, Trends & Innovations for Embedded Developers
Technology Forum
Next Generation Low Power Solution for x86 Platforms 14
BIOS Startup Firmware 18
Increases System Reliability and Improves Device Security
Windows Embedded Standard 7 20
Aiming at High-end and Interactive Devices Development
The Stability and Reliability of Storage Devices 22
Acoustic Pulse Recognition Touch Technology 24
Industrial Display Technology and Trend 26
Product In-Depth
New Products 28
2010 Star Product Selection Guide 29
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Because such facilities are deployed in large numbers in various environments including remote regions and control centers, the system needs interconnected services to provide real-time information, connectivity and control. Moreover, the services can help the manager to execute daily management and prevent a terminal crash as well as provide information on devices monitoring, reporting, and maintenance.
With the popularity of the Internet and sensors, the intelligent planet will be a new trend in this generation and will make a great impact on our lives. In order to enable the intelligent planet, embedded systems must possess three capabilities including more sensitive perception (Instrumented Platforms), more comprehensive Internet connectivity (Interconnected Services), and more powerful intelligence (Intelligent Management). It will change the application of embedded computers from general purpose to application ready platforms, or even progress to the service ready platform. Through these concepts and functions, the metal sphere in the German Pavilion can not just be for fun, it can be a value-added facility.
Miller Chang Advantech Embedded Core Group Associate Vice President
The Shanghai World Expo has been one of the media’s hottest topics as of late. At the expo there are pavilions
set up to introduce some of the most worthwhile places to visit. The German Pavilion is one of the “Top Ten Pavilions”; a favorite to see because of its voice-controlled metal sensor ball, which is the biggest highlight of the exhibit. Most people are amazed by such a voice controlled device, but in the embedded systems market, sensor driven applications are everywhere. Take a wireless sensor network for example. This type of network consists of spatially distributed, autonomous sensors that cooperate with one another to monitor physical or environmental conditions. They are now in use in many industrial and civilian application areas, including industrial process monitoring and control, machine health monitoring, environmental monitoring, healthcare applications, home automation, and traffic control. Sensors can detect light, motion, temperature, magnetic fields, gravity, humidity, vibration, pressure, electrical fields, sound, and other physical aspects of the external environment.
One critical function that sensor-based applications can effectively monitor is in the area of reducing power con-sumption. By controlling equipment more intelligently and accurately, it is already possible to significantly reduce consumption of electricity. For instance, the intelligent lighting system for an indoor building can detect a person’s movement by installation of a motion detector, and adjust the lighting to provide the most suitable and cost-saving illumination. But the deployment of these detectors still needs software to complete their functionality. As an example, intelligent management software for a thermal application could be programmed to compute system load during start up, determine appropriate action to take when the system is overheating, and switch to sleep mode when the system is idle.
Another example, the city transportation system enables the bus with GPS and deliver the real time location information back to control server. After the data has been compiled, the information can be displayed in each dynamic signboard.
Enabling anIntelligent Planet
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With the advancement of technology and fast-changing market demands, the IT industry is facing a major transformation. Vendors need to provide specialist products quickly to meet the growing demand for intelligent terminals and automation equipment. K.C. Liu, CEO of Advantech stated, “Being just a board provider does not fulfill the customers’ needs any more. Based on our long-time embedded experience, we not only provide total solutions, but we also understand the range of needs within the customers’ product design process. As a result, Advantech now provides a full range of embedded platforms, and also integrates them with all of our internal and external resources to provide a range of specialist design-in services.“
Advantech Embedded Design-in ForumTechnologies, Trends & Innovations for Embedded DevelopersBy Advantech Embedded Core Group
Booth Showcase, ADF Taipei in TICC, March 3
K.C. Liu, CEO, Advantech, presenting the opening speech: Mega Trends in Embedded Computing Solutions
Advantech Embedded Design-In Forum (ADF) is a global event that brings together respected, leading industry representatives and Advantech experts to address and discuss the latest trends and technologies faced by embedded developers. The first
run ADF was hosted in Taipei, Shenzhen, Shanghai on March, 2010. Subsequent, forums will be held in Beijing, South Korea, Japan, Germany, and other countries.
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appliances, automobiles, and Machine to Machine (M2M) applications. According to the forecast, there will be over 15 billion pieces of Internet equipment in the global market by 2015.” Intelligent networking applications continue to develop in various fields including government projects, public construction works, social and economic infrastructures, and technology research and development; in all of these, next generation embedded computing technology will play a key role. For example, the construction of smart energy grids are imperative and have far-reaching implications for industry and society as a whole, with requirements for intelligent meters, energy storage, transmission and distribution networks, intelligent switches and sensors, information analysis and management software, all of which have to be designed and implemented. Furthermore, there will be more intelligent designs for vehicles, with personalized user interfaces, smart driving assistance functions, as well as programmable remote update capabilities for vehicle information and communication.
ADF helps everyone take advantage of changing technology and advances business success through collaboration with other industry leaders and experts. As a leader, Advantech demonstrates its commitment to developing advanced services and platforms that give our customers the edge.
Trends in the Embedded MarketMega Trends in Embedded Computing SolutionsWith the Internet’s popularity, eBusiness opportunities have flourished since 1995. The trend toward an ever smarter planet will make a great impact on the current generation. In order to build an intelligent planet, embedded systems must possess three capabilities: sensitive perception (Instrumented), comprehensive Internet connectivity (Interconnected), and intelligence (Intelligent). This will change the function of embedded computers from general purpose to application-oriented and service-oriented platforms. Advantech, as a platform provider, will cooperate with software, hardware, and system integration partners to create service-oriented, intelligent, and connected embedded solutions well beyond the role of traditional embedded computers.
Transforming the Next Generation of Embedded ComputingEric WP Chan, Director of Intel ECD Asia said that, “In addition to mobile phones and computers, there are many devices which will support online functions, including home
Eric WP Chan, Director, ECD Asia, Intel, presenting the keynote speech: Return to Growth, Transforming the Next Generation of Embedded Computing
Cafe Chat: Talk with the experts - Embedded BIOS
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called the Natal Project which is whole-body motion sensor technology. Through the natural user interface, the human body can be the controller in a game or an application. This kind of technology provides a controller-free interface and will enable a whole new wave of applications in the future.
In view of evolving embedded board technology, Advantech established Embedded Core Services, which includes the computing platform, design-in services, and software solutions. Miller Chang, AVP of Advantech Embedded Core Group said that Advantech not only associates with Intel products to provide embedded boards, but also gets an early
start on development of the next generation of embedded boards. At the same time, Advantech is focusing on the core features of embedded intelligence platforms, such as low power consumption, compact form factors, reduced software complexity, and plug & play.
Building Three Screens and a CloudJim Fredricksen, Sr. Director of Microsoft Global OEM Server Sales introduced the concept and vision of “three screens and a cloud”. The three screens represent traditional computers, mobile phones, and televisions. Through the interaction of these screens and the cloud, in this instance empowered by Windows Azure with its natural user interface, the various communications needs of consumers can more easily be merged into one another for a more seamless and powerful experience. In this framework, Microsoft can provide consumers with familiar products and services from anywhere. “Cloud computing services are rapidly developing in many applications and changing the infrastructure with far-reaching impact on the lives of everyone. For example, users can easily edit digital content through a Context-Aware System to acquire the most needed real-time information,” Fredricksen said. Now a user can easily get the software tools they need to improve work efficiency, and share information with family, friends and colleagues on a variety of different devices—from anywhere. It is also worth mentioning that Microsoft has developed a new innovative user interface
Jim Fredricksen, Sr. Director, Global OEM Server Sales, Microsoft, presenting the keynote speech: Building Three Screens and a Cloud
Miller Chang, AVP, Embedded Core Group, Advantech, presenting the keynote speech: Business Strategy of Advantech Design-In Services
Business Strategy of Advantech Design-In Services
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With regard to software development, future trends include the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) architecture, intelligent management, real-time OS, system security, remote access, and crisis recovery. Advantech has integrated development services for embedded BIOS, OS, and software API to satisfy the demand from vertical markets. Embedded Core offers three EFI solutions: embedded EFI BIOS, embedded EFI Pre-Boot application, and embedded EFI Remote Management solution.
Moreover, Embedded Core intelligent management is able to perform cross-platform management functions including data security, hardware and smart fan monitoring, and provides a three-layer security mechanism which covers the BIOS,
platforms, and storage devices for more reliable system security as well as remote access and crisis diagnosis. Embedded Core Services can also provide industrial embedded modules, such as storage modules, wireless modules, and LCD panels and touch controllers.
For embedded design-in services, Embedded Core Services provides advanced software and hardware to help design-in energy-savings, better thermal performance, and reduced EMI mechanism solutions, as well as integrate peripheral designs that improve system reliability and security. Chang stressed that Advantech established close ecosystem partnerships to collaboratively provide total solutions.
Next Generation Embedded Platforms & SolutionsThere are some important future trends coming such as cloud computing, better data protection, highly integrated chipsets, ultra low power consumption, and flexible scalable designs that focus more on vertical markets. By far the most important trend is cloud computing. Cloud computing reduces the dependence on client-end applications, so some applications and data will be kept remotely on servers “in the cloud”, this in turn will reduce the performance level requirement on some hardware. Furthermore, data protection and privacy issues will be crucial if cloud computing is to really take off and individuals and enterprises are to be reassured. Flexibility in design is important for specific vertical markets such as transportation, health care and gaming which have their own special I/O needs. Highly integrated chipsets allow designs to be smaller and more efficient, and ultra low power consumption saves energy and money. In addition, Advantech can offer reliable hardware and software integration services to meet any customer requirements.
In 2010, Advantech introduced four major new platforms to the market ranging from entry level to high performance level:
including DM&P’s VortexDX86 SoC, Intel® Atom™ N450/ D510 processor (the first Atom dual-core processor), mobile Intel® Core™ i7 with QM57 (supports up to 4 displays), and desktops with Intel® Core™ i7 Q57/3450 processors. Advantech’s PCM-9562 with Intel® Atom™ N450/D510 processor offers COM6 and LAN3 port isolation to meet medical UL60601 standards. Port isolation protects the whole board and system if there’s an electrical surge. PCM-9562 also offers two watchdog timers and has power off protection. On selected product lines like PC/104, 3.5”, and EBX form factors, we support heat spreader thermal solutions to provide better thermal results.
The processor frequency on the Intel® QM57 platform is 2.66 GHz, a 30~60% CPU performance increase over previous platforms with support for DDR3 memory. The 3D graphic capability can support up to four displays, and with vPro Remote Control Management, it can diagnose and repair a PC remotely, perform asset traces and security management.
Sandy Chen, Product Manager, Advantech, presenting the technology session: Next Generation Embedded Platforms & Solutions
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Advantech PCM-3343 and PCM-9343 with Vortex86DX are highly suitable in applications in harsh environments needing fanless designs. These two products come with DDR2 memory on board and also support extended temperature operation from -40~85° C or -20~80° C. A conformal coating option is available for environments that offer challenges from friction, dust, temperature extremes, or chemicals. These products are great choices for rugged environments.
In November, Advantech will launch a new product range based on future Intel® Atom™ processors with ultra low power consumption of around 5.5 Watts, and new products based on PC/104, 3.5”, COM-Ultra and Q7 form factors. Advantech aims to provide the very latest processor and chipset platforms to achieve faster times to market.
Advantech’s SOM-5788 is based on the Intel QM57 platform. This is a highly integrated product with an API which supports: multiple control interfaces, advanced watchdog, smart fan, and hardware monitoring. And, through Advantech’s eSOS system rescue software, a user can remotely diagnose and solve onboard problems. Plus, power consumption is ten times lower than the previous generation board.
DM&P Vortex86DX SoC is a low power x86 based processor with a frequency up to 1.0 GHz and dedicated FPU (Floating Point Unit) operation. The Vortex86DX is an ultra low power consumption platform; its non-graphics processing power consumption is 4W, and only 6W with graphic processing. It also supports the ISA interface and multiple I/O to fulfill legacy application requirements.
Aaron Su, Product Manager, Advantech, presenting the technology session: Techniques for Embedded Design-In
Techniques for Embedded Design-InAdvantech Embedded Core Group emphasizes the benefits of hardware, software and services integration. In accordance with customers’ needs, the Design-in team can integrate single board computers with peripheral modules and software and make use of global resources to facilitate production for a faster time-to-market. For an optimized thermal system, all components are comprehensively evaluated, including hard disks and CPU’s to ensure system quality and reliability. Furthermore, the balance between cost and efficiency is also important, so in the design phase, a comprehensive detailed evaluation is carried out to prevent problems later on. As a result, we can provide unique thermal solutions based on simulation, sample testing and certification.
Similarly, Advantech power management solutions can expand value for customers. For instance, if you operate in
transportation centers like airports and stations, sudden power failures can be disastrous. If a flight information display system goes down it can affect thousands of travelers and result in chaos or worse. That’s why Advantech’s iManager power management system provides an “always on” option for dealing with power problems. In case of abnormal power, the system will automatically boot to remedy such problems. Hardware monitoring tracks temperatures, CPU speeds, voltages, fan speeds, and brightness; if any problems occur, the system will send an alert message, and take appropriate action. Compared with general monitoring tools based on the operating system which can only be executed after the operating system returns to normal, Advantech’s iManager can do more accurate monitoring because it can start to monitor right from system boot up.
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Embedded TechnologiesEmbedded EFI & Fast Boot Technology Daniel Lin, Senior Program Manager of Phoenix Technologies said that, “There are many system issues to be discussed but the essence of these problems are contained in the BIOS.” Phoenix Technology divides their product lines into two categories: one is legacy BIOS products which they have been providing for over 25 years, and which include Embedded BIOS® and SecureCore™. The other product line is Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) BIOS SecureCore™ Tiano (SCT) which was launched in 2003 to support the Intel Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) architecture and to provide more tools for the easy conversion to the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface. With these more complex BIOS, UEFI divides the BIOS into two segments. In the past, many features were based in the OS; today, these functions are implanted into the BIOS.
Phoenix technology has assisted customers in transforming from legacy BIOS to the new UEFI framework. There is a dedicated CE team developing UEFI further and helping transplant legacy BIOS features to ensure compatibility with manufacturing tools and offering production, training, and technical support.
Embedded customers generally have four major needs: the first is security, to protect privacy, data, authorization and accuracy. The second is connectivity, to ensure that the device can easily connect to the Internet via UEFI applications. The third is reliability, providing extended testing and debugging. The last is environmental design, which includes the battery and energy management. Due to the long evolution of BIOS technology, many features have been created with great precision using UEFI to give it even broader capability.
Phoenix Technology is the first and largest BIOS manufacturer in the world. They specialize in UEFI applications, tools, and
OEM customized modules that help product differentiation, add more value, and improve time to market. Moreover, Phoenix Technology has an established partnership with Advantech of more than 15 years.
Windows 7 & Windows CE 6 Applications“Looking to the future, Windows 7 is the roadmap of Microsoft’s embedded operating system in 2010,” said Nelson Lin, Senior Partner Technology Manager at Microsoft. Microsoft will introduce both the enterprise version of Windows 7 and the latest version of Windows Embedded Compact 7 for the consumer market later this year; this is the next version after Windows CE 6.0 R3. Windows Embedded Compact 7 with Silverlight will be upgraded from version 2.0 to version 3.0 to provide more useful tools for 3D UI development and also multi touch support. The new version offers better performance for browsing YouTube video and also supports Flash v.10.1, multi-core CPUs, as well as utilizing more than 512 MB of physical memory.
Based on the Windows 7 kernel, Windows Embedded Standard 7 will be launched in May 2010 to help differentiate products from embedded system manufacturers. For example, the system offers enhanced multi-touch, handwriting input, and a new Windows 7 user interface. Like any other Microsoft embedded OS, it enables developers to create a custom embedded operating system, and helps developers to create applications and drivers in the Visual Studio environment. Windows Embedded Standard 7 will support Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation. It will provide a richer Internet experience using smaller bandwidth, and IE 8 support will strengthen the networking capability of embedded devices and allow developers to use Windows online services; with additional support for 64-bit x86 processors.
Nelson Lin, Senior Partner Technology Manager, Microsoft, presenting the technology session: Windows 7 & Windows CE 6 Applications
Daniel Lin, Senior Program Manager of Phoenix Technologies, presenting the technology session: Embedded EFI & Fast Boot Technology
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Flash Reliability Enhancement of Embedded SolutionsEkron Hsu, Senior Project Manager of PHISON introduced the latest storage technology. Today, most mainstream NAND Flash memory is based on Parallel ATA (PATA). Because of the lack of speed, it is slowly being replaced by three specifications: one is the PCI-E solution (still less than popular), the second is SATAII (SATA SSD is the hottest solution and its next-generation specification, SATA-III, is expected to release this year with speeds up to 6 times faster than PATA), the third is USB 3.0 (USB is the most popular storage interface but 3.0 is premature). Many people believe that SATA SSD’s speed and performance are the most important, but reliability is actually a higher priority for industrial products; reliability means security, and 90% of all developers are focused on it. The lack of reliability in embedded solutions can result in significant losses including system crashes, data loss, unrecognized devices, and data errors. Although performance or speed may not be great, it is important that a system keeps on functioning, that is the reason why reliability is so important. There are several ways to enhance reliability including Error Correction Code (ECC), wear leveling, bad block management, and read disturbance management. In connection with those technologies, PHISON
Electronics owns 177 patents in Taiwan, China, and the United States; and an additional 345 patents are currently under examination.
Touchscreen Panel Technology Trends and Consumer Market Development“It has been 40 years since the first touch panel technology was revealed,” said by Steven Lai, Regional Sales Director of Elo TouchSystems. At this stage, there are many vendors who have invested in it and it has a large annual value. According to estimates, the annual value was $4 billion U.S. dollars in 2008 which increased to $4.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2009, with an annual growth rate of 14%. This has been driven largely by the iPhone, and traditional large resistive technology has been transferred into the consumer market. In the next 3 to 5 years, an “all-in-one” with touch panel will flood the market and touch panel costs will drop significantly because of mass production for the consumer market. One technology that has been very popular recently is multi-touch, which was originally introduced back in 1992, and is now expected to be imported into the notebook. However, cost and lack of attractive applications are major problems for touch applications. More still needs to be done to attract users.
Ekron Hsu, Senior Project Manager, PHISON, presenting the technology session: Flash Reliability Enhancement of Embedded Solutions
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Most touch-panel technology vendors in Taiwan focus on 4-wire resistive but Tyco Electronics specializes in Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) development. When the panel is touched by one or more fingers, four sensors around the screen detect the frequency and intensity of the waves generated, which can be used to calculate the touch position. Most of the SAW vendors calculate by intensity of the waves but Tyco uses the frequency. Each cell detects a different wave range and the waves are loaded into the chip; the touch position is calculated from the data. The technology is quite commonly used in single-touch applications. The multi-touch technology has been developed and is currently awaiting Windows 7 certification. One of the benefits of this multi-touch technology is low cost because it only needs one layer of glass with four sensors.
Right now, Projected Capacitive Touch technology is the mainstream technology used for the large touchscreens but the price is too high for embedded applications. The best solutions for embedded markets are infrared and SAW because of their high light transmission and low cost advantages.
Industrial Display Technology and TrendsThere are several industrial display technology trends, the first one is for greener products, and so the environmentally friendly panel has been gaining popularity. According to estimates, the market share will reach 55% in 2011. Product carbon footprint management and cumulative carbon emissions have also become global trends as they are important in meeting the Green Seal certification.
Debbie Chiu, Senior Manager of AU Optronics said “The LED backlight is a low-power, low-carbon-dioxide product. Its penetration is increasing. Notebooks adopted LEDs early on and TV manufacturers started using them last year. All AUO products of less than 15 inches are ready. Compared with CCFL, AUO expects the LED price to drop to an
acceptable range after 3 years and their volume of production will enlarge. Industrial market penetration is expected to be up to 50% after 3 years. With a ceramic package, the product life of an industrial LED backlight is 50,000 hours. The power consumption of an AUO 10.4-inch product is lower than CCFL by about 29%. This represents a reduction of 66 kg of carbon dioxide and saves about US $11.40. Compared with RGB, AUO adopted RGBW technology which offers light transmission of 50%, with reduced power consumption, and a smaller number of LEDs.”
The second trend is touch technology. AUO developed their own embedded multi-touch technology, which integrated the touch control into the driver IC. It is a thin solution with good optical features, anti-glare, and can recognize up to 8 touch points or gestures. These kinds of products are suitable for POS, ATM, and KIOSK applications. Small sized products started shipping last year.
The third trend is 3D display technology. There are many application markets, such as TV, advertising machines, and photo frames. To make things convenient for the viewer, the new technology should eliminate the requirement for 3D glasses. With the glasses, some of the technologies need to change the picture frequency up to 120 Hz and it has not gained popularity yet. Therefore, AUO chose to develop the technology without glasses.
The fourth trend is electronic paper. Through the acquisition of SiPix, AUO invested a lot of effort in development of Microcup® and has shipped several hundred thousand units using this technology. The last trend is Field Emission Display (FED) Technology, a technology transferred from SONY. Its design is similar to that of the CRT displays, and it is very important in the health care market. AUO estimates that mass production will begin in the first half of next year.
Debbie Chiu, Senior Manager, AU Optronics, presenting the technology session: Industrial Display Technology and Trends
Booth showcase, ADF Taipei in TICC, March 3
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What are the trends in embedded computing design? How to seize the trends and opportunities to developing the
next generation of embedded applications is the key topic of discussion.
Moderator: Jeff Chen, Chief Technology Officer, AdvantechParticipants: Eric WP Chan, Director, ECD Asia, Intel Steven Lai, Regional Sales Director, Greater China & ASEAN, Elo TouchSystems KS Pua, President, PHISON Electronics
There are various changes in the embed-ded market that designers should pay attention to. Eric pointed out that soft-ware design is crucial. He believes that rightly directed, the R&D investment can quickly obtain the expected harvest. Software and hardware integration is a necessary condition. Intel® AtomTM processors provide design advantages of flexibility and low-power as well as being easy to incorporate, and therefore they are widely supported by partners and customers. For embedded design, Intel® has launched the exclusive Intel® AtomTM processor to offer satisfactory functionality for embedded applicat-ions.
KS said that in order to enhance the reliability of environmental applications, embedded system development was used, adopting flash memory as the storage device. To reduce cost, flash memory used an advanced process that enlarges the storage capacity, but with certain tradeoffs, such as shorter product life and a slightly higher susceptibility to data corruption. But these tendencies are counteracted through chip control technology that extends the product life through ECC and other algorithms; and also enhances accuracy and reliability.
In addition to processor and storage technology, Steven indicated that the touch interface is the most convenient and intuitive method of man-machine control. It has become the basic necessity of interface technology and has gradually entered the consumer market, as well as medical, automotive, home appliances and other embedded devices. Currently, there are many kinds of touch technologies, such as resistive, surface capacitive, projected capacitive, acoustic style, and optical. All of them have their own technical characteristics and application areas. For the future, Built-in Touch Technology with the panel process integration is worth noting. The design challenge in embedded computers is how to develop the control board to support touch functions.
Eric WP ChanIntel
KS PuaPHISON Electronics
Steven LaiElo TouchSystems
Trends in Embedded Computer Design
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To differentiate the embedded application, software plays a key role, but to make the embedded platform more
efficient and successful, innovation is the thing we need to realize.
Moderator: Miller Chang, AVP, Embedded Core Group, AdvantechParticipants: Michael Chiu, Director, Asia OEM Server Sales, Microsoft CT Wang, VP & GM, Greater China, Phoenix Technology Richard Lee, General Manager, Taiwan Division, Wind River
CT presented his views on the embedded software development trends from the perspective of the end product, and said that the BIOS which is used to start up the operating system has now progressed to a new level where it provides more advanced features. For example, today’s EFI/UEFI BIOS not only can boot, but also can drive Bluetooth, WiFi and other communication features at the same time. This means that the system is able to access the Internet just as it starts to operate. It also provides for more secure operation. CT pointed out that BIOS development aims toward creating innovative functions including more energy-savings, high reliability, shorter boot time, pre-boot, and multi-switching operating systems.
Regarding the development of cloud computing, Michael said that the transition from PC, to network, to cloud computing will shuffle the value chain of the industry ecosystem. In the future, there will be more and more embedded networking devices. Through cloud computing, we won’t need powerful computing capabilities and we will be able to provide a variety of applications from anywhere. In this framework, cloud computing will serve as the processing hub, enabling Internet applications to be used just like your own computer or local area network is.
“In embedded system development, the importance of software is continuously rising. As SOC develops towards multi-core architecture, embedded operating system design is more complicated,” Richard said. In systems development, software is even more important than hardware, and therefore it is worth investing more. At this point open software can acquire more flexible advantages in development, but optimization is the key to creating value. In the development trend toward service-oriented platforms, there must be some standard environment to plan the proper software for the demands of different industries.
Michael ChiuMicrosoft
CT WangPhoenix Technology
Richard LeeWind River
Trends in Embedded Software
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The strong demand in the embedded market is driving x86 processor manufacturers to provide products which
combine efficiency with excellent performance for applications where small size, thermal efficiency and power consumption matter. For System Integrators and developers, it would be great if total development effort, lead time and cost could be reduced, while at the same time OS, driver and service support could be enhanced to improve competitiveness and profit.
With a diverse range of new applications and technologies, and the emergence of customized end to end products, the embedded market has continued to expand in recent years. These embedded applications are all around us in our lives, such as Point of Sale devices, KIOSK’s, medical devices, e-automation applications, Set Top Box (STB), transportation, digital signage, communications, and home appliances and mobile Internet devices. The variety of applications means huge business opportunities for the embedded market, which
increasingly draws the attention of many new manufacturers and developers resulting in a large increase in product development.
The core of many of Advantech’s low power products use x86 processors, which combine efficiency with excellent performance and lower software development effort on the customer’s side. Compared with RISC chips, the x86 architecture has much better software support and can help reduce the total development schedule. The key concern for developers of RISC-based solutions is the need to rewrite the software kernel source code and drivers to adapt to their designs. For example, with x86, developers just need to adjust the parameters of drivers and VBIOS, but RISC provides the source code of display drivers for reference—it’s necessary
for the customer to have software engineering experience to do further porting. In addition,
when the BIOS of the device is complete, developers can install Windows XP
OS and test the system directly.
Next Generation Low Power Solutions for x86 PlatformsBy Sandy Chen, Product Manager, Advantech
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Most of the desktop drivers are already available for x86 in Windows XP and Windows 7, and even many distributions of Linux such as Red Hat and Fedora can only support x86. In contrast, with the RISC architecture the OS needs to be carefully modified and as a result RISC is only supported by Windows CE and Linux OS. It takes a lot of effort on R & D resources, and a longer schedule yet it still presents some risks.
And there are more benefits to the x86 architecture. As far as CPU performance and system benchmarks are concerned, RISC processor frequency is not high because of power consumption considerations, but x86 systems can run much faster than that, as well as process multiple instruction threads from multiple cores. And for storage support, x86 can offer many options such as CF, all kinds of SSD drives, as well as HDD’s etc. Whereas RISC can only support SD, and onboard flash, and frequently a big issue for RISC developers is they can often only support older storage media types. Regardless of hardware or software, the eco-system support for x86 is a lot better than RISC having been around for a lot longer, with many more peripheral devices and 3rd party applications available. Furthermore, the development effort of x86 is much less than with RISC because the bootloader, OS, and utilities are ready for x86 and users can quickly install a general OS for evaluation directly. With reduced development schedules, R & D resources and potential software risks, it’s no surprise to find that Systems Integrators prefer to choose x86-based products to integrate into their embedded products.
Power consumption is another critical feature for embedded applications because it’s necessary for them operate reliably for long periods without maintenance or supervision. Systems and components need to run cool and batteries last a long time. That’s why now, there are more and more new technologies
with low power consumption that can fulfill more and more diverse market demands. DM&P Vortex86DX SoCThe DM&P Vortex86DX is a System-on-a-Chip (SoC) which integrates the BIOS, north and south bridges into a single BGA chip in an ultra low power consumption design. This x86 architecture supports a FPU (Floating-point Unit) and various I/O such as RS-232, Parallel, USB and GPIO as well as many features including BIOS, WatchDog, MTBF counter, LAN on Chip, and JTAG. For energy-saving, the SoC is an ultra low power product; its non-graphics power consumption is 4W, and only 6W with graphic processing. It also supports the ISA interface and multiple I/O to fulfill legacy application requirements as well as OS support for WinXPe, WinCE, DOS, QNX, and Linux OS.
Advantech offers PCM-3343/9343 SBC’s based on the DM&P Vortex86DX SoC processor platform which provides many additional benefits to Advantech’s design. For example, if an application runs under DOS, the image can be installed inside the onboard SPI EEPROM to save space and total cost. The extended temperature range of applications can be -40 to 85° C degrees or -20 to 80° C making them suitable for hazardous environments such as transportation, mission critical and industrial control systems, and many kinds of diverse outdoor applications. PCM-3343/ 9343 SBC are ultra small form factor fanless designs, with onboard RAM and Flash. Furthermore, there are additional coating options that can make sure they are even more protected from moisture, temperature extremes, mold, friction, dust or chemicals. On PCM-3343/ 9343, we’ve chosen solid capacities which are much more reliable under high temperatures! These products are superb outdoor rugged environment choices.
PCM-3343 ■ DM&P Vortex86DX- 1.0GHz
SoC, supports FPU (floating Point Unit)
■ On board DDR2 SDRAM 256MB ■ Small form factor: 96*90mm in PC/104
form factor■ Dual display with 24-bit LVDS/ 24-bit TTL/ CRT support,
Dual LAN ports■ Extended temperature -40 ~ 85ºC option■ Supports embedded software APIs and Utilities
PCM-9343 ■ DM&P Vortex86DX-
1.0GHz SoC, supports FPU (floating Point Unit)
■ Onboard DDR2 SDRAM 512MB■ Coast-line design, simplifies system
integration in 3.5” form factor: 146 x 102 mm■ Dual display with 24-bit LVDS/ 24-bit TTL/ CRT support,
Dual LAN ports■ Supports PC/104 (8-bit/16-bit ISA) expansion and SATA
interface.■ Supports brightness control■ Extended temperature -40 ~ 85ºC option■ Supports embedded software APIs and Utilities
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Intel Atom N450 Single Core/D510 Dual Core SolutionEmbedded system developers have been waiting for a low power x86 architecture that provides good performance for common embedded applications. The new Intel Atom N450/D510 processor is the first Intel chip architecture to integrate the graphic and memory controller directly onto a single CPU chip. These advanced designs enable greater power reductions, smaller dimensions and performance improvements. The Atom processor lines fill an important gap between low-end processors that are not powerful enough and high-end processors that are too complex, expensive and hot! Atom processors are compatible with the Intel architecture platform and enable many new embedded and mobile devices for a wide range of markets and applications. This opens important new opportunities for power-efficient applications.
Advantech has implemented the Intel Atom N450 single core/D510 dual core and ICH8M chipsets into various embedded form factors ranging from: Computer on Modules, PC/104, 3.5”, and 5.25” Single Board Computers to Industrial Motherboards. The Intel Atom N450/D510 processors run at 1.66 GHz with single channel DDR2 at 667 MT/s and a max TDP of 5.5W (N450), and 15W (D510). The Intel Atom
platform is empowered by enhanced Intel SpeedStep, C-state and dynamic L2 cache sizing technology, which improves power saving while providing top performance and rich I/O capability.
This combination provides the best efficiency of performance versus power that is ideal for applications where small size, low power consumption, and thermal efficiency are important. Providing targeted performance for a wide variety of embedded application projects, Advantech has already launched a comprehensive range of embedded platforms with Intel Atom processors. For example, Advantech’s PCM-9562 can support up to three Gigabit LANs, two watchdog timers, and comes with a rich array of I/O interfaces. It also includes power-off protection and UL60601/EN60601 medical certification. PCM-3362/ 9362/ 9562 also provide an optional heat spreader thermal solution that makes it easier for customers to design more compact chassis with better thermal results. Besides that, there is an extended temperature: -40~80° C option on PCM-3362/ 9362/ 9562 that make them particularly suitable for extreme wide temperature range environments.
SOM-4463ETX CPU Module■ Embedded Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz/D510 1.66 GHz processor + ICH8M■ Intel Gen 3.5 DX9, MPEG2 decoder in HW, multiple display: VGA, 18-bit LVDS■ Supports 4 PCI masters■ Supports 2 SATAII ports, 4 USB2.0 ports, ISA■ Supports embedded software APIs and Utilities
PCM-3362PC/104 CPU Module■ Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz Processor and DDR2 667 SDRAM up to 2 GB■ Supports extended temperature -40 ~ 85° C■ Standard 96 x 90 mm dimension and PC/104- Plus expansion connector■ On board 2 GB flash (4 GB optional)■ Supports embedded software APIs and Utilities■ Software API: Watchdog/GPIO/Hardware Monitor/I2C/ Brightnes/Backlight on/off/Speedstep/throttling■ Software Utility: Monitoring/eSOS/Embedded Security ID
SOM-7562COM-Ultra CPU Module ■ Embedded Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz processor + ICH8M■ Intel Gen 3.5 DX9, MPEG2 decoder in HW, supports 18-bit LVDS, VGA■ Supports 512 MB on-board memory and 1/2 GB on-board Flash■ Supports 5 PCIe x 1, LPC, 3 SATAII, 8 USB 2.0, GbE■ Supports embedded software APIs and Utilities
SOM-6763COM-Express Compact Module■ Embedded Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz/D510 1.66 GHz processor + ICH8M■ Intel Gen 3.5 DX9, MPEG2 Decoder in HW, supports 18- bit LVDS, VGA■ Supports 2 DDR2-667 memory SODIMM sockets up to 2 GB■ Supports 5 PCIe x 1, 4 PCI masters, LPC, 3 SATAII, 8 USB 2.0, EIDE, GbE■ Supports embedded software APIs and Utilities
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PCM-93623.5” SBC■ Embedded Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz/D510 1.66 GHz processor + ICH8M■ Intel Gen 3.5 DX9, MPEG2 decoder in HW, multiple displays: CRT, 18-bit LVDS■ Supports 12 V or 5 V input power■ 2 Intel Gigabit Ethernet support, rich I/O interface with 4 COM, 2 SATA, 6 USB ports , GPIO■ Supports extended temperature -20 ~ 80° C■ Supports embedded software APIs and Utilities
AIMB-212Mini-ITX■ Supports Intel Atom N450 1.66
GHz/ D510 1.66 GHz processor + ICH8M
■ One 200-pin SODIMM, up to 2 GB DDR2 667 MHz SDRAM
■ Supports 1 PCI and 1 Mini-PCIe expansion, 6 serial ports, 8 USB, and CF
■ Lower total cost of ownership with DC12V support■ Supports embedded software APIs and Utilities
Future Next Generation Ultra Low Power Intel Atom Processors The next generation ultra low power Intel Atom processors will be available in the fourth quarter of 2010. They will come in three flavors, 600 MHz, 1.0 GHz and 1.3 GHz, all in a super small package with most of the north bridge functions all packed onto the same chip as the processor. The new platform has an overall thermal rating of approximately 5.5 Watts TDP. The main chip includes the CPU, memory controller for 667 MHz and 800 MHz DDR2, 3D graphics, H/W encoder/decoder, dual display, and HD audio controller—all on one piece of silicon.
The new platform is aimed at embedded devices with a focus on vertical markets. The processor measures 22 x 22 mm and is produced using 45nm technology. The platform has an overall package size that’s 46% smaller than the previous chip package for the embedded market. That means the platform can offer vendors much greater versatility because instead of using a proprietary interconnects, the processor communicates with the IOH I/O controller via an industry-standard PCI Express bus.
Third-party vendors can create their own IOH chips that add custom functionality targeted at vertical applications such as in-vehicle infotainment, IP media phones, and premise service gateways. Meanwhile, Intel will provide its own IOH
PCI-7031PCI Half-Sized SBC■ Ultra low power, fanless N450 CPU and 1 GB on- board DDR2 667 memory (Only for N SKU)■ Dual core high performance D510 CPU and maximum 2 GB DDR2 667 memory (Only for D SKU)■ VGA/LVDS dual video outputs■ Optional module for 4 x RS-485/422 w/ auto-flow control■ Supports embedded software APIs and Utilities
PCM-9562EBX SBC■ Supports Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz/D510 1.66 GHz processor + ICH8M■ Design complies with UL60601 on LAN3 and COM6 port isolation■ Up to 3 Intel GbE Ethernet, 2 Watchdog timer support■ Power off protection and Software I2C API support ■ Supports embedded software APIs and Utilities
chips for general embedded applications, offering typical interfaces such as USB, PCI Express, gigabit Ethernet, SATA, and SDIO. The platform will also be available in an extended temperature version (-40 to 85° C) with seven-year lifetime support.
In 2010 Q4, Advantech will release next generation ultra low power Intel Atom solutions with less than 5.5W power consumption—SOM-7564, SOM-3564, PCM-3364 and PCM-9364. SOM-7564 which is a part of the COM-Ultra series is the most compact COM module solution for personal handheld applications. SOM-3564 comes in an ultra-small COM form-factor; this module transfers all the major signals and interface to the carrier board via golden fingers at the PCB edge making it is easier to install whilst saving the cost of board-to-board connectors. PCM-3364 is a PC/104 form factor Single Board Computer (SBC), a perfect fit for a wide range of general and end user embedded applications. PCM-9364 is a 3.5” SBC for high performance or space limited applications and easy system integration.
Advantech provides many low power solutions on x86 platforms that can fulfill all kinds of demands from embedded applications!
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For embedded system developers, adopting the PC architecture as a design foundation brings with it a
convincing set of advantages. The semiconductor technology supporting the architecture is both powerful and diverse, and a large number of software tools, operating systems, and applications are readily available to run on x86 architecture. All of these benefits come at a relatively low cost. The low cost stems partly from the high production volumes and resulting production efficiency that the hardware enjoys. Intense competition among a wide range of hardware and software vendors also works to keep costs low.
PC Drawbacks Unfortunately the PC architecture also brings with it several attributes that create problems for embedded applications, like boot time—a PC-based embedded design running a Windows operating system can take 30 seconds or more to become functional after powering on, see Figure 1.
Embedded designs based on the PC architecture exhibit excessive boot times - even without the operating system - creating acceptability issues for potential mainstream customers.
Start-up delays are not the only unfortunate attribute of the PC architecture running a Windows variant. Such devices also exhibit reliability and availability limitations. Windows-based systems are notorious for their instability.
From an embedded design stance, the PC hardware architecture is largely historical and vestigial—the things a desktop computer does do not necessarily map to a medical cockpit display.
The BIOS is ideally positioned to address many of these issues,
most IT-oriented BIOS have hard-coded system functions and attributes that keep the PC architecture operating solely as a PC. This hard coding creates significant challenges for developers seeking to adapt the architecture to embedded applications. Removing or bypassing the unnecessary code adds both development time and risk.
Embedded BIOS® SolutionPhoenix Technologies’ Embedded BIOS® with StrongFrame® Technology was designed from the ground up to simplify the designer’s task when modifying the BIOS for different system behaviors, different hardware configurations, and even a variety of choices in the operating system.
Embedded BIOS is also easily extensible. System developers can add functionality to the BIOS without any rewriting of the original source. The BIOS can also run firmware applications such as a basic web browser as part of the firmware. The BIOS and its additional functionality also operate independently of the OS (see Figure 2), so that such applications can be available to the user before the OS loads or in the event of an OS crash.
A configurable BIOS that leverages the System Management Mode (SMM) of the x86 architecture - like the Phoenix Technologies Embedded BIOS with StrongFrame Technology - can resolve many of the PC architecture’s security and availability issues.
Because these applications form part of the system firmware they also possess a high degree of security. The BIOS and its applications kernel cannot be altered from within the system. This prevents both malicious software and application software errors from permanently damaging firmware operation.
BIOS Startup Firmware Increases System Reliability and Improves Device SecurityBy Stephen Jones, Chief Technology Officer, Phoenix Technologies
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A key factor in the design of Embedded BIOS is the way it handles the system configuration policy. In IT-oriented BIOS designs that policy is hard coded. The firmware searches for specific types of hardware at specific locations and decides at run time how that hardware is to be handled. The typical IT BIOS has more than 1,000 such policy decisions to make. Changing that code is a large task.
Embedded BIOS makes these policy decision points configu-rable. Because the embedded system’s hardware structure is fixed and known, much of that configuration can occur at build time. Developers can select values for system parameters and enable or disable system options when creating the BIOS object code. And, flexible run-time parameters may be used to precisely tailor the system’s control strategy.
Optimizing Boot Time This combination of build-time and run-time configurability in the Embedded BIOS design can dramatically reduce boot time. Legacy devices such as the PS/2 keyboard and mouse controllers must be part of the system hardware for an IT-oriented BIOS to boot, for instance, but can be easily eliminated from the design when using a configurable BIOS.
The hard disk drive (HDD) that is standard within a PC represents another opportunity to reduce boot time. An IT-oriented BIOS expects to find an ATA HDD and has a built-in delay of up to ten seconds to wait for the drive motors to spin up to speed following power-up. The configurable BIOS allows designers to readily replace the HDD with a Flash disk, handling the relevant code changes by modifying the personality module.
System Monitoring Enhances Security The ability to survive crashes of the OS or its applications makes System Management Mode (SMM) ideal for monitoring OS and applications at runtime. The SMM code can identify errors, unauthorized modifications, or failures in the OS and applications, then take corrective action such as rebooting the OS. In the meantime, the basic functionality in the SMM-based applications continues to remain available, increasing the system’s overall availability.
One way to provide such monitoring is for the system developer to create a list of sensitive software objects such as CMOS settings and key files on mass storage, and sign the data. The monitoring program can then verify that the data are valid before the software uses them.
The system can respond to detected errors in various ways such as sending error messages over the network, restoring the damaged files from backup copies, rebooting the OS or application, or completely shutting down system operation, depending on the error and the developer’s requirements.
The protection that such monitoring provides can extend beyond secure system operation to provide security against software piracy, as well. The monitoring programs can examine the hardware for security codes to validate the environment before launching an application.
Adding Secure Provisioning Monitoring firmware operating in SMM can provide a system design with a new capability: secure provisioning. The firmware can hold a list of software objects in the OS and application code that are open for updates.
Because the firmware has access to system resources such as the network interfaces and stacks, mass storage, and file systems, the firmware can make modifications to OS and application code from outside the OS. Thus, the system can receive, validate, and implement updates and enhancements under the firmware’s secure control.
Such updates can occur either at boot time or during run time. For boot-time updates the BIOS can query the network to look for specific software objects and see if updates are available. The run-time updates would allow the system to request files from the network in response to a particular system condition.
The applications for such automatic provisioning are extensive. For example, a point-of-sale kiosk can load its operating system, applications, and data files automatically upon power up, so that a remote management team can repurpose the kiosk without a site visit. Similarly, identical hardware blades in a system can each receive a unique functional configuration under network control during power-up.
Embedded BIOS® Benefits The combination of a configurable BIOS and SMM firmware thus greatly expands the importance of the PC architecture to embedded applications. It helps eliminate the long boot times inherent in IT-oriented BIOS designs by eliminating hard-coded configurations and thus simplifying customization for a specific hardware platform.
The boot reduction increases system availability and thus the design’s acceptability to mainstream users, and system security also increases. It also expands design options by supporting secure field reconfiguration and maintenance.
The right type of BIOS can eliminate many of the drawbacks that the PC architecture brings to embedded applications without sacrificing compatibility with PC hardware, drivers, protocol stacks, operating systems, and a wide range of applications.
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For industrial PCs and purpose-built devices, Microsoft releases an exclusive version of their embedded operating
system—Windows Embedded Standard 7 (WES 7). It’s worth noting that the upcoming WES 7 OS adopts the same kernel technologies as the latest Windows 7 which was launched at the end of 2009 and is very popular in the consumer PC market. As a result, the new version of WES 7 OS provides the complete functions of Windows 7 and embedded devices with WES 7 can take advantage of those features creating new business opportunities.
In accordance with established rules, the original name of the new OS should be Windows Embedded Standard 2011. Based on the overall strategy, Microsoft decided to rename it, so as to share some of the success of its big brother Windows 7. Moreover the new name, WES 7 can be easily associated
with Windows 7. WES 7 can deliver many of the significant technologies of Windows 7 because the core programs of WES 7 were re-written by Microsoft as Windows 7 was being developed.
Dazzling features based on Windows 7From a functional point of view, the most direct beneficial functions are the multi-touch and gesture capabilities. For applications which need interactive touch solutions such as self-checkout machines in the supermarket, the self-service KIOSK for the library or education market, WES 7 can support touch features in the operating system layer. The interactive User Interface (UI) can reduce the development times for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) who develop Windows 7 applications.
Windows Embedded Standard 7Aiming at High-end and Interactive Devices Development By Nelson Lin, Senior Partner Technology Manager, Microsoft
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In order to use the hardware resources flexibly or reinstall the system, WES 7 offers the Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) Boot feature to directly boot from the virtual disk image so that the same software can operate on a different system or reduce inconvenience if the system crashes and needs to be reinstalled.
Another new feature of WES 7 is the sensor and location platform. This function can obtain location information through GPS or triangulation. The operating system can identify the device location through location data and deliver that data to applications in geographical information systems. Embedded OEMs can create more value-added applications in location-based services (LBS) using WES 7 by means of this function.
For remote connection or terminal equipment for remote branch offices, WES 7 with Windows Server 2008 R2 can support remote access to meet process equipment development and deployment demands.
Modular architecture shortens development learning curveAlthough WES 7 supports many capabilities and features the same as Windows 7, the OS is designed specifically for the embedded market. Embedded devices have diverse needs and the demands depend on the developers’ expertise as well as their requirements. In common with the previous versions of Microsoft embedded operating systems, WES 7 also incorporates the latest features for the embedded market that are different from general PC operating system functions.
For example, the warning message window or dialog box on regular PC OS are designed to protect the system and remind the user to re-consider, but this may become an unnecessary user experience in an embedded device. For that reason, the UI design has avoided these extra steps in WES7 dialog boxes.
In order to offer comprehensive functionality, general PC OS install many features which occupy a large chunks of hard disk space because the system does not know each individual users’ needs. But bigger is not better for embedded designs which have specific objectives, and embedded designs and applications require the individual operating system features and components. The original PC operating system must be divided into several functional components and integrate them on the basis of each OEMs’ demands.
This kind of design enables the OEMs to have better control to choose their components for their embedded applications
which may result in longer development and testing times. Due to tight schedules, this process may not be a problem for the experienced manufacturer who already has invested a lot of time in WES framework, but it may result in a longer learning curve for new embedded manufactures who need to train their engineers.
The modular architecture of WES 7 offers another significant benefit from more the thousands software drivers or software drivers available. For the new players in the embedded market, it can reduce the learning curve and accelerate the product to achieve a faster Time to Market.
Enhanced security increases gambling applicationsBecause Microsoft has such a high reputation in the PC market it becomes a high profile target for hackers who seek system vulnerabilities. To counter this, Microsoft has focused intensely on security since Windows Vista development which has greatly increased security. Although Microsoft software vulnerabilities still exist, large-scale attacks through those vulnerabilities have been fewer and the occurrence of attacks greatly reduced. With the enhanced security design features in Windows 7, WES 7 also benefits from advanced secure design.
For instance, WES 7 enables devices to upgrade through the Windows Update mechanism just like the regular version which further increases stability and security. In addition, WES 7 also supports hard drive encryption, BitLocker and BitLocker-To-Go, which has been provided since Vista. They allow OEMs to provide certain embedded devices with higher security features.
On the other hand, BitLocker Drive Encryption and BitLocker-To-Go encryption for portable storage devices empowers the gambling industry to enlarge their potential. For example, gaming machines with BitLocker-To-Go allow the gambling manager or players to use a USB flash drive to replace the traditional membership cards.
WES 7 follows in the footsteps of Windows 7. It offers many of the functions and features of its bigger consumer grade sibling that will appeal to application developers in the Digital Signage, KIOSK, and Retail sectors.
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Stability and reliability are always the top priority consid-erations for storage devices in industrial computers.
Stability Speed is very important too, so how to maintain and optimize reliability has become the focus for manufacturers, suppliers and customers. As a result, NAND Flash technology plays a critical role in storage media such as CF cards, Flash modules, and SSD storage memory.
The evolution of the NAND Flash process has already exceeded the estimation of most of people. Three years ago, the manufacturing process migrated from 90nm to 70nm. In 2008, it transferred from the 60nm to 50nm, and 40nm node became the mainstream technology last year. The competition is hotting up in the NAND flash memory market and some vendors have claimed they are using 30nm NAND Flash technology and even pushed toward 20nm.
With process advances, NAND Flash can support the develo-pment of more cost-competitive solutions but the reliability of NAND Flash is getting worse. In terms of market response, customers won’t just accept inferior quality products because of the price drop. On the contrary, they demand products at the same level but with the same or better reliability and performance. Therefore, the focus of attention has turned to the Flash controller to address this problem.
Basically, significant problems of reliability are caused by things like replacing MLC to SLC, increasing 2 bits/cell to 3 bits/cell, reducing the Erase Cycle number from 100K down to 10K, and cutting Data Retention times through the advances of NAND Flash. These issues can be solved within a re-designed and robust controller.
For example, the error rates of NAND Flash are increasing through the new manufacturing process. The controller has to constantly develop better ECC (Error Correction Code) methods and Read Disturbance Management to overcome the defects of NAND Flash. At present, both Reed-Solomon and BCH algorithms are common ECC choices for NAND Flash but BCH is still the most widely used. The quality of ECC can directly affect the reliability of storage media. Comparing three different types of ECC (12-bit/512B, 24-bit/1KB and 48-bit/2KB), they are no obvious differences. In fact, the 48-
bit/2KB is superior to the others where many errors suddenly occurred. PHISON Electronics can offer an advanced SSD controller with 48-bit/2KB ECC which is recognized as the most effective ECC solution that can improve product reliability.
In addition, decreasing the Erase Count has brought about a shorter life expectancy of NAND Flash. The wear leveling mechanism of the controller can resolve this problem. NAND Flash consists of many blocks and each block has its certain life span. The number of erasable cycles represented the block life-expectancy and was called the Erase Count. In order to extend the lifetime of NAND Flash, we have to balance the Erase Count of all blocks. With a wear leveling mechanism implemented, the controller can achieve this goal to average the Erase Count of each block.
The following diagrams show the benefits of wear leveling. The abscissa of two charts represents the total number of blocks in NAND Flash and the ordinate is the number of Erase Counts in each block after long-time burn-in testing. The upper chart shows the consequence without the wear leveling mechanism. The Erase Count of each block has been distributed unevenly. However the Erase Count in the next chart is more average, or uniform because of the wear leveling method, and as a result, it can greatly increase the lifetime of NAND Flash.
The Stability and Reliability of Storage DevicesBy Ekron Hsu, Senior Project Manager, PHISON Electronics
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Of course bad blocks will be generated after using NAND Flash for a while. Therefore, Bad Block Management is very important to ensure that the controller can be replaced in time so that the product can continue to operate. A good controller can not only increase the reliability of NAND Flash, but also enhance information privacy and security through hardware encryption, such as AES (Advanced Encryption Standard). There are a variety of methods to increase product performance in speed, such as multi-channels, interleaving etc. It all depends on the development capability of the controller.
Which kinds of NAND Flash memory are suitable for industrial computers? We can divide the choice into three different types of interfaces. First of all, whether mainframe or desktop platform, the various storage media interfaces in PCs are mainstream. Traditionally, PATA which is also called IDE has been widely used. However the speed of PATA has been lacking recently. In general, there are three options to substitute.
The first option is PCI-Express. From the point of view of performance, the first generation of PCIe had a raw bandwidth of 2.5 Gbps and the second gen was 5Gbps. There are a diverse range of expansion cards for PCIe in desktop computers but for Notebooks, the external storage ExpressCard failed due to lack of universality, and the controller developers lost their interest in PCIe.
The second interface is SATA which is the most commonly used storage interface in the consumer market. In relation to PATA, SATA has the advantage of high speed data transfer rates of up to 1.5 Gbps, SATA II 3.0 Gbps, and the upcoming SATA III 6.0 Gbps. For this reason, the market has been flooded with SATA SSD, and SATA will still be the mainstream choice in SSD interface over the next few years.
The third option is USB which is a very popular storage interface. USB 3.0 has a transfer rate of up to 5.0 Gbps but USB 3.0 devices have not been launched yet, and the products currently on the market are a hybrid solution through the use of a “Bridge Chip”. For storage media in handheld products (such as multimedia players, GPS trackers, or smart phones to name a few), the most important considerations are size and low power consumption rather than speed. However, reliability is still the first priority. Many of these products have widely adopted eMMC as their storage media and many global mobile operators introduced their handheld products with eMMC as the main embedded storage solution. Most eMMC controllers for these products are supplied by PHISON Electronics.
For NAND Flash storage media in industrial computers, the most important issue should be reliability rather than performance. After all, the characteristics of NAND Flash memory are different from that of hard disks. If you can not protect data integrity, they should not be used, even if SSD is much faster. Unlike memory sticks, SSD not only store the OS but also contain data, so if something goes wrong, it could be catastrophic.
When designing controllers, PHISON Electronics always keep reliability as the first priority. We may be able to sacrifice a little performance sometimes, but we never compromise on reliability. NAND Flash controllers play a crucial role in enhancing reliability. A good controller can not only greatly improve a product’s life, it can also provide added value. In order to find the best NAND Flash products, it is very important to carefully choose the controller vendor, that’s why most businesses choose PHISON Electronics.
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APR combines the ultimate in optical qualities: the durability, and stability of surface acoustic wave (SAW) and infrared technologies with the excellent dragging properties of capacitive, along with the stylus, glove, and fingernail activation and low-cost advantages of resistive technology. In addition, APR is resistant to water and other contaminants on the screen, can be scaled from PDA to 42-inch displays, and provides palm rejection during signature capture.
As with many of the best inventions in history, APR works in a simple and elegant way—by recognizing the sound created when the glass is touched at a given position. The key is that a touch at each position on the glass generates a unique sound. Four tiny transducers attached to the edges of the touchscreen glass pick up the sound of the touch. The sound is then digitized by the controller and compared to a list of prerecorded sounds for every position on the glass. The cursor position is instantly updated to the touch location. APR is designed to ignore extraneous and ambient sounds, as they do not match a stored sound profile.
APR differs from other attempts to recognize the position of touch with transducers or microphones, as it uses a simple table lookup method rather than requiring powerful and expensive signal processing hardware to attempt to calculate the touch location without any references. Therefore, APR is more cost-effective and not economically limited to very large displays.
How APR WorksThe APR assembly comprises a display overlay of glass or other rigid substrate, with four piezoelectric transducers mounted on the back surface. The transducers are mounted on two diagonally opposite corners of the visible area and connected via a flex cable to a controller card.
The impact when the screen is touched, or the friction caused while dragging a user’s finger or stylus across the glass, creates an acoustic wave. The wave radiates away from the touch point, making its way to the transducers which produce electrical signals proportional to the acoustic waves. These signals are amplified in the controller card and then converted into a digital stream of data. The touch location is determined by comparing the data to a profile table. APR is designed to reject ambient and extraneous sounds, as these do not match a stored sound profile.
APR Performance FeaturesIdeal with Glass Overlays Touch technologies always require an overlay over an LCD display, either to sense the touch or protect the LCD from the
Consisting solely of a glass overlay mounted in front of the display, together with a small electronic controller board, Elo’s APR technology provides a new set of benefits that had only been partially achieved before by other touch technologies.
APR Glass overlay APR Controller card
Acoustic Pulse Recognition Touch TechnologyBy Elo TouchSystems
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touch. Display manufacturers work hard to produce bright, true color images, so touchscreens should diminish the picture quality as little as possible. Unfortunately, an overlay over the display can potentially diminish picture quality in four ways: reducing light transmission, adding reflections, reducing clarity, and altering colors. Glass is the preferred overlay material for optical reasons as well as for its hardness and durability.
■ Pure glass has approximately 92% light transmission (per ASTM D1003), the highest achievable. By preserving brightness, it allows use of lower-cost LCD panels.
■ The layers and coatings used in resistive and capacitive technology not only reduce light transmission, they also alter the original colors of the display. For many popular touch applications, such as medical instruments and digital photo kiosks, only pure glass is acceptable.
■ Pure glass also minimizes reflections, as it has no layers or metallic coatings. Reflections can be tiring for long-time users, such as cashiers or casino game players, as well as an annoying distraction in public kiosks, whose displays are commonly angled toward overhead lights.
■ Because reflections are already at a minimum with glass, aggressive antireflective coatings or antiglare diffusion techniques are not needed, thus preserving maximum clarity.
■ Glass is very hard to scratch, with a typical Mohs hardness rating of 7H, compared to resistive screens with 3H or 4H ratings. Glass is also resistant to most chemicals and does not wear out like plastics. It is also stable, not deforming, expanding, or contracting with temperature changes.
■ Special vandal-resistant glass is also a possibility for applications in high threat environments. Glass that is thicker, heat- or chemically strengthened, or even laminated can be used in place of ordinary glass.
Choice of Stylus If optical quality and ruggedness were the only issues, surface-wave touchscreens might be used in all touch applications. But for some applications, choice of stylus outweighs visual quality. An example is restaurant applications for use by a cashier or waiter. Absolutely perfect picture quality and color purity are not necessary when displaying a menu on the screen. What is more important is being able to touch the display with a pen, credit card, or ID card—as the workers may have dishes in the other hand—or to be able to touch small boxes along the bottom edge of the display where only a fingernail or pen will make contact. For these reasons, resistive touchscreens have been the most popular technology used in retail, restaurant, and hospitality POS applications, in spite of having an outer plastic layer that degrades the optics and can wear out over time.
In addition to the optical qualities and resistance to wear of glass, as with surface wave, APR technology can be activated with a finger, fingernail, pen or stylus, or credit card, as can resistive.
StabilityTouchscreens have a coordinate system independent from the underlying display. Mapping touches to the display position requires a conversion algorithm from one coordinate system to the other. The accuracy of this conversion depends on both the touch and video coordinate systems being stable. LCDs, unlike CRTs, have an inherent fixed display position. Some touch technologies, such as surface wave and infrared, also have a fixed coordinate system. Others, like capacitive and some low-cost resistive technologies, require calibration—even periodic recalibration over time—due to so-called “drift.”
In all cases, it is preferable to have a touch technology that never needs calibration. APR has a fixed coordinate system that never changes over time, position, or environmental changes. With APR, traditional touchscreen calibration can be eliminated from the application if the display size and position are fixed.
Fast and SensitiveTouch technology should always be easy to touch and should respond to fast taps. APR does not miss touches of short duration as some other technologies do, because even a short tap generates a recognizable sound. Most touch applications are simple “touch-and-go” apps, designed for public users or employees with little training. Common PC techniques of double-clicking, scrolling, pull-down menus, and dragging are rarely used in touch applications, as they are not intuitive for all users. However, there are some technical applications in which these techniques are used, and gaming sometimes requires dragging. Capacitive is normally the best technology for dragging.
APR recognizes a quick tap and handles dragging very well, like capacitive. Unlike capacitive, APR allows dragging with both a finger and a stylus. Touch-and-hold or drag-and-hold are currently not possible with APR, as no sounds are emitted in the hold position.
Other APR Features With APR, regions of the screen can be easily ignored, just by skipping those sections of the table of prerecorded sounds when scanning for a match. This allows features such as palm rejection for on-screen signatures, something either impossible or not easily achieved with most touch technologies.
For many applications in which exposed glass is unacceptable, such as in food processing or patient bedside applications, infrared has been the technology of choice. But even in these cases APR is not ruled out, because APR technology may also be applied to materials other than glass, such as acrylic.
Offering advantages in durability, stability, speed, cost, choice of stylus, and light transmission, APR’s future is bright.
Technology Forum
26 Technology Forum
AUO Green SolutionThis is a company-wide mission to make a long-term commitment to improve products, supply chains and the manufacturing process in a way that will reduce environmental impact. It includes six categories. We hope that environmental responsibility reaches all parts of AUO.
Green InnovationsFrom a product development point of view, AUO implements full level eco-design and incorporates environmental criteria into the design of new products.
Green ProcurementFrom a component point of view, AUO not only enhances green supply chain management, but also complies with most international green product requirements, such as WEEE, RoHS, EuP.
Green ProductionIn terms of manufacturing, AUO develops new processes with low environmental impact, as well as advancing energy/water savings and waste reduction management.
Green RecyclingIn terms of recycling, AUO improves material recycling ratios and increases waste recovery rates.
Green ServiceAs a green service display provider, AUO shares its eco-friendly strategy with partners.
Green LogisticsFrom a logistics point of view, AUO not only uses environmentally friendly packing materials, but also practices green logistics systems, resulting in lower exhaust emissions and lower fuel consumption.
AUO General Display is a dedicated team of people serving the industrial display market and committed to providing long-term product continuity support and durable tradability for industrial needs. In the following article, the latest product
strategies for AUO green solutions and innovative technology for industrial applications will be reviewed.
Industrial DisplayTechnology and TrendsBy Danny Wang, GD Marketing, AU Optronics
Technology Forum
27Technology Forum
Innovative Technology for IndustryChip on Glass (COG)COG differs from conventional technology because it allows the driver IC to be mounted directly onto the glass substrates. The benefits of adopting COG technology include high packing density and less total weight, which results in a leaner and slimmer structure for displays. COG uses fewer materials, resulting in substantial cost savings.
AUO Advanced MVA (AMVA)AUO AMVA utilizes low color washout to overcome the problem of color distortion with traditional wide viewing angle technologies. It creates more domains than conventional multi-domain vertical alignment (MVA) LCDs and reduces the radiation of transmittance at oblique angles.
AUO Simulated Pulsed Driving (ASPD)Motion picture response time is an important requirement for LCDs. Conventional LCDs use hold-type driving methods that result in blurred images. AUO’s Simulated Pulsed Driving Technology (ASPD) simulates impulse-type displays with the adjustment of pixel driving and backlight scanning to produce CRT-like image motion picture quality. This reduces motion blur, and enables image performance to reach optimal levels at 4ms equivalent gray to gray (8MPRT)
ECOTRFor most outdoor applications, AUO develops an economical and affordable solution called EcoTR (Economy Transflective), in which AUO integrates anti-reflective technology into the LCD structure to enhance the contrast ratio under direct sunlight. It not only offers same brightness performance as transmissive LCD, but also saves energy by reducing the number of CCFLs.
Wide TemperatureAUO has introduced wide temperature technology to ensure panel functionality in a variety of surrounding conditions. From normal indoor to harsh outdoor environments, AUO GD panels are able to operate at the same performance level.
Replaceable LampAlthough CCFL is the cost-effective, and a prevailing backlight technology in the LCD industry, it has dimming problems after long-time operation. Replaceable Lamp design is able to replace the lamp without phasing out the whole LCD module. In addition, AUO replaceable light bar design is also applied to the LED backlight.
Reverse ScanReverse scan function allows the display to be rotated 180 or 360 (mirrored rotation) degrees without distorting the presentation of information. Since grey level inversion is an intrinsic problem among all TN mode displays, reverse scan resolves the constraints of TN technology.
6-bit/8-bit ConvertibleConventionally, 6-bit data input is favored by industrial system designers. New modern industrial systems are gradually migrating to 8-bit data input for better color performance. Thus AUO provides the flexibility of 6/8-bit compatible functionality built-in to AUO panels.
LED BacklightLED backlights have been popular for small to medium size LCDs, and are the trend for larger sizes in the future. The benefits are low power consumption, slimmer module design, and panels that are EMI reduced and Hg free. Currently AUO General Displays provide 5.7” to 19” LED models for industrial customers as a green choice to protect our environment.
3D Autostereoscopy is a method of displaying three-dimensional images that can be viewed without the use of special headgear or glasses. In the consumer market, the technology is referred to as “Auto 3D”. Several technologies exist for autostereoscopic (or automultiscopic) 3D displays. Currently most flat-panel solutions employ lenticular lenses or parallax barriers that redirect incoming imagery to several viewing regions at a lower resolution. If the viewer positions his or her head in certain viewing positions, he or she will perceive a different image with each eye, giving a stereo image. Such displays can have multiple viewing zones allowing multiple users to view the image at the same time.Some flat-panel autostereoscopic displays use eye tracking systems to automatically adjust the two displayed images to follow viewers’ eyes as they move their heads, in an attempt to ameliorate the problem of precise head-positioning.
Projected-Capacitive TouchAmong resistive, capacitive, SAW, and IR type touch panels, AUO GD recommends the projected capacitive solution. Its high resistance to water, scratch, and chemicals enhance its durability. In addition to high reliability, a warranty also comes with the panel modules providing a total solution for touch required products.
Product In-Depth
28 Product News
Advantech Embedded Platforms with Windows Embedded Standard 7 SupportThe new release of Windows Embedded Standard 7 contains powerful and innovative features, these features provide robust protection for differentiated devices. These advanced technologies enable the delivery of devices to market that offer
a solid platform and better user experience. Furthermore, Advantech’s latest embedded platform series containing Intel® Atom™, Intel® Core™ i3, Intel® Core™ i5, and Intel® Core™ i7 processors, are all compatible with Windows Embedded Standard 7.
Hard Real-Time with RTX® on the Windows® PlatformsReal-time requirements are increasing especially in Industrial Automation, Medical Systems, Test and Measurement Systems, Military, Transportation and Robots. Advantech provides the Hard real-time solutions by integrating RTX and Windows XP for a ready to use image. The solution is deployed to all Advantech Intel® Atom™ N450/D510 based embedded platforms.
Embedded 3.5G Mini Card Module with WinCE 5.0/6.0 Driver and Connection ManagerThe HSPA-103E module series are PCI-Express mini cards providing WWAN connectivity for embedded products like vehicle computers, POS/KIOSK, gaming, factory automation and rugged tablet PCs equipped with a PCI-Express mini card slot. HSPA-103E supports driver on Windows Vista 32/64, XP
SP2 above, 2000 SP4, Linux Fedora 8, Ubuntu 7, Open SuSE 10. They also provide a
Graphical User Interface (GUI) connection manager to easily gain Internet access instead of keying in ATCommands.
High Compatibility, Performance and Reliability SQF-P10 with Value-Added SoftwareSQFlash was designed to deliver high compatibility, performance and reliability to embedded users. This CompactFlash card is fully solid state and vibration resistant, and it offers extremely low power consumption. Plus, we provide a software package to manage the flash, such as Flash Security ID, Life Monitoring, and Flash Lock. This value-added software can protect you and your customers’ property more effectively.
NewProducts
Product News
DM&P Vortex86DX SoC
Model PCM-3343 PCM-9343
Form Factor PC/104 3.5” SBC
CPU
DM&P Vortex86DX 1.0 GHz,support
Floating point unit (FPU)
DM&P Vortex86DX 1.0 GHz, support
Floating point unit (FPU)
Graphic Chip SMI SM712 SMI SM712
SystemMemory
DDR2 333 MHz 256MB on board
DDR2 333MHz 512MB on board
Display 24-bit LVDS/ 24-bit TTL/ VGA
24-bit LVDS/ 24-bit TTL/ VGA
LAN 2 2
SATA - 1
USB 4 4
COM 4 4
SPI Flash 4MB optional 4MB optional
Expansion PC/104 (8/16-bit ISA)
PC/104 (8/16-bit ISA)
Power 5V/ AT 5V/ AT
2010 Star Product Selection Guide Intel® Atom™ N450/D510 Processor-based Platforms
Model SOM-7562 SOM-6763 SOM-4463 PCM-3362 PCM-9362 PCM-9562 AIMB-212 PCI-7031
Form Factor COM-Ultra COM-Express Compact ETX 3.0 PC/104 3.5” SBC EBX Mini-ITX Half-size SBC
CPU Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz
Intel Atom N450/D510 1.66 GHz
Intel Atom N450/D510 1.66 GHz
Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz
Intel Atom N450/D510 1.66 GHz
Intel Atom N450/D510 1.66 GHz
Intel Atom N450/D510 1.66 GHz
Intel Atom N450/ D510 1.66 GHz
System Chipset ICH8M ICH8M ICH8M ICH8M ICH8M ICH8M ICH8M ICH8M
SystemMemory
DDR2 667 MHzOnboard 512MB
Max. 1GB
DDR2 667 MHzMax. 4GB
DDR2 667 MHzMax. 2GB
DDR2 667 MHzMax. 2GB
DDR2 667 MHzMax. 2GB
DDR2 667 MHzMax. 2GB
DDR2 667 MHzMax. 2GB
DDR2 667 MHzOnboard 1GB (N Sku)
Max. 2GB (D Sku)
Display VGA/LVDS VGA/LVDS VGA/LVDS VGA/LVDS VGA/LVDS VGA/LVDS VGA/LVDS VGA/LVDS
LAN 1 1 1 1 2 3 2 2
SATA 3 3 2 1 2 3 2 3
USB 8 8 4 4 6 8 8 7
GPIO 8-bit 8-bit 2-bit 8-bit 8-bit 16-bit 8-bit 8-bit
Audio HD interface HD interface ALC888 HD interface ALC888 ALC888 ALC888 HD interface
ExpansionLPC, 5 PCIe x 1 (1 PCIe x 4 and 1 PCIe x 2 option)
EIDE, LPC, 5 PCIe x 1,
4 PCI masters4 PCI master, ISA PC/104+ Mini PCIe,
MIO(Optional)PCI/Mini PCIe/
PC/104+ PCI/Mini PCIe/CF Depend on backplane
Power 5~14V 8.5~19V 5V 5V/AT/ATX 5V/12V/AT/ATX 12V/AT/ATX 12V AT/ATX
Intel® Core™ i7 Processor-based Platforms
Model AIMB-280 AIMB-580 AIMB-780 PCE-5125 SOM-5788 AIMB-270
Form Factor Mini-ITX Micro ATX ATX Slot SBC COM-Express Basic Mini-ITX
CPU Intel Core i7/i5/i3/Pentium
Intel Core i7/i5/i3/Pentium
Intel Core i7/i5/i3/Pentium/
Xeon
Intel Core i7/i5/i3/Xeon/
PentiumIntel Core i7/i5 Intel Core i7/i5
System Chipset Q57 Q57 Q57/3450 Q57/3450 QM57 QM57
System Memory
DDR3 1333MHzMax. 4GB
DDR3 1333MHz
Max. 16GB
DDR31333MHz
Max. 16GB
DDR3 1333MHzMax. 8GB
DDR3 800/1066MHz
Max. 8GB
DDR3 800/1066MHz
Max. 8GB
Display VGA/DVI VGA/DVI VGA/DVI VGA/DVI VGA/LVDS/DVI/HDMI
VGA/LVDS/2DVI
LAN 2 2 2 2 1 2
SATA 4 6 6 6 4 4
USB 8 10 14 13 8 8
RAID RAID 0,1,5,10 RAID 0,1,5,10 RAID 0,1,5,10 RAID 0,1,5,10 RAID 0,1,5,10 RAID 0,1,5,10
TPM None TPM 1.2(Optional)
TPM 1.2(Optional) None None None
Intel AMT AMT 6.0 AMT 6.0 AMT 6.0 AMT 6.0 AMT 6.0 AMT 6.0
Expansion 1 PCIe x16 1 PCIe x16; 1 PCIe x4; 2PCI
1 PCIe x16; 1 PCIe x4; 1 PCIe
x1; 4 PCI
Depend on backplane
1 PCIe x16, 6 PCIe x1, 4 PCI,
LPC
1 mini-PCIe 1 PCIe x 16
