Mentor Blogs

  This morning I got an email from my colleague Jamie Little, who was rather excited (rightfully so) to share some news and requested that I post this in my blog. Jamie manages our Alliances Program and works very closely with our semiconductor partners thus keeping up to date on any new developments in the hardware side of the embedded world. Here is Jamie’s message: Texas Instruments has recently … Read More

ARM Cortex, Texas Instruments, LaunchPad

  HCC-Embedded (www.hcc-embedded.com) recently released a version of its MISRA-C:2004-compliant TCP/IP stack for Texas Instruments’ Hercules ARM microcontrollers. The stack combines MISRA with HCC’s own coding standard to create a concise C language subset capable of “clear and robust code without ambiguities,” and thus suitable for many safety critical embedded applications, according to the … Read More

Texas Instruments, C and C++ programming languages, SciTools, LDRA, Hercules ARM microcontrollers, RM4x, Coverity, PRQA/Programming Research, Vector Software, GrammaTech, MathWorks, HCC, Motor Industry Software Reliability Association (MISRA), TCP/IP stack, Klocwork, 32-bit MCUs, Parasoft, MISRA-C:2004, Gimpel Software, HCC-Embedded, TMS570

Texas Instruments (TI) has launched a new family of ARM Cortex-based microcontrollers (MCUs) for safety-critical transportation as well as industrial and medical applications. It said its Hercules platform is designed to protect against systematic failures, detect random failures, and provide the documentation needed to obtain ISO 26262 ASIL-D or IEC 61508 SIL-3 safety certifications, which should ease … Read More

TMS470M, Texas Instruments, TMS570, ARM Cortex=M3 core, ARM Cortrex=R4F floating point cores, AEC-Q100 qualified, ISO 26262 ASIL-D, RM4x, Hercules microcontrollers, IEC 61508 SIL-3 safety certifications

National Semiconductor, which we might not hear from all that much longer, since it’s becoming part of Texas Instruments, announced this week that Audi will include National’s FPD-Link III Ser/Des automotive infotainment chipset in the 2012 Audi A3. Other Audi models are expected to get the current-generation chipset, though there was no specific word on which models or when. National says earlier … Read More

National Semiconductor, Multi Media Interface (MMI), Texas Instruments, Blu-ray movies, Digital Content Protection LLC, 2012 Audi A3, high definition video, High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP), Dr. Peter Steiner, FPD-Link III Ser/Des automotive infotainment chipset

I want things to work the way they are supposed to – especially if it’s something important, like a car. I can imagine automotive electronics engineers must feel the same way about the chips they specify. “I remember one day that a customer asked me, ‘What are you going to do to ship me zero defects,’” recalls James Williams, automotive development quality manager at Texas Instruments. “I nearly … Read More

Texas Instruments, zero defects, Infineon Technologies