When I first heard the term “Smart Energy”, I confess that I had no idea what it meant. For a while, a precise definition seemed to elude me, as people would talk about smart meters and the Smart Grid, but not actually say what smart energy was. It is now a little clearer.
Smart Energy is really a catch-all term for a bunch of technology associated with energy efficiency primarily in a … Read More
Andrew Patterson hosted a webinar that was very popular recently on the options for making use of Android in IVI systems. This includes porting Android to run directly on an SoC as the sole operating system, running Android in conjunction with another operating system such as Linux with use of a hypervisor, or making use of Android via a Linux Container.
As a follow-up Ned, one of experts on Linux … Read More
Automotive, GENIVI, Android, Linux, linux container, Infotainment, IVI
One of the great things about software, compared with hardware, is the ease with which it may be changed and updated. The big downside of software is also the ease with which it can be changed. This ease can make software developers lazy, as they know that they can always fix things later. This is a sharp contrast to chip developers who are fearful of errors, as an ASIC respin is both time consuming … Read More
The latest 2013.05 release of Sourcery CodeBench has several new enhancements, one of which is the availability of the compile cache feature (currently available on Linux hosts).
Some of you may already be familiar with the “ccache” utility that is available in the open-source community and can be used along with gcc. The Mentor Embedded team has made improvements upon this utility also making it available … Read More
I recently posted about using printf() for debugging – or, rather, I suggested a few good alternatives, which make more sense to embedded developers. Most debugging/tracing technologies involve adding some code to the target system, which might make some developers uncomfortable. Surely the code being debugged is no longer the same as you plan to ship?
Broadly speaking, this is really a manifestation … Read More
Yesterday, we announced new versions of the Sourcery CodeBench and Sourcery Analyzer products. Significant new functionality has been added to these releases. In particular, the focus has been given to enhancing the embedded software debugging flow. In relation to this, Sourcery CodeBench now includes trace capability and supports analysis of both software trace (via Sourcery Analyzer technology) and … Read More
vitra-xd, tracing, ashling, CoreSight, ARM, trace probe, ETM, Sourcery Analyzer
Spring is here in the northern hemisphere and with it along comes a new release of Sourcery CodeBench! I’ve spent my past two posts sharing information about how Sourcery Analyzer can help you to understand complex software behavior and performance challenges. If you’ve not read those posts here they are:
Add real world data to Linux trace without LTTng hacking
Simple measurements of … Read More
I always find it satisfying to see simple solutions to apparently complex problems and the world of embedded software certainly lends itself to some creativity. My concept of “simple” is quite broad, but essentially encompasses anything that is easy to understand [for me] and ideally avoids reinvention of any wheels.
A while ago, I wrote about incorporating a Web server [HTTP server actually] … Read More
Mars One, a non-profit company based in the Netherlands, is offering the public a chance to travel to Mars one way—and, presumably, to take part in the first human settlement on the Red Planet. Would you make Mars your home?
Competition is steep, to the surprise of more than a few military and aerospace (mil/aero) geeks. In fact, tens of thousands of Earthlings have already volunteered for the one-way … Read More
Mil-Aero, Mentor.com, Milaero, Embedded Systems, Geek, Earth, Technology, Mentor, Mentor Graphics, Mars, Mars One
Would you buy a one-way ticket to Mars? Seriously, just one way. It’s an interesting proposition, if not a bit frightening.
Many have pondered that it is perhaps more likely that many people can conceive of putting someone we know on a one-way flight to the Red Planet, rather than taking on the challenge ourselves. Heck, even Ralph Kramden of “The Honeymooners” fame promised to send his wife Alice … Read More
Mentor Graphics, Mentor, Mentor.com, astronaut, Aerospace, Mars, Mil-Aero, Milaero, Mars One, Design Automation, Red Planet, Geek, Technology
My last post covered how to import data into Sourcery Analyzer that didn’t come from the Linux Trace Toolkit. In this post I’ll show you a few simple tools you can use to inspect the data in more detail. If you are using Sourcery Analyzer its because you want to explore the software behavior or performance of your design. This task is really three parts in one:
Data collection: Gathering … Read More
Let me start this blog with some trivia –
Which company has contributed over 10,000 changes to the official source repositories for the GNU toolchain?
No luck? Ok, maybe this will help:
This same company’s engineers hold over 50 leadership positions (maintainer, reviewer, steering committee member etc.) in the open source community!
I would not fault you for thinking of Fortune 500 high-tech names, … Read More
Zynq, toolchain, CodeBench, GNU, beagleboard, sdk, sourcery, pandaboard, qualcomm brew
Last week, I talked about learning about embedded software and suggested various sources of information, including books, promising a review of a new book sometime soon. In the meantime, I have had the chance to take a look at the new book “Software Engineering for Embedded Systems” by Robert Oshana and Mark Kraeling.
My first impression was that the book is enormous – over 1000 pages … Read More
In February, I had blogged about the emergence of the smart energy arena, made up of an ecosystem stretching from the utility to your home including connected devices such as data concentrators, smart meters, home gateways, smart appliances etc.
A common standard that outlines the requirements regarding connectivity and intelligent communication between these devices is the Smart Energy Profile (SEP) … Read More
RTOS, smart energy, Nucleus SEP, Wi-Fi, Zigbee, smart grid, smart meter
Free Nucleus RTOS source code? Just a few years ago if you would have told me that Mentor Graphics would be offering free-source-code for one of the most successful, popular and distributed RTOS’s in the world, I would not have believed it. Yet, for the last few quarters, Mentor is doing just that! The Nucleus Innovate Program was announced November 2012 and adoption is picking up quickly!
To date, … Read More
RTOS, Medical, ARM, STMicro, Nucleus ROTS, NXP, TI, Mentor Embedded, Nucleus