Embedded World Show 2nd day highlights

For those electronics engineers that didn’t make it to the Nuremberg show here’s a selection of the highlights from day two of the exhibition.

Three new entry class T&M instruments

T&M specialists Rohde & Schwarz introduced three entry-level test and measurement products with what the company claims is best in class performance.

The R&S RTB2000 is the first entry-level oscilloscope to offer a 10bit vertical resolution as well as 10 Msample memory and a 10in touch screen. The R&S FPC1000 entry-class spectrum analyzer features a flexible keycode upgrade concept, solid RF performance, the largest and highest resolution display in its class and integrated Wi-Fi for remote control. The R&S NGE100 is a practical addition to every user’s lab bench, offering a two- or three-channel 66 W/100 W power supply with galvanically isolated and potential-free channels, low ripple and protection functionality for voltage, current and power – separately settable for each channel.

In conjunction with the launch of these instruments Rohde & Schwarz is extending its network of distributors and channel partners in key regions around the world. Over 100 distributors have now added Rohde & Schwarz value instruments to their portfolio.

Playing it safe

Lynx Software Technologies used the show to demonstrate the LynxSecure Separation Kernel hypervisor on the Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale+ MPSoC.

With the recent SoC integration of CPU virtualisation and FPGAs, developers are given almost every modern tool and design approach option to tackle the toughest computer science problems in amazingly small packages. The LynxSecure port to the UltraScale+ MPSoC supports modular software architectures and tight integration with FPGAs for hosting a combination of micro services (bare-metal), trusted functions, and open source projects on a single SoC.

Display modules keep in touch

4D Systems introduced the gen4 Internet of Displays (IoD) series of intelligent display modules with resistive touch. With their integrated WiFi capabilities, the display modules allow users to quickly create GUI applications with wireless connectivity.

Three sizes are available initially, the 2.4in gen4-IoD-24T, the 2.8in gen4-IoD-28T and the 3.2in gen4-IoD-32T. All feature a 240 x 320 pixel display with resistive touch and integrated WiFi.

Powered by an ESP8266 SoC device, the modules also feature an on-board SD card socket which enables the use of FAT16 or FAT32 formatted cards.

The display modules provide the ability to design a GUI using Workshop4 IDE or Arduino IDE software. This enables simple drag and drop type programming, and eliminates the need to perform traditional coding.

Software testing system unveiled

Software solutions provider Vector Software announced new capabilities in VectorCAST/Analytics. VectorCAST/Analytics provides a web-based dashboard of software code quality and testing metrics.

Available with enterprise versions of VectorCAST/C++ unit testing and VectorCAST/QA code coverage and system testing tools, VectorCAST/Analytics is activated through a quick launch menu option that displays an analytics dashboard in a browser window. Project-wide metrics are shown in tables and heat maps.

Out of the box, VectorCAST/Analytics captures technical debt metrics including code complexity, testing completeness and comment density as well as test case quality metrics – number of tests, test failures, tests with requirements and requirements without tests.

Cut down that dev time

Infineon Technologies was showing its new development kits that help cutting down EtherCAT development time to three months: the XMC4300 Relax EtherCAT Kit and the XMC4800 EtherCAT Automation Kit. Both kits have passed the EtherCAT certification test.

The XMC microcontrollers with integrated EtherCAT node, XMC4300 and XMC4800, target factory automation, I/O modules and robotics. All XMC4800 microcontrollers are AEC Q100 qualified, making them also well suited for use in commercial, construction and agricultural vehicles.

The kit is designed to evaluate the capabilities of the XMC4300 (in LQFP-100 package) especially in EtherCAT slave applications. The XMC4300 uses the ARM Cortex-M4 processor and has 144 MHz, up to 256 Kbytesof embedded Flash memory and 128 Kbytes SRAM.

The XMC4300 Relax EtherCAT Kit offers an EtherCAT node with standard magnetics plug, IN and OUT interface via RJ45 jack and cabling as well as an optional EtherCAT node with PHY to PHY connection. Evaluation of mixed networks is easy with its CAN transceiver and CAN connector via D-SUB 9 plug.