Embedded World Show first day highlights
14-03-2017 | By Paul Whytock
Over 700 electronics companies gather at the Nuremberg exhibition centre this week. Loads of new technology launches. Here are a few of the highlights.
Car software design accelerates
NXP Semiconductors launched the S32K1 family combining a breakthrough suite of automotive grade tools and software in support of a scalable family of ARM Cortex-based MCUs with future-proof features.
This combination is claimed by the company to cut development effort and time to market in a range of automotive applications. With 10 of the top 15 global car manufacturers already using S32K in next generation vehicles, this platform sets the future direction of automotive ECU development, says NXP Semis.
Gecko upgrade
Silicon Labs unveiled improvements to the EFM32 Gecko microcontroller (MCU) family. Using the company’s new Jade and Pearl Gecko MCUs, developers can add touch-control interfaces, powerful security capabilities and multiple low-power sensors to IoT devices.
The MCUs feature an energy-efficient security accelerator, a true random number generator (TRNG) and a security management unit (SMU), enabling secure connectivity for IoT devices without sacrificing battery life. The encryption/decryption accelerator runs the latest security algorithms with higher performance and lower power than conventional software implementations, claims the company.
Synergy Platform expansion
Renesas Electronics unveiled the latest expansion of its Renesas Synergy Platform at the show. Key developments to the Synergy Platform include: the latest version of the Synergy Software Package (SSP) version 1.2.0 that assures levels of software quality in accordance to processes defined by the international standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207 by offering a complete Software Quality Assurance (SQA) documentation package; a new Wi-Fi software framework to standardize and simplify connection of embedded IoT devices and the new Synergy S5D9 Group microcontrollers (MCUs) enabling secure manufacturing and communication.
Static analyser updates
PRQA, a provider of automated static analysis solutions for embedded application development, announced updates to the QA·C and QA·C++ static analysers to provide improved security testing for the C and C++ languages.
The analysers are complementing MISRA compliance with CERT C, CERT C++ as well as compatibility for CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration) C and CWE C++. Compliance and compatibility enforcement can be applied to both new and legacy source code.
Securing those SoC platforms
Imagination Technologies and Barco Silex announced a collaboration through which they are developing IP for secure SoC platforms based on Imagination’s MIPS family of processors. Imagination will integrate Barco Silex’ eSecure solution for embedded security into a new Trusted Element (TE) IP product. The eSecure solution is an IP module that turns ASIC and SoC designs into fully secured hardware platforms. Under the agreement, Barco Silex will provide an embedded security solution based on eSecure which will embed a MIPS microAptiv CPU as an ultra-low power controller.
ARM dev tool update
IAR Systems announced the availability of an update of its development tools for ARM. Version 8.10 of IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM provides support for the C11 and C++14 language standards. It also includes an updated integrated development environment (IDE). The included IAR C/C++ Compiler provides version 8.10 of the development tools with the latest C language standard ISO/IEC 9899:2011 as well as the latest C++ standard ISO/IEC 14882:2014.
