Keynote Speech by Mr Eric Wu, iSuppli Corporation – The Global Semiconductor Market - Navigating Through the Semiconductor Cycle
Topic Abstract: This presentation will explore the worldwide semiconductor market cycle as well as forecast for 2006 and 2007. It will also briefly describe the market strengths of the various segments of the semiconductor market.
Track 1 by Mr Jimmy Lin, National Instruments – Graphical System Design and Prototyping Simplifies Embedded Systems Development
Topic Abstract:
Development Challenges and Solutions
Because many engineers face the challenge of rapidly developing and prototyping embedded systems, they need high-level tools to stay up-to-date with today’s competitive technologies. National Instruments offers a graphical development environment and real-time processors with integrated FPGA and I/O that help domain experts complete their designs.
National Instruments real-time and embedded development tools include LabVIEW Real-Time software and a processor-based real-time hardware target. These tools deliver rapid development for real-time applications that require:
Track 2 by Mr Edward Pan, Agilent Technologies – Get the insight of the Embedded Circuitry Design
Topic Abstract: In embedded circuit design, like a WLAN design, where engineers deal with both internal nodes of a chipset , eg., FPGA , and the communication with external buses/interfaces , eg., I2C,SPI,PCI,CPCI etc… , it is relatively easy for them to check the signal quality of the signals which can be accessed by the test instruments, while it’s very hard to get the insight of the signal behavior inside a FPGA , or synchronize the internal protocol or timing with the waveform quality on the external buses/interfaces , or decoding the waveform into intuitive information directly. In this paper, the author discusses the challenges to get insight of the design, and details protocol synchronization and decoding technology (examples will be given for I2C, SPI, SDRAM ,FPGA…), how to save time debugging the internal nodes of the FPGA part , and methods of locating problems from the vast number of signals in a design. And a real demonstration (the demo board is similar to the base-band circuitry of WLAN AP) will be done if it’s allowed.
Track 3 by Mr. Calvin Ho, Microchip Technology – Expanding Embedded-Control Horizons With Microchip Technology’s New 16-bit Microcontrollers and Digital Signal Controllers
Topic Abstract: Embedded system designs’ software content grows significantly as system requirements move-up from 8-bit Microcontrollers (MCUs) to 16-bit Microcontrollers and Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs). Three new families of 16-bit devices from Microchip Technology - the PIC24H and PIC24F MCUs, and the dsPIC33F DSCs - provide code- and pin-compatible extensions to the existing dsPIC30F DSCs. The software and hardware compatibility of these devices enables system designers to achieve cost-optimized performance across a wide range of applications. Each of the new 16-bit MCUs and DSCs are Flash-based, with relatively large program- and data-memory sizes.
First, the 16-bit PIC24H MCU families deliver a broad range of performance, peripherals and memory options. The PIC24F family provides an ideal upward-migration path for current 8-bit MCU users. At 16 MIPS, this family provides a low-cost, high-performance solution for 16-bit general-purpose MCU applications. At the other end of the spectrum, the PIC24H family is a high-throughput MCU powerhouse with 40-MIPS operation and Direct Memory Access (DMA) support.
Next, when digital signal processing is required, the dsPIC33F family expands upon the functionality of Microchip’s dsPIC30F DSCs with enhanced clock-generation and power-saving modes, an increased operating speed of 40 MIPS at 3.3V and enhanced CAN, analog-to-digital converter (ADC), UART and other peripherals. Additionally, the dsPIC33F supports DMA, which enables substantial reduction of the peripheral data-buffering overhead that is common to DSP and other data-intensive applications.
Track 4 by Mr. Tony Kao, On Semiconductor – Power Supply Technique in Portable Devices – How to Improve Time to Market Keeping Efficiency Cost and Size Constraints
Topic Abstract:
Nowadays, portable applications are integrating more and more functions. The general trend pushes handsets to become not only mobile phones, but also Digital Still Cameras (DSC), Mobile TV terminals as well as gaming consoles and multimedia terminals. Digital technology allows application processors to be powerful enough to provide these functions to the end customer. But this is achieved at the price of higher power consumption.
Engineers are thus facing two main challenges. First of all, they have to accommodate this high level integration of many functions and secondly, they have to provide a long battery life. Besides this inflation of functions, another consumer strong requirement is the handset form factor.
Consumers want to sacrifice neither the battery life time, nor the handset size and form factor for the additional function integrated in the handset. Who would purchase a new mobile phone, integrating TV, MP3, MPeg4, PDA functions, but with just two hours battery life?
This presentation explores the possible solutions an engineer may take to address such challenges
Track 5 by Mr. David Yang, Tektronix – The Recent FPGA Solutions to Accelerate Embedded Design
Topic Abstract: This presentation explores the solutions from Tektronix which allow you to see inside your FPGA design and correlate internal signals with external signals. Productivity is increased because the time-consuming process of recompiling your design is eliminated and you have access to multiple internal signals per debug pin. This will accelerate your design to meet the demands of the market.
