Magma Announces FineSim Fast Monte Carlo

Magma Design Automation Inc. (Nasdaq: LAVA), a provider of chip design software, today announced the availability of FineSim™ Fast Monte Carlo, a revolutionary new alternative to traditional Monte Carlo analysis. FineSim Fast Monte Carlo makes it possible to achieve much more accurate statistical analysis as much as 100 times faster than traditional Monte Carlo methods.

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Magma Unveils Tekton – First Static Timing Analysis Solution to Deliver Fast Multi-Scenario Analysis on a Single CPU

Magma Design Automation unveiled Tekton, a new timing analysis platform that offers significantly higher capacity and dramatically faster runtimes than traditional tools, without sacrificing accuracy. Unlike other solutions, Tekton runs multi-scenario analysis efficiently on low-cost hardware without requiring a large number of expensive servers and software licenses. Leveraging breakthrough technology, this revolutionary new platform addresses complex sign-off challenges and is uniquely suited for today's most challenging designs.

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Market availability of bi-directional Dolphin platform

EnOcean GmbH, developer of batteryless wireless technology, today announced the market availability of its new Dolphin platform. For the first time, the Dolphin system architecture enables the use of bi-directional, self-powered wireless sensors and actuators meaning EnOcean sensor modules can transmit information as well as receive it. This creates the basis for innovative wireless applications in building and industrial automation, medical engineering and countless other markets. EnOcean is presenting the new Dolphin platform at the Light+Building 2010 show in Frankfurt am Main (hall 9 booth B40).

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Development Platform for Map-Enhanced Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

dSPACE and NAVTEQ have been working together to create an integrated development platform for digital map-enhanced advanced driver assistance systems. In order to create an optimally aligned tool chain for the efficient development of map-based advanced driver assistance systems, dSPACE is providing tools for ECU software development alongside NAVTEQ's development platform for map-based advanced driver assistance systems.

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AnXplorer from AgO Inc sets new standards in optimization for analog and RF circuit design

AgO Inc, a technology leader in analog and RF circuit optimization, launches AnXplorer – a new tool for optimizing analog and RF circuits. Starting with an unsized SPICE netlist, variables for device dimensions and a set of design objectives and constraints, AnXplorer optimizes device sizes by rigorously exploring the design space. By centering the design across all specified, process, temperature and voltage corners, AnXplorer achieves a robust design thereby enhancing the yield and improving the probability of first time silicon success.

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Corelis Releases New CD Version 7.0 Boundary-Scan Tool Suite

Corelis, Inc., a leading supplier of high-performance boundary-scan test and measurement tools, announced the availability of the latest version of its powerful ScanExpress Boundary-Scan Tool Suite.

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Forte Design Systems Ships Latest Version of CellMath Designer

Forte Design Systems, a leading provider of SystemC high-level synthesis, datapath synthesis and intellectual property (IP), announced it is shipping the latest version of CellMath Designer™ datapath synthesis and Cellmath IP software. The CellMath family allows register transfer level (RTL) designers to reduce area, improve performance and lower power consumption for their existing datapath-intensive design blocks.

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Synopsys SmartDRD technology brings automation to custom layout design rule checking

Synopsys announced that it has enhanced its Galaxy Custom Designer solution with the addition of SmartDRD, an innovative design-rules-driven technology. SmartDRD technology enables layout engineers to more quickly achieve design-rule-check (DRC) clean designs with significantly reduced effort for analogue and custom designs. SmartDRD automates many DRC repair tasks, reducing hours of manual effort to mere seconds.

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TI adds Code Composer Studio tools and new brushed DC motor reference design to Stellaris MCU family support

Simplifying design through the expansion of its software and tool offering, Texas Instruments Incorporated announced that its Stellaris ARM Cortex-M3 MCUs are fully supported by the Code Composer Studio (CCStudio) v4 integrated development environment, and eight new Stellaris MCU evaluation kits featuring CCStudio v4 are immediately available in standard distribution.

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Tanner EDA and IC Mask Design Collaborate on Tools to Accelerate Analog Layout Design

Tanner EDA, the catalyst for innovation for the design, layout and verification of analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits (ICs) and IC Mask Design, an industry leader in the provision of physical design services to the global semiconductor industry, are collaborating on the development of a toolset to accelerate analog layout design. By exclusively licensing IC Mask Design's patented layout acceleration technology and integrating it into Tanner EDA's custom IC design suite, the partners will offer engineers an improved solution to boost layout productivity and quality.

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Imec and Altos collaborate on chip design and prototyping service

Imec and Altos Design Automation, Inc. today announce that they have entered into an agreement to set up a library re-characterization service based on Altos ultra-fast characterization tools. With this collaboration, imec will extend its ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) prototyping and volume fabrication service with library re-characterization which is essential when designing in 65nm and 40nm nodes.

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Carbon Unveils New Generation of ARM Models with Availability of Mali Models

Carbon Design Systems, the leading supplier of tools for the automatic creation, validation and deployment of system-level models, announced today immediate availability of virtual models for ARM Mali Graphic Processor Units (GPUs).

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Performance Breakthrough for HIL Simulation

dSPACE has given its real-time systems a new heart. The new quad-core DS1006 Processor Board has an AMD Opteron™ 2.8 GHz processor to boost the power of HIL simulation. Large models can be distributed easily across the four cores of the quad-core processor and executed synchronously. So numerous models that formerly required a system of several processor boards can now run on a single DS1006. On every core, the performance and processor-internal communication of the new DS1006 provide model execution that is up to 60% than its predecessor.

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Renesas announces IAR Embedded Workbench support for the SH-2A family

Renesas Technology Europe and IAR Systems will jointly launch an integrated development environment and compiler support for the SH-2A microcontroller device.

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Real Intent Releases Meridian CDC Version 3.0, Strengthens Technology Leadership in Precise and Comprehensive CDC Verification

Real Intent Inc., the innovator in automating the intelligence of formal techniques for design verification, announced today that it is shipping Meridian™ Clock Domain Crossing (CDC) verification software Version 3.0.

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Agilent Technologies' Advanced Design System Software Selected by Paratek Microwave for Antenna Tuning Module Development

Agilent Technologies announced that its Advanced Design System (ADS) software has been selected by Paratek Microwave for use in development of tunable antenna modules for the mobile handset market. The accuracy, capacity and performance offered by ADS aid Paratek in the design of optimized modules as well as in the creation of models for its customers.

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Actel releases comprehensive development environment and ecosystem for smartfusion intelligent mixed signal FPGAs

Actel today announced the immediate availability of its comprehensive and easy-to-use development environment for the newly introduced SmartFusion intelligent mixed signal FPGAs. The extensive ecosystem includes the Libero® Integrated Design Environment (IDE) v9.0 with Synplify Pro® and Identify from Synopsys®, ModelSim® from Mentor Graphics®, and SoftConsole v3.1, Keil™ and IAR Systems® software IDEs, plus access to leading RTOS and middleware from Micrium.

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Atmel Low-power Microcontroller Platforms Accelerate Designs with Enhanced QTouch Development Suite

Atmel Corporation announced that the Atmel QTouch Suite will be available with additional functionality to provide third party CAD developers easy access to QTouch® technology. By offering Atmel's QTouch Suite with CAD software tools, designers will now have an easy approach to add touch buttons, sliders and wheels during schematics, PCB layout design and prototyping stage. In addition, designers can develop low-power applications with touch functionality using any of Atmel's industry-leading AVR® microcontrollers.

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PDF Solutions Expands Use of Magma's Quartz Products to Physically Verify CV Test Chips for 45-, 40-, 32- and 28-nm Processes

Magma Design Automation, a provider of chip design software, today announced that PDF Solutions, the leading provider of yield improvement technologies and services for the integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing process life cycle, is using Magma's Quartz DRC Physical Verification system in connection with development of Characterization Vehicle® test chips for the 45-, 40-, 32- and 28-nanometer (nm) processes of leading foundries. PDF Solutions expanded its use of the Magma physical verification products to include Quartz DRC and Quartz LVS after successfully verifying a number of CV® test chips for a leading semiconductor manufacturer. Using these physically verified CV test chips, PDF Solutions works with its clients to improve the yield of ICs implemented in these advanced processes.

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Toshiba Electronics evaluation kit simplifies implementation of vector-controlled three-phase motor systems

Toshiba Electronics Europe (TEE) has announced an evaluation kit for the development of embedded systems designed to control three-phase BLDC (brushless DC) motors. Based on the company's TMPM370 family of ARM Cortex™-M3 microcontrollers, the kit will speed and simplify the design of motion control systems for pumps, fans, robotics, and other industrial and home appliance applications.

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Fujitsu selects IAR Systems to provide a development toolchain for the 'Jade-L Starterkit'

IAR Systems today announced that their integrated development environment IAR Embedded Workbench® has been selected as a part of Fujitsu's SK-86R03 'Jade-L Starterkit' package. The MB86R03 'Jade-L' SoC device incorporates a powerful 32-bit ARM926EJ-S(TM) CPU core as well as Fujitsu's 'Coral PA' graphics processor. Based on Fujitsu's proprietary 90nm CMOS process technology, MB86R03 'Jade-L' is optimised for applications requiring high CPU performance combined with sophisticated 2D/3D graphics features.

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IS2T & Green Hills Software Announce Optimized Java Support for INTEGRITY Real-Time Operating System

IS2T S.A. and Green Hills Software, Inc. have teamed up to provide IS2T's Hard Real-Time MicroJvm® virtual machines for embedded systems integrated for use with the industry's most reliable real-time operating system, the Green Hills safe and secure INTEGRITY® RTOS. IS2T's Java platforms offer embedded application developers a small memory footprint, high-speed Java engine with optimized software library bundles and Hard Real-Time Java (HRTJ) capabilities.

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Atego’s real-time Ada development system now available to military and aerospace developers

Atego, the leading independent supplier of industrial-grade, modeling and development tools for complex, mission and safety-critical embedded systems and software, has announced the release of Aonix ObjectAda Real-Time for Windows targeting the Wind River VxWorks 653 multi-partition RTOS for PowerPC. This is the first release of the Aonix ObjectAda product with full Ada runtime support for the Wind River safety-critical platform.

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Fujitsu Announces CGI Studio - A Software Development Platform for 3D Automotive Human Machine Interfaces

Fujitsu Microelectronics Embedded Solutions Austria GmbH (FEAT) today announces CGI Studio, its independent software development platform for 3D graphical human machine interfaces (HMI/GUI), dedicated to automotive instrument clusters and infotainment systems.

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Fujitsu Announces New Graphics SoC with Complete Tool-Chain for Fast Time-to-Market

Fujitsu has announced a new addition to its 'Jade' graphics controller family, the MB86R03 'Jade L', which focuses on cost optimisation and comes with a complete tool-chain to help beginners get started quickly.

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Atmel Microcontroller Solutions Ease Engineering Workflow

Atmel Corporation today announced several new microcontroller products, tools and platforms to enable an easier workflow for designers of consumer, industrial, white goods and smart energy applications.

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Express Logic Announces ThreadX RTOS Support for Renesas SH7216 Series Microcontrollers

Express Logic announced that Express Logic's ThreadX RTOS now supports Renesas Technology's SH-2A core-based SH7216 microcontroller (MCU). Designed for small footprint, demanding real-time control, the ThreadX RTOS is a perfect match for the SH7216, an integrated connectivity chip targeting real-time control applications. Express Logic's support technology—NetX TCP/IP and USB Host/Device/OTG stacks—also supports the SH7216's connectivity needs.

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Express Logic's BenchX IDE Supports Lauterbach's TRACE32 Debugger

Express Logic, Inc., the worldwide leader in royalty-free real-time operating systems (RTOS), today announced that Express Logic's BenchX® IDC now supports debugging using Lauterbach's TRACE32 debugger. BenchX is an Eclipse-based IDC adapted for use with embedded systems. Lauterbach's TRACE32 in-circuit emulators and debuggers are powerful development tools for embedded systems. Together, BenchX and TRACE32 deliver robust functionality in an easy-to-use Eclipse-based IDE.

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Express Logic Announces Safety-Critical Certification Pack for ThreadX RTOS for IEC-61508, EUROCAE ED-12B, and Related European Safety Standards

Express Logic, Inc., the worldwide leader in royalty-free real-time operating systems (RTOS), today announced the immediate availability of market-specific, turnkey, Safety-Critical Certification Pack™ products for its popular ThreadX® RTOS. ThreadX has proven itself in over 750 million electronic devices, many of which are required to meet stringent industrial, medical, transportation, rail, automotive and aerospace safety and reliability standards. To date, ThreadX customers have performed the required certification tests and validations themselves. By introducing a turnkey Safety-Critical Certification Pack for ThreadX, Express Logic can now help embedded device manufacturers eliminate developer months of verification and validation effort in complying with rigorous reliability and safety-critical standards.

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ARM Launches Development Tool for Linux and Android Applications

ARM today announced, at the Embedded World conference in Nurnberg, Germany, the launch of the Keil™ Development Studio 5 (DS-5) Application Edition, a software development tool suite which simplifies the development of Linux and Android native applications for ARM processor-based systems, reducing the learning curve and shortening the development and testing cycle.

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Wittenstein: SafeRTOS Design Assurance Pack simplifies medical device certification in the US and EU

WITTENSTEIN High Integrity Systems has announced a SafeRTOS Design Assurance Pack which simplifies the mandatory validation process for new MCU based medical devices in the US and European Union. The Design Assurance Pack for the SafeRTOS kernel meets US FDA510(k) Class III and European IEC EN62304 medical device certification requirements, enabling designers to cut the cost, risk and time to market for safety critical technologies.

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Altium supports Cortex-M0 in new release of its TASKING VX-toolset for ARM Cortex-M Series

Altium has released its TASKING VX-toolset for ARM Cortex-M Series that adds support for the Cortex-M0 alongside existing support for Cortex-M1 and Cortex-M3 processors.

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MPC Data announces latest Windows Embedded Standard 2009 UK training date with free embedded PC in association with Arrow Electronics

MPC Data announces a Microsof Windows Embedded Standard 2009 (WES2009) training course in Swindon, UK from March 16th to 18th, 2010. This course is a Microsoft Official Curriculum three-day hands-on training event delivered by MPC Data, Microsoft Gold Level Partner and Partner Excellence Award winner 2008 & 2009.

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Analog Devices BlackfinR Development Tools Discount Reduces Cost of New Application Designs

Analog Devices, Inc. today announced a development tool discount program that offers "bundles" of their robust VisualDSP++® Integrated Development and Debugging Environment (IDDE) and powerful emulator (s) at significant discounts. The low priced development tool bundles are available through authorized worldwide Analog Devices' distributors from March 1, 2010 through May 28, 2010. All development tool bundle orders received on or after March 1st and shipped from the distributors by May 28th will be eligible for the discounted price.

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Renesas Technology Releases the AUTOSAR software package compliant with the Herstellerinitiative Software Recommended Optimization AUTOSAR Specification for R32C/100 Series

Following the launch of its successful R32C MCAL 2.1, Renesas Technology Europe today announced a new Microcontroller Abstraction Layer (MCAL), Release 3.1, for its R32C/100 Series microcontrollers.

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dSPACE TargetLink 3.1

Version 3.1 of dSPACE's production code generator TargetLink provides extensive enhancements in the areas of the Code Generator's core functionality, AUTOSAR support, usability, and MATLAB®/Simulink® integration. With these enhancements, dSPACE made model-based design, autocoding, and model-based testing even more efficient. Certification of TargetLink 3.1 for applications in safety-relevant electronic systems according to IEC 61508 and ISO 26262 is currently in progress.

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Xilinx Picks 28nm High-Performance, Low-Power Process to Accelerate Platforms for Driving the Programmable Imperative

Xilinx Inc. today announced the foundation for a next-generation of Xilinx programmable platforms that will give system designers FPGAs that consume half the power at twice the capacity than previously possible for addressing the Programmable Imperative. Xilinx is maximizing the value of the 28nm technology node by choosing a high-performance, low-power process technology, a common scalable architecture across product ranges, and tool innovations so customers will have FPGAs that deliver the ASIC-class capabilities they need to meet their cost and power budgets, while improving their productivity through easy design migration and IP reuse.

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Altera Transitions its 40-nm Arria II GX FPGAs to Production

Altera Corporation today announced it is shipping in volume production the first members of its 40-nm Arria II GX FPGA family. The Arria II GX device family delivers customers a low-power, low-cost and high-performance FPGA solution specifically targeting 3-Gbps transceiver applications. Arria II GX FPGAs are currently leveraged in a wide variety of high-volume applications in the broadcast, military, wireless and wireline markets.

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Zuken Delivers Seminar for Electrical System Design in Marine Projects

Zuken has teamed up with the Marine Design Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK; and will be hosting a seminar focusing on the advances in electrical system design for complex marine projects. The one day event on 2nd March 2010 invites people to understand how they can overcome design issues associated with the ever increasing electrical complexity across all disciplines of the marine, off-shore, oil and gas and renewable industries.

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NXC2620 Handheld DVK1.0: The Ideal Solution For Handheld Applications

IC Nexus Co. Ltd, announces the NXC2620 HDVK10, a Handheld Development Kit1.0, a battery-powered and compact-sized computer board with a richest of features. It is a flexible, high performance and inexpensive development kit designed for handheld applications such as remote control, home automation, and portable data collectors.

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XMOS launches end-to-end digital iPhone Dock reference design for high-quality audio reproduction

XMOS has launched a reference design for iPhone and iPod docks, which keeps the audio signal path end-to-end digital, from the iPod or iPhone via USB to the amplifier. Implemented entirely in software, using the XMOS XS1-L1 event driven processor, the flexible design eliminates analog audio processing components making it resistant to RF interference and enabling bit-perfect digital audio streaming for highest fidelity audio performance.

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Wind River Lifts the Lid off Symmetrical Multi-Processing at the UK Embedded Masterclass

Engineers looking to work with multicore devices or exploit symmetrical multi-processing for embedded systems will be pleased to hear that both of these topics are central to this year's agenda at The Embedded Masterclass 2010, 6th and 11th May. www.embedded-masterclass.com

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Onespin Solutions Announces Customizable Integration Between 360 MV Verification Solution And Platform LSF Infrastructure

OneSpin Solutions, an electronic design automation (EDA) company that provides innovative functional RTL verification solutions, today announced the customizable integration between OneSpin's 360 MV formal assertion-based verification (ABV) solution and Platform Computing's LSF infrastructure, the industry's leading workload management solution for high-performance computing environments. The integration enables 360 MV users to transparently distribute assertion proofs onto multiple heterogeneous computers, slashing turnaround times in complex chip verification. Platform Computing is a leader in cluster, grid and cloud management software and has welcomed OneSpin as a new member to its Platform Alliance Network.

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Silicon Frontline Technology Improves Performance and Capacity of Flagship EDA Products for Post-Layout Verification, 3D Extraction, Nanometer Design

Silicon Frontline Technology, Inc. (SFT), an Electronic Design Automation (EDA) company in the post-layout verification market, announced today that new versions of its flagship post-layout verification products, F3D (Fast 3D) for fast 3D extraction and R3D (Resistive 3D) for 3D extraction and analysis of large resistive structures like power devices, are shipping now. F3D improves its performance by up to 10x when compared to the previous version. F3D and R3D also accommodate larger designs than the previous versions announced in May 2009.

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Imperial College Robotics Society sponsored by Phaedrus Systems and IAR

Phaedrus Systems and IAR Systems have joined together to sponsor the Imperial College Robotics Society (ICRS) Robo-Tracer Competition. The sponsorship provides the teams at Imperial with copies of IAR Embedded Workbench integrated development environment, IAR KickStart Kits (a development kit), IAR J-link debug probes, IAR visualSTATE graphical development environments, IAR compilers and cash for additional equipment. Total sponsorship is worth around £15,000.

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Lantronix Launches Global XPort Pro Design Contest

Lantronix today announced a design contest based on its recently launched XPort Pro. About the size of two sugar cubes, XPort Pro is the newest addition to Lantronix' popular XPort® family of embedded Ethernet networking and compute modules used in millions of devices worldwide. XPort Pro is available running Linux and IPv6, offering developers a powerful compute platform with an industry-standard development environment. Lantronix will award prizes of $6,000 and $3,000 to the two top entries for Best Linux Design, and a separate prize of $3,000 for the Best Student Linux Design.

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Mistral’s product design expertise enhances Kopin’s Golden-i™ Developers Kit

Mistral Solutions, a leading provider of technology solutions and professional services in the embedded space, today congratulates Kopin Corporation on the launch of their Golden-i platform and is happy to be a strategic partner in the development of this game changing product that is set to redefine mobile computing and communication.

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Lauterbach and Gleichmann Electronics Research simplify hardware/software co-debugging

Efficient debugging techniques for architectures combining standard processors with programmable logic or CPUs that are embedded in programmable logic are demonstrated by Gleichmann Electronics Research and Lauterbach at booth 325, hall 10 during the embedded world 2010. Unlike Lauterbach′s TRACE32 PowerDebuggers, that use the JTAG interface to enable software developers to debug their embedded applications, Gleichmann′s Hpe®_JTAG boundary scan software is using the same physical interface to enable hardware developers to debug their PCBs and ICs.

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LDRA tool suite integration maximizes IAR Embedded Workbench Strengths

LDRA, the leading provider of automated software verification, source code analysis, and test tools, has integrated the LDRA tool suite with IAR Embedded Workbench for the PIC18, AVR, AVR32 and MSP430 microcontrollers. Because IAR Embedded Workbench provides a full range of capabilities, the LDRA tool suite is able to realize its full potential, enabling companies to use these controllers for DO-178B and other rigorous certification standards.

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Tool from Hitex eases ASIL determination

In its latest version 6.1, the tool RiskCAT (distributed by Hitex) provides essential enhancements and support for ISO 26262 (DIS). RiskCAT for ISO 26262 allows for instance comparing this standard to IEC 61508 (SIL 3) according to various aspects. E.g. RiskCAT displays all measures, which are logically present in both standards, but expressed differently.

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ChipWrights adds OpenEmbedded Support to Software Development Kit

ChipWrights' new Linux software development kit provides OpenEmbedded support for developers who are designing multimedia applications based on the CW5631 System-on-Chip. Customers can now access thousands of open source packages, including GTK+, Qt, the X Windows System and Java; plus tools, which shorten development time and speed product release to market.

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Wind River Extends Virtualization Support With New Release of Wind River Hypervisor

Wind River today released an updated version of Wind River Hypervisor, its embedded virtualization solution for single and multicore processors. The new Wind River Hypervisor 1.1 release supports the latest Intel processors and enables new inter-virtual machine communication capabilities. Additionally, debugging of virtual boards is now supported by the latest version of Wind River On-Chip Debugging.

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IPextreme and Lauterbach Announce Interoperability of Lauterbach′s TRACE32 Debug System and IPextreme′s IEEE 1149.7 cJTAG Semiconductor IP

IPextreme and Lauterbach, the leading manufacturer of hardware assisted microprocessor development tools, today announced complete interoperability between Lauterbach′s TRACE32 debug systems and IPextreme′s IEEE 1149.7 cJTAG semiconductor IP core.

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ST-Ericsson and STMicroelectronics to Support Adobe Flash Player 10.1 on Smartphones and Other Devices

STMicroelectronics and ST-Ericsson, a global leader in mobile platforms and semiconductors, are working with Adobe to accelerate Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR® on their powerful chipsets with best-in-class multimedia and graphics capabilities, used in smartphones and connected digital-home devices.

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Freescale releases latest CodeWarrior Development Studio for Microcontrollers based on Eclipse software framework

Freescale Semiconductor released today its CodeWarrior for Microcontrollers v10.0 Beta – a major new release of CodeWarrior Development Studio. It integrates development tools for the RS08, HCS08 and ColdFire architectures into a single product based on the Eclipse open development platform. Eclipse offers an excellent framework for building software development environments and is becoming a standard framework used by many embedded software vendors.

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Imagination Brings Best of Developer Ecosystem to MWC 2010

Imagination Technologies, the leading multimedia chip technologies company is working with partners including Digital Legends, Fishlabs, Teleca, Digital Aria and TAT to bring the best in new mobile multimedia and communications demonstrations and devices to MWC 2010 in Barcelona from February 15 – 18th.

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Imagination Technologies and Adobe showcase the potential of a GPU accelerated Adobe Flash Player 10.1 mobile experience at MWC 2010

Imagination Technologies, a leading multimedia chip technologies company, is demonstrating the results of its collaboration with Adobe to optimise Flash Player 10.1 for mobile and embedded devices, utilising OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics acceleration, on application processors with POWERVR SGX GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) at MWC 2010 in Barcelona (Feb 15-18).

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Eltan partners with DediProg to offer SPI Flash Tools in EMEA.

Eltan BV and DediProg, today announced cooperation to provide SPI Flash Tools for the EMEA market. SPI Flash is a very popular memory technology used for code shadowing in Ram by current designs and for XIP code in future designs taking advantage of the Dual and Quad IO mode. SPI flash memory is low cost and available from many suppliers such as SST, Numonyx, ATMEL etc.

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Freescale Semiconductor supports newly ratified IEEE® 1149.7 standard for improving embedded systems development

Freescale Semiconductor supports the newly ratified IEEE 1149.7 industry standard and plans to apply the standard on its boundary scan debug and test support portions of its embedded systems development process. The IEEE 1149.7 standard aims to improve embedded design by reducing pin operation, which translates to lower costs and the ability to add more functions on a chip.

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IAR Systems achieves 13% improvement on CoreMark benchmark for ARM Cortex-M0

IAR Systems today announced the latest release of its IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM. Highly optimised for code size and increased execution speed, it performs up to 13% better on CoreMark benchmarks for Cortex-M0 compared to the previous version of IAR Embedded Workbench.

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ChipWrights Adds OpenEmbedded Support to its Software Development Kit

ChipWrights, Inc.—part of AD Group—New Linux Software Development Kit provides OpenEmbedded support for developers who are designing multimedia applications based on the CW5631 System-on-Chip. Customers can now access thousands of open source packages, including GTK+, Qt, the X Windows System™ and Java™; plus tools, which shorten development time and speed product release to market. This software development kit release is based on the OpenEmbedded build system, which offers integration with a wide variety of third-party software. OpenEmbedded is the build framework designed to create embedded Linux distributions.

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Cortus APS3 CPU family now has full support from Lauterbach TRACE32 Power Tools

Lauterbach and Cortus announced that the Lauterbach TRACE32® Power Tools now fully support the Cortus APS3 family of processors. The power of Lauterbach's TRACE32 Power Tools is now available for the Cortus APS3 family of ultra low power embedded CPUs. Non-intrusive debugging over JTAG is supported giving engineers full visibility of program execution and profiling analysis enhancing product development times. It offers full support for the Cortus On-Chip debugging hardware and all processor features.

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AdaCore Releases GNAT Pro 6.3

AdaCore today announced the latest major release of its GNAT Pro Ada development environment. GNAT Pro 6.3 is now available on several new platforms including 64-bit Windows, Windows 7, Mac OS X Snow Leopard, VxWorks MILS, and PikeOS (ARINC 653). The product incorporates performance improvements and a variety of enhancements, many based on customer feedback, and it offers the first implementation of new Ada 2012 features. GNAT Pro 6.3 works with a number of complementary tools, sold separately, including the CodePeer automated code review and validation tool.

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Yamaha tapes out its latest Graphics LSI Chip with Synopsys Design Compiler Graphical

Synopsys announced that Yamaha, a leading provider of mobile audio and Graphics LSI chip products, achieved their aggressive performance targets ahead of schedule with Design Compiler(R) Graphical and successfully taped out their latest Graphics LSI chip.

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Tensilica: HiSilicon, a Division of Huawei, Licenses Tensilica's Xtensa Dataplane Processor and ConnX DSP IP Cores

Tensilica announced today that HiSilicon Technologies has licensed Tensilica's Xtensa® customizable dataplane processors (DPUs) and ConnX(TM) DSP (digital signal processing) semiconductor IP cores. HiSilicon will use Tensilica's DPUs and DSPs in network equipment chip design.

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APAC IC adopts Synopsys Galaxy Custom Designer

Synopsys announced that APAC IC Layout Consultant, Inc., a global provider of IC physical design services, has adopted Synopsys' Galaxy Custom Designer implementation solution. APAC IC, based in the Philippines, benefited from the ease with which Galaxy Custom Designer can be adopted to quickly achieve high productivity for its team of layout engineers servicing a worldwide customer base.

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MapleSim Connector for LabVIEW and NI VeriStand Software lets users better manage complex engineering models

Maplesoft (Waterloo, Canada) has announced a product upgrade that extends connectivity to key hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) products from National Instruments (NI). In addition to connectivity to NI LabVIEW, which was announced recently, this updated MapleSim add-on, which is available from Adept Scientific (Letchworth, Herts), also lets users connect to the new NI VeriStand product.

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National Instruments and Tektronix Announce Embedded Design Seminar

National Instruments and Tektronix announced open registration for the Measurement and Analysis Techniques for Embedded System Design Engineers Seminar, a free half-day technical event that helps engineers increase efficiency in their embedded system design processes. Held from March 2 through May 18 in 11 cities, the seminar focuses on time-saving techniques for measurement and analysis and illustrates how integrating tools such as Tektronix oscilloscopes with NI LabVIEW graphical system design software can significantly enhance design efficiency and accuracy.

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Windows Embedded Solutions at Impulse

Impulse Corporation now offers support for Microsoft's Legacy Operating System solutions. Its engineers can either support in creating a standard Operating System Image, or create one to exact specifications.

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MediaTek Deploys EdXact’s Jivaro Technology for Analog Circuits

Backend verification specialist EdXact SA and MediaTek Inc. a leading fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions today announced that they have entered a strategic relationship to deploy EdXact's netlist reduction platform for analog circuits.

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MegaChips Selects Forte Design Systems' High-Level Synthesis Software

Forte Design Systems announced today that MegaChips Corporation of Osaka, Japan, has selected Cynthesizer SystemC high-level synthesis software from Forte Design Systems(tm) for development of its system-on-chip (SoC) designs.

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IAR Systems and Energy Micro collaboration eases development of ultra low power MCU applications

IAR Systems, an independent provider of software development tools, today announced its cooperation with low-power MCU provider Energy Micro AS. Energy Micro has chosen IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM® for inclusion in its EFM32 Gecko Development Kit. All code examples for the EFM32 MCU supplied in the kit are based on the IAR Embedded Workbench. In addition, customers will have the opportunity to purchase the Energy Micro kit directly from IAR Systems.

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Tiny Qseven Starter Kits with ready-to-run Linux Installation

MSC Vertriebs GmbH is offering several Qseven Starter Kits which are based on MSC's Qseven modules featuring a 70 x 70mm form factor and the Intel Atom processor. These kits are designed to strongly simplify the evaluation of and the integration with this new technology.

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Tool support for Energy Micro’s most energy-efficient Cortex-M3-based microcontrollers

Hitex offers complete debug support for the ARM Cortex-M3-based EFM32-Gecko family, the world's most energy-efficient microcontrollers introduced by Energy Micro.

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LDRA and Visure Partner to Offer Embedded Application Lifecycle Management Solution

LDRA, the leading provider of automated software verification tools, and Visure Solutions, market leader in Requirements Definition and Management, have partnered to bring together the first end-to-end application lifecycle management (ALM) system for the embedded space. With the size of complex software applications doubling annually, cost is rapidly increasing, jeopardizing project budgets and creating delivery overruns. By designing an integrated ALM solution, LDRA and Visure hope to deliver 50% cost savings to embedded software development.

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Cambridge Consultants gives developers head start in Bluetooth product design with DEVA

Cambridge Consultants launched DEVA, a comprehensive development platform for the rapid development of highly differentiated Bluetooth(TM) products and mobile accessories. This general-purpose and highly flexible platform allows electronics and software engineers to rapidly prototype and test accessory products that deliver new features for users before committing to final product hardware. By accessing the full power of the BlueCore-5-Multimedia device from CSR, it enables the development of highly differentiated products that maintain very low product cost. Cambridge Consultants will be demonstrating DEVA at this year's MWC show in Barcelona 15 – 18 February (Stand 1D62, Hall 1).

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NEC Electronics - 78K0/Kx2-L Save it! Demonstration Kit

NEC Electronics Europe announced the release of the 78K0/Kx2-L Save it! demonstration kit, supporting the recently launched 78K0/Kx2-L microcontroller (MCU) family that offers industry-leading power consumption and high levels of system integration. The new demonstration kit is designed to provide customers with a complete out-of-the-box experience for evaluation of low power consumption MCUs.

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Altium adds high-performance, low-cost option to its NanoBoard 3000 range

Last year Altium announced a new approach to rapid prototyping with the NanoBoard 3000. The company has now expanded this concept, announcing a new NanoBoard 3000 hosting the Altera Cyclone III FPGA.

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austriamicrosystems expands reliance on Cadence technology to achieve seamless mixed-signal SoC design

Cadence Design Systems Inc announced that austriamicrosystems, a leading global designer and manufacturer of high-performance analog ICs for communications, industrial, medical and automotive applications and foundry services, has broadened its deployment of Cadence technology. Over the last two decades, austriamicrosystems has relied on the Cadence Virtuoso custom IC design platform for its analog and mixed-signal designs and process design kits (PDKs). By choosing Cadence® Encounter® Digital Implementation System for the digital part of its designs, the company can now ensure a tight integration between its design flows.

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The University of Wisconsin Signs On With Altium

Altium has entered a partnership with the University of Wisconsin's College of Engineering to provide Altium Designer as a resource to further educate its undergraduate students with real-world development tools.

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GNAT Pro support for PikeOS

AdaCore and SYSGO today further strengthened their partnership by announcing the release of the GNAT Pro High-Integrity Edition for DO-178B toolset targeting SYSGO's PikeOS platform, a safety-critical real-time operating system (RTOS). GNAT Pro has been ported to this platform in direct response to growing customer demand. This new development follows GNAT Pro support for ELinOS.

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Lauterbach, Discretix Announce Alliance To Provide Secure Chip Debug Capability

Lauterbach TRACE32 PowerTools now support Discretix Secure JTAG Debug Module, Giving OEMs Highly Secure, Authenticated Way to Debug SoC Errors throughout System′s Lifetime.

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Cadence Encounter Digital Implementation System 9.1 Addresses Industry Productivity Crisis for Complex System-on-Chip Design

Cadence Design Systems has released Cadence Encounter Digital Implementation (EDI) System 9.1, a complete and integrated digital design, implementation, and verification environment for the development of large-scale, complex SoCs. The new and expanded suite of capabilities in EDI System 9.1 answers the industry call for improved designer productivity in developing advanced low power and mixed signal SoCs at leading-edge process nodes – such as 32- and 28-nanometer - with hundreds of millions of gates, including hundreds of IP elements and embedded processors.

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Cypress and Keil Team Up to Deliver High-Performance Compiler Options for Cypress's New PSoC® 3 and PSoC 5 Architectures

Cypress Semiconductor has teamed up with Keil, the tools division of ARM, to deliver high-performance compiler options for the PSoC Creator IDE for the PSoC® 3 and PSoC 5 programmable system-on-chip architectures.

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New release 3.5 of AVIX RTOS

AVIX-RT announced version 3.5 of its AVIX RTOS. Building on the unmatched capabilities of its predecessor this new version offers functionality to exploit the energy saving capabilities of the applied microcontroller. Especially beneficial for battery powered devices applying this new version of the AVIX RTOS can result in a substantial decrease in energy consumption.

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Aeroflex realises 60x performance improvement using Synopsys CustomSim solution

Synopsys announced that Aeroflex Colorado Springs, Inc., a global provider of high-technology solutions to the aerospace, defense and broadband communications markets, has successfully deployed Synopsys' CustomSim unified circuit simulation solution for the development and verification of its high reliability integrated circuits (ICs). The CustomSim solution delivers performance improvements of up to 60x over SPICE, increasing designer productivity and confidence by enabling more corners to be run for transistor-level verification of large blocks.

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Evatronix USB 2.0 Controller Secures USB Certification for Richnex High Speed USB Transceivers

The silicon intellectual property (IP) provider, Evatronix SA and the mixed signal IC design company Richnex announced today the successful USB certification of the Richnex USB transceiver - RN1170, in which the Evatronix USB High Speed On-The-Go Controller IP was implemented as a reference design.

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Agilent Technologies Announces NXP Semiconductors' Design Kit for RF Small Signal Products in Advanced Design System

Agilent Technologies announced the availability of an NXP Semiconductors' design kit for RF small-signal products within Agilent's Advanced Design System (ADS). The design kit provides NXP's customers with easy access to comprehensive libraries of models within ADS for NXP's RF wideband devices, diodes, junction FET's, dual-gate MOSFET's and MMIC's. With the new design kit, customers can run simulations in ADS prior to moving to prototype. This significantly accelerates project development with NXP's components and speeds time-to-market.

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ITTIA releases white paper on breaking the flat file barrier

ITTIA, a global supplier of embedded lightweight relational database software, has released a white paper detailing the challenges of hard-coded data management: Breaking the Flat File Barrier for Embedded Developers. This paper explores the use of custom binary and text file formats, and shows how they are inadequate for applications that are better served by a more suitable lightweight relational database solution.

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Byte Paradigm announces the availability of GP-24100

Byte Paradigm has announced the availability of GP-24100 a PC-controlled USB 2.0 high speed device featuring digital pattern generator and digital data sampling capabilities. GP-24100 is used as logic signal source early in the digital system development cycle to substitute for components that are not yet available.

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NXP Launches LPCXpresso Toolchain for LPC1100 Cortex-M0 Family

NXP Semiconductors today announced the availability of a low-cost, web-enabled development tool platform, LPCXpresso, for the LPC ARM processor family of microcontrollers. The LPCXpresso features an easy-to-use interface and supports the complete product design cycle, providing an end-to-end development solution. NXP is also announcing today the launch of the industry's first Cortex™-M0 design competition, the "LPC1100 Cortex-M0 Design Challenge," providing free LPCXpresso tools to qualified contestants.

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Synopsys expands DesignWare IP portfolio with MIPI IP solutions

Synopsys announced the addition of silicon-proven DesignWare MIPI IP consisting of 3G DigRF Controllers and PHY, Camera Serial Interface 2 (CSI-2) Host Controller and D-PHY to its IP portfolio. The Mobile Industry Processor Interface (MIPI) Alliance defines a set of standard hardware interfaces between mobile baseband processors, RF integrated circuits (ICs) and peripherals typically found in smartphones and multimedia handheld devices.

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EPLAN Data Portal has extensive collection of device and component data

One year after its launch, the EPLAN Data Portal has had 4.5 million downloads. This web-based portal delivers around 100,000 items of the latest tested and certified component and device data from numerous leading component manufacturers, thereby giving users an extra productivity boost.

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Synopsys launches DesignWare HDMI 1.4 Tx/Rx controller and PHY IP solutions for 40nm process technologies

Synopsys announced the availability of high quality DesignWare High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) 1.4 transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx) digital controllers and PHY IP solutions that are compliant to the standard specification. With full support for new features of the HDMI 1.4 specification including HEAC, 3D formats, real-time content signaling, 4K x 2K resolution and 10.2 Gbps aggregate bandwidth, the DesignWare HDMI IP enables designers to quickly incorporate differentiated functionality into their digital TV (DTV) and home theatre applications with less risk and improved time-to-market.

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LeCroy Introduces Simulation Design Verification Tool for PCI Express 3.0 Protocol Analysis

LeCroy Corporation today announced a significant expansion of its PCI Express 3.0 protocol testing focus with the addition of a new analysis tool. The new software tool, named SimPASS, addresses the pre-silicon simulation and design verification phases of development. SimPASS is based on the existing LeCroy graphical user interface for display and analysis of data traffic, and extends the powerful data traffic analysis capabilities commonly used for post silicon testing to the simulation environment.

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Hitex - Self-test software library for NXP’s Cortex-M3 based LPC1000 family

Subject was the development of a software library including testing, documentation and the steps to get the pre-certification. This ensures the availability of NXP's IEC 60335 Class B test library for the entire LPC1000 family of ARM Cortex-M3 based microcontrollers. The library has been approved by the VDE (German Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies) testing and certification institute, which is globally recognized as a leader in this field.

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ChipWrights’ Hardware Development Kit Speeds the Design of Video Processing Applications

ChipWrights, Inc announced its new hardware development kit based on the CW5631 System-on-Chip, which is widely used in the design of multimedia applications. Target applications include: IP cameras, IPTVs, digital video recorders, personal media players, digital signage, and video conferencing.

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Agilent Technologies Announces YouTube Channel for Agilent EEsof EDA

Agilent Technologies announced the launch of the Agilent EEsof EDA channel on YouTube. The channel features more than 100 informational videos with subtitles in 50 different languages. The videos offer detailed application information on the Advanced Design System, Genesys, SystemVue, and other electronic design automation software from Agilent EEsof. The channel is designed to provide tutorial information to Agilent's large installed base of users, or to anyone wanting to learn more about Agilent EEsof's design software and high-frequency design applications.

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Agilent Technologies to Showcase Latest High-Speed Digital Design Techniques at DesignCon 2010

Agilent Technologies will demonstrate how its wide array of high-speed digital tools can address multi-gigabit design challenges in the areas of measurement and simulation. Attendees can connect with Agilent experts at DesignCon, Booth 301, from Feb. 1-4, 2010 at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

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JTAG ProVision boundary-scan development tools-suite

JTAG Technologies has announced an interim update to its renowned ProVision boundary-scan development tools-suite that includes the new continuity test module 'Buzz'. Service Pack 1 for CD release 15 (CD15-SP1) is available immediately for download, from www.jtag.com, for licensed users with current support contracts.

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AMCAD Engineering Announces Version 3.1 of its IVCAD software platform

AMCAD Engineering, a supplier of new RF & Microwave solutions for advanced design, today announced Version 3.1 of its IVCAD software platform. AMCAD's software suite offers a unique set of tools for RF & microwave measurements, data management, and device modelling.

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Real Intent Releases Ascent Lint Version 1.2 Offering New Rule Support with Low-Noise and High-Performance Linting

Real Intent Inc., the innovator in automating the intelligence of formal techniques for design verification, announced that it is shipping Ascent Lint Version 1.2. Ascent Lint is the next generation lint tool in the Ascent early functional verification family of products. It performs syntax and semantic Lint checks for today's complex SoC designs.

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York University chooses Altium Designer to enhance circuit design, analysis, test curriculums in its space and computer engineering programs

Altium continues to extend its partnerships with universities, with a new relationship with York University's School of Engineering to supply Altium Designer for use within its space engineering and computer engineering undergraduate programs.

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Free Evaluation Software for CADSTAR 12.0 from Zuken

The latest version of CADSTAR Express, the evaluation software from Zuken, is now available. For designers wanting to try out the latest version of the powerful PCB design solution and really get a feel for how easy to use the software is, they can download the Express version free.

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AdaCore Launches CodePeer Tool

AdaCore, a leading supplier of Ada development tools and support services, today announced the release of CodePeer, a source code analysis tool that detects run-time and logic errors in Ada programs. Serving as an efficient and accurate code reviewer, CodePeer identifies constructs that are likely to lead to run-time errors such as buffer overflows, and it flags legal but suspect code typical of logic errors. Going well beyond the capabilities of typical static analysis tools, CodePeer also produces a detailed analysis of each subprogram, including pre- and postconditions.

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TenAsys Embedded Virtualization Software Supports New Intel® Core™ Embedded Processors

TenAsys Corporation (www.tenasys.com), a leading provider of real-time OS and virtualization software, announces that all of its embedded virtualization software products, including the INtime® real-time OS for Windows®, provide full support for new 2010 Intel® Core™ processors and companion chipsets for the embedded market.

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Evatronix IP Cores Now Available in the LFoundry Process Design Kit (PDK)

The silicon intellectual property (IP) provider, Evatronix SA, and Landshut Silicon Foundry GmbH announced today the agreement to support most popular products from the Evatronix IP portfolio within the LFoundry leading analog / mixed signal technology nodes. The partnership will allow customers to easily apply Evatronix IP to LFoundry's process design kits (PDK) in both 150 nm and 350 nm technology platforms. This will facilitate development of analog / mixed signal products especially for European SoC developers.

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SynaptiCAD’s 64-Bit Verilog Simulator is 30% Faster

SynaptiCAD has just released the first 64bit Linux version of VeriLogger Extreme, a Verilog simulation and debug environment. The 64bit simulator runs 30% faster than the 32bit version and can simulate much larger designs (64bit Linux applications can use a system's full memory, unlike 32bit applications which are limited to 3GB of memory).

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CST STUDIO SUITE 2010 - Now Shipping

Computer Simulation Technology (CST) today announced shipping of CST STUDIO SUITE version 2010 has commenced. Engineers and researchers working with electromagnetic problems will benefit from CST's latest software release, CST STUDIO SUITE version 2010 and its multitude of powerful new solver options, features and functionality. The extended range of solvers included in this release continues CST's complete technology tradition.

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Synopsys - DesignWare Protocol Analyzer for verification of SuperSpeed USB 3.0-based designs

Synopsys announced the DesignWare USB 3.0 Protocol Analyzer, a new graphical debugger for SuperSpeed USB 3.0, the latest generation of the USB interface that delivers 10 times the speed of Hi-Speed USB 2.0. The DesignWare USB 3.0 Protocol Analyzer simplifies debug for engineers verifying SuperSpeed USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 interfaces in their systems-on-chip (SoCs) by providing a graphical view of the protocol traffic. It helps users quickly identify unexpected patterns in the design traffic and then switches to a detailed view of the packet information to determine the cause.

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National Instruments Multisim 11 Simplifies Circuit Simulation for Teaching and Design

National Instruments introduced Multisim 11, the latest version of its circuit simulation software, with specialised editions for both hands-on learning and professional circuit design. The easy-to-use Multisim software delivers a graphical approach that abstracts the complexities of traditional circuit simulation, helping educators, students and engineers employ advanced circuit analysis technology.

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Real Intent Focuses on Proven, Cost-Effective Electronic Design Verification at 2010 EDSFair, Yokohama, Japan

Real Intent, Inc., the innovator in automating the intelligence of formal technologies for electronic design verification, is exhibiting at the Electronic Design and Solution Fair (EDSFair 2010) in Yokohama, Japan.

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Synopsys claimed industry's first SystemC TLM-2.0 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 models

Synopsys announced the availability of SuperSpeed USB 3.0 transaction-level models (TLM) supporting the Open SystemC Initiative (OSCI) TLM-2.0 API specification. The models are TLM representations of the Synopsys DesignWare(r) SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Device and xHCI Host Controller IP. The SuperSpeed USB 3.0 models enable pre-RTL and pre-silicon software development, verification and architecture exploration. They are part of the DesignWare System-Level Library which features more than 100 TLM models, including models of the DesignWare Interface IP portfolio.

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Agilent Technologies' RFIC Solutions Software Accelerates Design, Verification of ACCO Semiconductor's Next-Generation CMOS Power Amplifier

Agilent Technologies announced that ACCO Semiconductor has selected a comprehensive suite of Agilent's RFIC design, verification and modeling software for design of its next-generation CMOS power amplifier. This software, used for integrated, mixed-signal RFIC designs, coupled with Agilent's unique wireless verification IP portfolio for design and test, enables a streamlined design flow that allows ACCO Semiconductor to quickly and effectively drive its design project from initial conception to final product.

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Hitex - Self-test software library for NXP’s Cortex-M3 based LPC1000 family

Hitex Development Tools has successfully processed a service project for NXP Semiconductors to meet the IEC 60335 standard for automatic electronic controls.

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Perforce releases new version of its Software Configuration Management (SCM) system for electronics designers

Perforce Software today released version 2009.2 of its Software Configuration Management (SCM) system. This new release offers a variety of major productivity improvements with the addition of shelving, real-time metadata replication and additional functionality for working offline.

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NEC Electronics Europe Announces 78K0R – SENSE IT! Development Kit

NEC Electronics Europe announced the release of the 78K0R/Lx3 — SENSE IT! development kit. SENSE IT! is a single-board, LCD control development platform designed specifically for the evaluation of NEC Electronics' 16-bit 78K0R/Lx3 microcontroller. It includes an on-chip liquid crystal display (LCD) driver circuit, optimized especially for the fields of handheld healthcare diagnostic instruments such as blood glucose meter, building utility meters and heating controls, and HMI (human machine interface) for industrial automation and motor drives.

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Synopsys speeds timing signoff by 2X with latest multicore technology

Synopsys announced the immediate availability of PrimeTime 2009.12, delivering up to 2X speed up of timing signoff through the addition of threaded multicore processing. With this latest addition, Synopsys' PrimeTime tool provides a new level of flexibility enabling design teams to achieve optimal runtime performance across their heterogeneous multicore compute environments by utilising distributed and threaded multicore processing in tandem.

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EU’s FP7 SATURN project delivers UML/SysML-based hardware/software co-design solution based on Artisan Studio

Artisan Software Tools has announced the first technology solution to emerge from the European Union's Framework7 SATURN project – a UML/SysML-based hardware/software co-design environment based on Artisan Studio.

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More performance, more logic and more options for FPGA designers

Altium continues to expand device options for electronics designers. The latest version of Altium Designer now includes complete support for the Spartan-6 device family from Xilinx.

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Aptina And Easic Announce High Definition H.264 Reference Design

Aptina, a global provider of image sensor solutions and eASIC Corporation, today announced the immediate availability of a H.264 High Definition (HD) reference design that is capable of supporting up to 720p/30fps rates. The new HD reference design is aimed at enabling, and simplifying the development for a new class of low-cost HD applications and making low-cost HD solutions available for the masses. Applications include low-cost HD camcorders, baby monitors, public transportation, wireless surveillance, medical and industrial/automotive vision systems.

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Wind River Selected for NASA Ares Next-Generation Launch Vehicles

Wind River today announced that NASA has selected Wind River VxWorks 653 as the real-time operating system for the flight and command computers in the Ares I and Ares V next-generation launch vehicles. VxWorks 653 will be the cornerstone for the Instrument Unit Avionics (IUA), providing guidance, navigation and control capabilities for the upcoming Ares I manned launch vehicle and the Ares V cargo vehicle, which will send future astronauts and large-scale hardware into orbit.

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LDRA Tool Suite Integrated into Microchip Technology’s PIC Family

LDRA, the leading provider of automated software verification, source code analysis, and test tools, has integrated the LDRA tool suite and Microchip Technology's MPLAB PIC18, PIC24 and dsPIC32/33 tool chains. Leveraging the scalability of its components, LDRA can scale the LDRA tool suite down to run application code on small processor footprints. Thanks to this integration, very low-cost and low-power PIC processors can be used in DO-178B qualified environments.

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SafeRTOS adds SIL3 and FDA support for STM32

WITTENSTEIN High Integrity Systems has announced the immediate availability of SafeRTOS for ST-Micro's STM32 Cortex-M3 family of devices. SafeRTOS is a small, robust real-time operating system designed for critical applications and is supplied with an independently validated certification pack for Industrial and Medical devices.

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X-FAB now supports Synopsys Galaxy Custom Designer

Synopsys today announced that X-FAB has expanded its support to include Synopsys' Galaxy Custom Designer(TM) implementation solution. X-FAB now fully supports Synopsys' Galaxy(TM) Implementation Platform across its wide range of advanced modular CMOS process technologies for analogue/mixed-signal (AMS) applications.

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LDRA Tool Suite Integrated into Microchip Technology’s PIC Family

LDRA, the leading provider of automated software verification, source code analysis, and test tools, has integrated the LDRA tool suite and Microchip Technology's MPLAB PIC18, PIC24 and dsPIC32/33 tool chains. Leveraging the scalability of its components, LDRA can scale the LDRA tool suite down to run application code on small processor footprints. Thanks to this integration, very low-cost and low-power PIC processors can be used in DO-178B qualified environments.

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Cosmic Circuits Adopts Cadence Virtuoso 6.1 for Complex Analog and Mixed-Signal Designs

Cadence Design Systems (I) Pvt Ltd., a subsidiary of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS), the leader in global electronic design innovation, today announced that Cosmic Circuits, a leading provider of differentiated analog IP cores, has adopted the Cadence® Virtuoso® IC 6.1 custom design platform. After extensive and rigorous testing, Cosmic selected Virtuoso IC 6.1 for its complex analog and mixed-signal layout flow, and immediately gained 30 percent improvement in productivity and turnaround time over its previous flow.

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Zoran Deploys Cadence Virtuoso Software for Complex, Advanced Technology, Mixed-Signal Chip

Cadence Design Systems today announced that Zoran Corp., a leading provider of digital solutions in the digital entertainment and imaging markets, taped out a complex, advanced technology mixed-signal chip using the Cadence® Virtuoso® suite of design and simulation products. Zoran adopted the Virtuoso technology to address the growing complexities and challenges its engineers faced moving to advanced nodes.

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Tensilica Delivers New Design Flow Support for Synopsys’ Galaxy Implementation Platform Technologies

Tensilica, Inc. today announced that it now provides out-of-the-box automated design flow support for key technologies within Synopsys' Galaxy Implementation Platform, including DC Ultra RTL synthesis and IC Compiler place-and-route, for Tensilica's new Xtensa 8 and Xtensa LX3 dataplane processors (DPUs). This latest design flow provides up to 15% improvement in processor speed, area and power, in addition to faster design closure over previous Synopsys-based design flows, thus offering immediate benefits to Tensilica customers.

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AppliedMicro Standardizes on Cadence Encounter Digital Implementation System

Cadence Design Systems today announced that Applied Micro Circuits Corporation has selected the Cadence Encounter Digital Implementation (EDI) System for its large, complex advanced-node designs. EDI System joins other multiprocessing-capable offerings in the AppliedMicro methodology to form a standardized design infrastructure based set of tools.

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Timesys enables LinuxLink tools and support for NetLogic Microsystems’ Alchemy Au1250 and Au1300 Ultra Low-Power Processors

Timesys today announced that LinuxLink customers can have their platform and development environment for NetLogic Microsystems' Alchemy Au1250 and Alchemy Au1300 ultra low-power processors up and running within days. The Timesys LinuxLink software development framework gives Au1250 and Au1300 processor users access to a competitively priced, intuitive environment for developing a wide range of Linux-based media and navigation products.

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Energy Micro development kit enables real-time energy profiling for optimising application power

Energy Micro today announced a development kit for its EFM32 Gecko MCU family providing users with a unique Advanced Energy Monitoring (AEM) system. Via a large in-built LCD screen and preconfigured GUI, AEM enables users to accurately view a prototype application's current consumption data in real time, enabling early identification and removal of adverse energy drains.

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Green Hills Software demonstrates multicore development and debugging solutions at Embedded World

Green Hills Software, Inc. will be featuring demonstrations of secure networking and medical device platforms, multicore development and JTAG debugging at Embedded World, Nuremberg 2-4 March 2010.

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Debug support for Toshiba’s TMPM370

Hitex has adapted its tool chain to support Toshiba's TMPM370 microcontroller series designed for use in high-efficiency AC motor applications such as washing machines, refrigerators and air conditioners. The TMPM370 combines an 80MHz ARM Cortex-M3 core with a hardware vector engine into a compact, highly efficient device that can simplify applications requiring precision control of sensored and sensorless three-phase brushless DC (BLDC) motors or three-phase induction motors.

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Maia EDA launches new automated verification tool


Maia EDA has today announced the availability of the Maia functional verification tool. Maia uses a description of the expected behavior of a device to automatically create a complete self-checking reactive testbench, so freeing engineers from the time-consuming, complex, and error-prone task of manual testbench creation. The tool has been designed to enable both engineers and non-engineers to quickly verify modules and sub-systems, and is initially being offered without cost by the company, allowing trial without registration or risk.

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Our first news for Southern Electronics 2010! ByteSnap to showcase electronics design projects

ByteSnap Design (www.bytesnap.co.uk), an electronics and software design consultancy, will be exhibiting for the first time at Southern Electronics in Farnborough from 10 – 11 February 2010 on stand D12.

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Altera Ships Stratix IV E FPGA Development Kit Featuring a 530K Logic Element FPGA

Altera Corporation has announced the availability of its latest development kit targeting Stratix IV FPGAs. The Stratix IV E FPGA Development Kit features the industry's highest density, highest performance FPGA available. The kit provides users with a comprehensive design environment that includes the hardware and software needed to immediately begin prototyping their high-density designs.

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Wind River Launches Commercial Android Platform

OMAP 3 has announced the immediate availability of its commercial version of open source Android optimized on the OMAP 3 platform from Texas Instruments. The Wind River Platform for Android is a validated, fully compliant software platform based on the latest versions of the Android software development kit (SDK), available with pre-integrated software from initial partners Adobe, PacketVideo and Red Bend Software; and global support by Wind River.

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Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 FPGA Connectivity Development Kits Include Northwest Logic DMA Engine IP

Xilinx has announced the availability of the new Xilinx® Virtex®-6 and Spartan®-6 FPGA Connectivity Development Kits that provide a comprehensive, easy-to-use, and hardware validated development environment. A key component of the new kits is the Connectivity Targeted Reference Designs that contain Northwest Logic's high-performance, scatter-gather DMA Engine IP. The Northwest Logic® DMA Engine IP, in combination with the other elements of the kits, provides high-bandwidth operation for a wide variety of PCI Express®-based applications enabling customers to quickly develop and deploy designs for a broad range of high-speed connectivity applications.

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Xilinx Connectivity, Embedded, and DSP Kits Enable Increased Productivity and Innovation for System-on-Chip Designs

Xilinx has announced six new development kits as part of its Targeted Design Platforms for enabling developers to focus on innovation and differentiation when designing with FPGAs. These development platforms for the Virtex-6 and Spartan-6 families significantly shorten the time it takes to reach optimal levels of system performance, while ensuring low levels of power consumption during system-on-chip (SoC) development. The new kits target embedded processing, DSP and the building of systems that require high-speed serial connectivity by providing design teams with optimized tool suites tuned to their design flow, fully functional IP, and Targeted Reference Designs common to their areas of expertise.

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Lauterbach TRACE32 Now Supports ARM Cortex-A5

The TRACE32 debuggers from Lauterbach, the manufacturer of microprocessor development tools, now support the new ARM Cortex-A5 processor. The Cortex-A5 micro architecture is delivered within either a single core processor or a scalable multicore processor, the Cortex-A5 MPCore™, which consists of up to four Cortex-A5 cores in a cluster. They are designed for applications that demand high performance and lower power consumption.

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AppliedMicro Standardizes on Cadence Encounter Digital Implementation System

Cadence Design Systems today announced that Applied Micro Circuits Corporation has selected the Cadence® Encounter® Digital Implementation (EDI) System for its large, complex advanced-node designs. EDI System joins other multiprocessing-capable offerings in the AppliedMicro™ methodology to form a standardized design infrastructure based set of tools.

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Cadence Strengthens Virtuoso Custom IC Design Leadership

Cadence Design Systems today extended its leadership position in analog and mixed-signal chip design technologies with the introduction of dramatic improvements to its leading Virtuoso IC design platform. Cadence announced powerful performance, capacity and usability enhancements in Virtuoso IC6.1.4 that reduce overall design time while ensuring high-quality production ICs.

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National Instruments LabWindows/CVI 2009 Increases Developer Productivity and Application Reliability

National Instruments today announced the release of LabWindows/CVI 2009, the latest version of the ANSI C development environment for building reliable test and measurement solutions. The software delivers support for new PC technologies including the C Interface to LabVIEW FPGA, which makes it possible for LabWindows/CVI host applications to communicate with field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based hardware, Microsoft Windows 7 and 64-bit operating systems for simplified development and deployment.

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IAR Systems claims world's first starter kit for ARM Cortex-M0

IAR Systems has announced the availability of IAR KickStart kit for NXP LPC1114. This is believed to be the world's first commercial starter kit for ARM Cortex-M0-based microcontrollers.

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Agilent Technologies' New GoldenGate Release 4.4 Accelerates Advanced Node CMOS RFIC Design

Agilent has announced the release of its RFIC simulation, verification and analysis software -- GoldenGate version 4.4. This release extends Agilent's leadership in advanced node RFIC design with enhanced performance, new key stability and yield analyses, and RF extensions to mixed-signal simulation. In addition, the new release brings performance and flexibility updates to its unique wireless standards-based virtual test bench capability.

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Tensilica Delivers New Design Flow Support for Synopsys' Galaxy Implementation Platform Technologies

Tensilica has announced that it now provides out-of-the-box automated design flow support for key technologies within Synopsys' Galaxy Implementation Platform, including DC Ultra RTL synthesis and IC Compiler place-and-route, for Tensilica's new Xtensa 8 and Xtensa LX3 dataplane processors (DPUs). This latest design flow provides up to 15% improvement in processor speed, area and power, in addition to faster design closure over previous Synopsys-based design flows, thus offering immediate benefits to Tensilica customers.

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Renesas Technology Releases First Product in Multimedia Solution Line of Linux Platforms for Development of Systems Incorporating SH772x Series Application Processors

Renesas Technology Europe today announced the availability of the Renesas Multimedia Solution Linux*1 platform, which enables low-cost and rapid development of systems incorporating the SH772x Series application processor for low power multimedia applications such as audio and video for portable and industrial devices. The first product in the series is the MS7724 platform for the SH7724, the newest entry in the SH772x Series. Shipments will begin in December 2009.

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New Cypress Kit Demonstrates Precision Analog of PSoC 3 Architecture via Highly Integrated Voltmeter

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. today introduced a demonstration kit highlighting the broad precision analog capabilities of its new PSoC 3 architecture. The new CY8CKIT-007 PSoC 3 Precision Analog Voltmeter Demo Kit showcases a PSoC 3 device as a single-chip voltmeter, using an onboard 20-bit Delta Sigma Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) to measure the voltage from the included test leads and onboard thermocouple while directly driving an LCD. With the kit, designers can use pre-configured op amp, ADC and analog mux components in the PSoC Creator™ Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to quickly and easily design industrial sensors, consumer sensors, glucose meters and other analog applications.

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Top EDA Companies Endorse Tensilica's Pin-Level SystemC Models

Tensilica has announced that it has expanded the range of processor modeling options with the introduction of pin-level SystemC models of its Xtensa customizable dataplane processors (DPUs). With this novel feature, Tensilica now offers the widest array of modeling choices of any provider of licensable microprocessor or DSP (digital signal processing) IP cores.

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Microchip Releases Tools to Improve Efficiency and Reduce Development Time for Motor Control Designs

Microchip has announced the introduction of two new low-cost motor control development systems. Both development boards feature the flexible dsPIC33F "MC" DSC families, which integrate leading-edge motor control features. In addition, Microchip has produced five royalty- and license-free application notes, aiding engineers in creating motor applications that run at peak efficiency and generate maximum torque using the minimum amount of energy.

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Tensilica Announces Enhanced Tools for Dataplane Processor Design and Software Development

Tensilica has announced its eighth generation tools that further automate customized Xtensa dataplane processor (DPU) design and speed software development. Improvements cover improved compiler technology, better multi-core system simulation and profiling, an upgraded integrated development environment (IDE), and pin-level co-simulation with RTL.

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FCI's Web-based Design Tools Simplify Product Selection

FCI has developed a dedicated, micro-site for I/O connector solutions. The micro-site provides customers with an easy to use, web-based interface with direct access to interactive product selectors. Based on a variety of selectable design criteria, these product selectors allow customers to identify the I/O connector that best suits their application. Selector tables for each product category help users navigate through the broad I/O connector portfolio, while search functions help locate key product information such as product drawings and data-sheets, customer view models, and inventory availability.

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Magma Announces Talus-Based RTL-to-GDSII Reference Flow for Imagination Technologies' POWERVR Graphics Accelerator

Magma Design Automation Inc, a provider of chip design software, today announced the availability of an RTL-to-GDSII reference flow for system-on-chip (SoC) designs that incorporate POWERVR(TM) SGX graphics accelerator cores from Imagination Technologies, a leader in SoC intellectual property (IP). Based on Talus(R) 1.1, the latest release of Magma's design implementation system, the flow leverages the recently enhanced optimization capabilities of the Talus Design 1.1 synthesis tool and the Talus COre(TM) technology that performs timing optimization concurrently during routing.

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Magma Announces Talus Design 1.1 and Talus RTL 1.1 -- Enhanced Synthesis Products Deliver New Capabilities, Reference Flows and Interfaces

Magma Design Automation Inc.a provider of chip design software, today announced the availability of Talus Design 1.1 and Talus RTL 1.1, Magma's full-chip synthesis products for advanced integrated circuits. Capabilities in these new versions include GlassBox™ abstraction technology; enhanced optimization algorithms; RTL-to-GDSII reference flows for leading IP providers including ARM, MIPS and Imagination Technologies (see related announcement today); and additional interfaces for commonly used third-party design-for-test (DFT) and formal verification tools. These enhanced synthesis products with new out-of-the box synthesis flows eliminate the need to develop customized scripts, significantly reducing the time and effort required to achieve timing, area and power goals.

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Hynix Standardizes on Magma's FineSim Pro and FineSim SPICE for Full-Chip Verification of Large Memory Designs

Magma Design Automation Inc has announced today that Hynix Semiconductor Inc., a leading provider of memory products, has adopted and deployed FineSim(TM) Pro and FineSim SPICE as an integral part of its memory design and verification flow. Hynix standardized on Magma's advanced circuit simulation technology after an extensive evaluation involving a number of commercially available products and many different types of designs. The results of the evaluation demonstrated FineSim Pro's ability to deliver performance 3 times to 4 times faster than competitive products while increasing accuracy.

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Mercury Computer Systems Announces Availability of OpenVPX Reference Design Kits

Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. a leading provider of embedded computing systems and software for image, sensor, and signal processing applications, announced availability of its family of OpenVPX Reference Design Kits.

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Embedded Databases in Defence

McObject, whose eXtremeDB embedded database systems are distributed in the UK by Phaedrus Systems, has announced two major design wins in the military and aerospace area. BAE Systems is using McObject's eXtremeDB as part of an avionics upgrade for the Panavia Tornado GR4 multi-role combat jet and leading Turkish defence contractor STM Defense Technologies Engineering and Trade is using the eXtremeDB High Availability (HA) embedded database within a new Tank Command and Control Information System (TCCIS).

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Altera Delivers Industry's First Serial RapidIO 2.1 IP Solution

Altera Corporation today announced the immediate availability of the industry's first intellectual property (IP) core supporting the RapidIO 2.1 specification. Altera's Serial RapidIO IP core supports up to four lanes at 5.0 GBaud per lane, addressing the increased bandwidth and reliability needs of the wireless and military markets. The IP core is optimized for Stratix® IV FPGAs with embedded transceivers and is supported within Quartus® II software v9.1.

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New eTools 8.0 Software Simplifies 45nm ASIC Design

eASIC Corporation, a provider of NEW ASIC devices, today announced the immediate availability of its eTools 8.0 software suite for implementing 45nm Nextreme-2 designs. The eTools 8.0 tool suite delivers a robust ASIC grade design flow with the simplicity, ease of design, and a cost point that is normally associated with FPGA design tools. By focusing on ease-of-use, and low cost of entry, eASIC is now enabling designers to make a seamless transition to adopting Nextreme-2 devices as a lower cost and lower power alternative to FPGAs and a lower NRE alternative to traditional ASICs.

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Xilinx Simplifies Serial Digital Interface Development for High Performance Professional Broadcast Audio and Video Systems

Xilinx today introduced the industry's first Broadcast Connectivity Targeted Design Platform with Xilinx Virtex-6 FPGAs to simplify development of serial digital interface (SDI) solutions for high-performance broadcast audio and video systems. The broadcast connectivity platform accelerates time to market and differentiation of professional broadcast audio, video and network connectivity products, including cameras, switchers, routers, encoders, professional monitors, and cinema projectors.

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One less custom PCB to design for prototypes

Altium has released a new prototyping peripheral add-on board for its NanoBoard FPGA-based development boards.

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Polar adds Speedflex flex-rigid PCB capability to the Speedstack layer stackup design system

Polar Instruments has added a new flex-rigid PCB design option to Speedstack, the industry's best-selling PCB layer stackup design system. The addition of Speedflex flex-rigid design to Speedstack allows PCB fabricators and OEM designers to create and accurately document PCB stackups, combining rigid and flex-rigid PCBs, and to reduce manufacturing costs through fast evaluation of a wide range of alternative materials and suppliers.

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IAR Systems introduces global volume license program (VLP)

IAR Systems today announced a global volume license program. With its support for more than 20 different 8-, 16-, and 32-bit MCU architectures, IAR Systems is the world's leading provider of software tools for embedded systems and this new program is tailored to benefit both new and existing customers.

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TowerJazz and Tanner EDA Announce Process Design Kit (PDK) Collaboration for Power Management Device Design

TowerJazz and Tanner EDA today announced a joint initiative to develop Process Design Kits (PDKs) for analog/mixed-signal (A/MS) designers using Tanner EDA's HiPer Silicon(TM) software. This collaboration gives Tanner EDA customers access to TowerJazz's innovative 0.18- and 0.35-micron power management process platform and TowerJazz customers access to Tanner EDA's A/MS tools for a complete IC design solution.

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Tanner EDA Announces Strategic Alliance With SoftMEMS, Companies Work With Trident Techlabs to Support A/MS and MEMS Design in India

Tanner EDA, a leading provider of analog, mixed-signal (A/MS) and MEMS electronic design automation (EDA) tools, announced today that it has formed a strategic alliance with SoftMEMS. The two companies are working together with Tanner EDA's distributor in India, Trident Techlabs Pvt. Ltd., to support customers in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune seeking proven solutions for A/MS and MEMS design.

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Zuken Announces Expansion of CADSTAR Sales Agents Network in North America

Zuken has announced that CADSTAR has now become significantly more accessible in North America, with the appointment of five new Sales Agents spanning across the continent. This expansion which comes as part of a recent recruitment effort enables Zuken to serve the massive market opportunities while providing current and potential users of the software more localized support.

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IC Plus Standardizes Verification Process with Cadence Incisive Solution

Cadence Design Systems today announced that IC Plus, a communication and networking IC design company in Taiwan, has adopted the Cadence Incisive verification solution with the Open Verification Methodology (OVM) and Cadence verification IP (VIP) to optimize development time while simplifying and standardizing its verification process.

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Altium sets December deadline for illegal users

Altium has set a December 2009 deadline for illegal users of its electronics design software to become legal. Under the new scheme, companies doing electronics design can legalize their illegal copies of Altium's Protel and Altium Designer software by buying the latest version of Altium Designer at a price of € 3.200 that includes half a year amnesty for each legalized seat.

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Synopsys expands DesignWare Data Converter IP portfolio with 40nm solutions

Synopsys, Inc. today announced the release of a broad range of data converter IP solutions for 40 nanometer (nm) process technologies. The IP is targeted at broadband wireless communications, wired communications and video designs requiring high-performance, ultra-low power consumption and very compact area. With this latest addition, Synopsys' DesignWare Data Converter IP portfolio now offers more than 100 data converter IP products comprised of analogue-to-digital converters (ADCs) and digital-to-analogue converters (DACs) supporting Oversampling, Pipeline, Sigma-Delta, SAR and Current Steering architectures.

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Altium announces deployment enclosures for its NanoBoard 3000 FPGA-based development board

Altium has added an instant deployment option to its new NanoBoard 3000 FPGA development board. Designers can now take their FPGA-based designs from concept right through to deployment without the need to create a custom PCB.

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APIX starter kit for the development of robust and inexpensive control units

congatec AG has introduced a starter kit for APIX technology at SPS/IPC/Drives. APIX was originally developed for transferring image data in vehicles and, thanks to the new APIX starter kit, can now also be quickly and easily put to use in industrial applications. The APIX transfer process enables the use of standard Ethernet cables and makes it possible to simultaneously transmit video data and bi-directional control data as well as the power supply for the control or display units used.

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TI's eZ430-Chronos revolutionises design of wireless networking applications

Texas Instruments today announced the eZ430-Chronos, the world's first customizable development environment within a sports watch. Taking the popular line of eZ430 development tools to the next level, the kit allows developers to easily harness the leading integration, ultra-low power and wireless capabilities of TI's CC430 microcontroller (MCU).

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Aonix Adds VxWorks/Intel Architecture Target Support to ObjectAda Product Line

Aonix, a provider of solutions for safety and mission-critical applications, today announced the release of ObjectAda Real-Time 8.4 for Windows, targeting Intel x86 architecture embedded and real-time systems running the Wind River VxWorks real-time operating system (RTOS). Following the release of ObjectAda Real-Time for VxWorks targeting PowerPC architectures earlier this year, this is the second ObjectAda Real-Time release supporting full Ada tasking atop VxWorks via Real-Time Processes (RTP).

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Express Logic’s ThreadX RTOS Selected for Avidyne Digital Flight Control System

Express Logic, Inc., the leader in royalty-free real-time operating systems (RTOS), today announced that its popular ThreadX RTOS drives Avidyne Corporation's new DFC90 attitude-based Digital Flight Control System. The DFC90 is an integrated flight computer and control panel designed as a slide-in replacement for existing rate-based STEC 55X flight computers. Avidyne's DFC90 specifically targets Cirrus SR20 and SR22 aircraft with Avidyne's Entegra Flight Deck Systems.

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Wittenstein - OpenRTOS adds integrated memory protection support for Cortex-M3

WITTENSTEIN High Integrity Systems has announced integrated Memory Protection Unit (MPU) support for Cortex-M3 microcontrollers in its OpenRTOS kernel. The MPU protects applications from undetected programming errors as well as those caused by system failure.

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ChipWrights Releases Software Development Kit with VMware Support

Developers now have the flexibility to develop code for ChipWrights' CWvX CW5631 SoC processor using any host operating system supported by VMware, such as Windows-based and various Linux®-based versions.

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ChipWrights' Latest Software Release is Prime for IP Camera Market

ChipWrights stacks its latest software release with major improvements to its DSP libraries and Linux support, making it possible to implement a dome fish-eye (360 degree) camera with dewarping and filtering functionality using ChipWrights' CW5631 System-on-Chip.

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GUI Software Speeds PCB Assembly Design Verification

Saelig Company, Inc. announces the availability of GTO, - an easy-to-use Graphical User Interface (GUI) tool, expressly designed to help rework technicians, assembly technicians, and printed circuit board (PCB) assembly contract manufacturers to easily locate single or multiple components on a PCB.

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Aptina Picks Silicon Frontline’s Post-Layout Verification EDA Software to Eliminate Costly Prototype Builds, Improve Manufacturing Quality

Silicon Frontline Technology, an Electronic Design Automation (EDA) company in the post-layout verification market, announced today that Aptina, the world's foremost image sensor provider, is using Silicon Frontline's F3D (Fast 3D) software for post-layout verification and for fast 3D extraction to improve Aptina's image sensor design accuracy and manufacturing quality.

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Cypress Kits Showcase Simplicity of LCD Segment Drive Design with Flexible New PSoC® 3 Architecture

Cypress Semiconductor has introduced two evaluation kits showing the ease-of-use, fast development time and flexibility of its new PSoC® 3 architecture for LCD segment drive applications. The new CY8CKIT-006 PSoC 3 LCD Segment Drive Evaluation Kit and the CY8CKIT-029 PSoC LCD Segment Drive Expansion Board Kit demonstrate how a single PSoC 3 device can drive up to 736 LCD segments, more than any microcontroller-based solution. With the kits, designers can leverage the drag-and-drop LCD Drive component in the PSoC Creator™ Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to quickly and easily design products with an LCD screen for the consumer electronics, handheld, medical, industrial, white goods, automotive and other markets.

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EnSilica boosts front-end IC design services with launch of new eSi-RISC configurable processor cores

EnSilica, a leading independent provider of front-end IC design services, has significantly enhanced its design service capability with the addition of three new, highly configurable and low-power soft processor cores – the eSi-1600, eSi-3200 and eSi-3250 - to its customer IP portfolio. The new processor cores are available immediately for deployment as part of EnSilica's full specification-to-silicon design service through a number of leading foundries and an FPGA integration service utilising devices from all the leading vendors.

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ARM's Solution Center for Android Drives Innovation in Developments on the Platform

As part of its continued work to foster innovation and openness in connected devices, ARM today announced the Solution Center for Android, a resource for designers and developers of ARM technology-based products running on Android, the open source platform from the Open Handset Alliance. More than 35 members of the ARM Connected Community have joined this initiative, once again demonstrating the strength of the ARM ecosystem.

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Silicon Frontline - Post-Layout Verification Products Stand Out for Semiconductor Power Device, Nanometer and A/MS Design

Silicon Frontline Technology announced today that since the May introduction of the company and its first products, F3D (Fast 3D) for fast 3D extraction and R3D (Resistive 3D) for 3D extraction and analysis of large resistive structures, the company has achieved success and validated its position as a player in the post-layout verification and 3D extraction markets.

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Digital Imaging Systems achieves first-pass silicon success with Synopsys Galaxy Custom Designer

Synopsys has announced that Digital Imaging Systems GmbH (DIS) has achieved first-pass silicon success using Synopsys' Galaxy Custom Designer implementation solution and its unified suite of circuit simulation, extraction and physical verification tools for a custom integrated circuit (IC) used in DIS' high performance, multi-megapixel camera modules. The productivity enhancements afforded by Custom Designer, combined with its interoperable and open environment, enabled DIS to completely replace its existing flow and tape out a new IC design in under one month.

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XMOS USB Audio 2.0 reference design provides highest quality audio solution

XMOS has announced the industry's first reference design for USB Audio 2.0. The solution enables standard computer-based systems to deliver bit-perfect prosumer quality sound. Implemented entirely in software, using the XMOS XS1-L1 event driven processor(TM), the design supports hi-speed USB Audio 2.0 connectivity and up to 6 input and 6 output audio channels at 24-bit resolution and a sample rate of 192 kHz. Higher audio channel counts are also supported using the XMOS L2 and G4 devices.

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Actel Strengthens Fusion Mixed-Signal FPGA IP Offering For Xtca Platform Management Applications

Actel today announced IP core enhancements for hardware platform management applications. Developed in close collaboration with Pigeon Point Systems, an Actel company, the new and improved cores further strengthen the suitability of Actel Fusion® mixed-signal FPGAs for platform management applications, and especially xTCA™ applications, for which Pigeon Point offers the market-dominant Board Management Reference (BMR) series.

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Crossware Joins ARM Connected Community

Crossware today announced it is a new member in the ARM Connected Community, the industry's largest ecosystem of ARM technology-based products and services. As part of the ARM Connected Community, Crossware will gain access to a full range of resources to help it market and deploy innovative solutions that will enable developers to get their ARM Powered products to market faster.

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Nuvoton Technology Provides the ISP Programmer for Flash-based 8051 MCU

Nuvoton Technology Corp. launches a new low-cost ISP(In-System Programming) tool, 8051 ISP Programmer, for the Flash-based 8051 MCU products. Nuvoton Flash-based 8051 MCU has the built-in advanced ISP (In-System Programming) function. Through the ISP interface, users can re-program the MCU's program memory without removing the mounted MCU chip from the fabricated product. It will be more easy for users updating the MCU's firmware.

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National Instruments - LabVIEW Education Edition Graphical Software will Inspire Hands-On Learning

National Instruments today introduced LabVIEW Education Edition, a high school-focused version of its industry-standard LabVIEW graphical programming software. The new edition is designed to help educators implement project-based, hands-on learning for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) subjects. The software was developed in collaboration with the Tufts University Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO), a leader in integrating engineering into K-12 education. Working with Dr. Chris Rogers, Tufts CEEO director and professor of controls and mechatronics, National Instruments developed the software to help high-school teachers give their engineering students hands-on experience with the same graphical system design technology used by engineers and scientists throughout industry and academia.

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National Instruments Expands HIL Simulation Platform to Optimize Embedded Control Systems

National Instruments today announced the expansion of its hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation platform, which includes numerous products that optimize embedded system validation. During the past six months alone, NI has released nearly 40 new products targeted at delivering flexible HIL solutions to embedded control system developers within a variety of industries. The portfolio of NI HIL simulation tools helps engineers maintain reliability and time-to-market requirements while reducing costs, even as their products become more complex.

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Third generation programming architecture supports largest flash devices

The new FlashPAK III is the third generation programming architecture specifically designed to support the largest flash devices while keeping your production processes running at maximum speed. The FlashPAK III Networked Programming System supports the latest high-density Flash memory, NAND Flash, Managed NAND Flash, Microcontroller and EEPROM devices at maximum programming speeds and highest quality per device. FlashPAK III is the third generation programming architecture specifically designed to support the largest flash devices while keeping your production processes running at maximum velocity.

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TenAsys Announces Multi-RTOS Support for Windows Systems

TenAsys Corporation has announced that embedded system developers can now run multiple instances of the INtime real-time operating systems along side Windows on the same multi-core processor platform. The 4.0 release of the company's INtime real-time OS for Windows allows for this advanced functionality.

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Accelerated Designs Inc. has embedded Premier Farnell’s DesignLink into Ultra Librarian software

Accelerated Designs Inc. (ADI), a PCB Library Software and Services firm headquartered in Huntsville, AL has completed a project to link their Ultra Librarian ( UL ) tool to the Premier Farnell DesignLink system. The DesignLink system is an electronic interface to the Premier Farnell electronics parts databases of Newark, Farnell, and Premier Electronics spanning Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific.

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SynaptiCAD offers a Free High Performance Verilog 2001 simulator

For a limited time, SynaptiCAD will be giving away free "no strings attached" 6 month licenses for VeriLogger Extreme, a high-performance compiled-code Verilog 2001 simulator that significantly reduces simulation debug time. Free licenses will be available for both Linux and Windows versions of the simulator.

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BI Technologies' Voltage Divider Sample Kit

Providing design engineers with increased flexibility in circuit layout, TT Electronics BI Technologies now offers a passive voltage divider engineering sample kit. Designated SFN06VDKIT, the sample kits contain several different versions of the company's SFN Series voltage dividers, which feature two ultra-stable precision thin film resistors. Connected in series, the resistors are packaged in a SON (QFN) 6-pad package measuring 2mm2 with a 0.65mm pitch – 40% smaller than voltage dividers in three-lead SOT23 packages.

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Bloor publishes in-depth Research Report on Artisan Studio

Artisan Software Tools has announced that Bloor Research has published one of its "InDetail" research reports on Artisan Studio. The Report analyzes Artisan Studio's capabilities and its importance as a standards-based, graphical systems and software engineering tool which, in their view, caters well for large, distributed teams working on mission and safety-critical projects involving the integration of software, hardware and human processes.

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Renesas launches easy-to-use HMI platform for lowest-cost, high-quality TFT user interfaces

Renesas Technology Europe has announcesd the immediate availability of a new turn-key reference platform for lowest-cost Human-Machine-Interface (HMI) solutions, based on Renesas' H8S/2456F high performance 16-bit Flash microcontroller. The kit enables engineers to develop HMI's using colour TFT LCD quickly and easily. It targets a Bill-Of-Material (BOM) for a finished HMI module, including a QVGA TFT with 16-bit colour-depth, of under 20 € for volume orders.

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Atmel Delivers Complete, Easy-to-Use Capacitive Touch Development Suite for AVR Microcontrollers

Atmel today announced the release of the Atmel QTouch Suite, a complete development suite for capacitive touch buttons, sliders and wheels using AVR® microcontrollers. The Atmel QTouch Suite is a bundle that includes the new QT600 development kit and QTouch Studio, AVR Studio® and free QTouch Library SW package for AVR microcontrollers.

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Avnet Releases New Development Platform Featuring Analog Devices Blackfin Processor and Microsoft .NET Micro Framework

The Avnet Electronics Marketing Americas business region of Avnet, Inc. has announced the release of the BF518F FMC Development Kit. This new, VITA57 compatible development platform features the Analog Devices Blackfin BF518F processor. This kit runs the Microsoft .NET Micro Framework operating system, making it ideal for use in embedded industrial automation applications where low power and convergent processing are essential. This is the first development platform on the market which combines the benefits of the Blackfin architecture with the .NET Micro Framework operating system.

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Lattice and Beyond Semiconductor to Collaborate in Processor Compiler Tools Development

Lattice Semiconductor today announced it will collaborate with Beyond Semiconductor in the development of compiler tools for Lattice's soft processors. The collaboration will include updates and performance improvements for Lattice's embedded processor IP compilers and development tools.

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Lattice FPGA Design Tool Suite Includes Advanced Support for High Performance DDR Interfaces

Lattice Semiconductor has announced Version 8.0 of its ispLEVER FPGA design tool suite, which includes many enhancements for the design of high speed double data rate (DDR) interfaces for the LatticeECP3 FPGA family. These enhancements include automatic interface code generation to increase design productivity and reduce coding errors, as well as enhanced timing analysis that provides more transparency to circuit timing details.

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Lattice Updates Software Design Tools for Hot Swap Control and Power Management

Lattice Semiconductor Corporation has announced Version 5.2 of its PAC-Designer mixed signal design tool suite with new device support and productivity features. The PAC-Designer 5.2 software now supports two new higher performance Power Manager II products: the ispPAC®-POWR1014-2 and ispPAC-POWR1014A-2 devices. The POWR1014/A-2 devices are ideal for integrating Hot Swap control, voltage rail supervision and power supply sequencing ICs. PAC-Designer 5.2 software also supports an expanded input operating frequency range of 40-400MHz for ispClock™5400D devices and a new graphical editor for phase and time skew programming.

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Maplesoft’s new engineering products provide tools to enhance understanding and tackle complexity of modern engineering

Maplesoft has announced several new products that will help educators, researchers and students better understand and manage the complexity of engineering modelling and simulation problems. Available from Adept Scientific, MapleSim, the most advanced solution for physical modelling, combined with a collection of new toolboxes, enables fast model development, advanced analysis and the creation of complex multi-domain models that lie at the core of modern engineering.

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Altera Continues Its 2X to 3X Compile Time Advantage with Quartus II Software Version 9.1

Altera Corporation today announced the release of Quartus® II software version 9.1, the industry's number-one software in performance and productivity for CPLD, FPGA and HardCopy® ASIC designs. New features and enhancements within Quartus II software v9.1 reduce compile times 20 percent versus the previous software release, while continuing to deliver on average 2X to 3X faster compile times compared to competing high-density 40-nm and 65-nm designs. New to the software is a Rapid Recompile feature, which significantly improves compile times for small design changes, as well as support for Altera's newly announced Cyclone® IV FPGAs.

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Zuken Announces Free Webinars

In the area of System Design, System Engineers have accomplished their design tasks using an array of different tools including spreadsheets, diagramming programs and dumb graphics. Integration between block diagrams and interconnect and system wiring diagrams has typically involved manual operations resulting in significant time and cost burdens.

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Synopsys chosen by Realtek as its primary EDA partner

Synopsys has announced that Realtek Semiconductor Corp, a leading provider of advanced IC products for communications network, computer peripheral and multimedia applications, has signed an expanded business agreement establishing Synopsys as its primary EDA partner. Under the new multi-year agreement, Realtek has extended its use of Synopsys' Galaxy Implementation, Discovery Verification and Confirma Rapid Prototyping Platforms, as well as Synopsys' DesignWare IP and consulting services.

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Synopsys TetraMAX ATPG cuts test development schedule at Arrow Electronics

Synopsys has announced that Arrow Electronics successfully deployed Synopsys' TetraMAX automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) with multicore processing to significantly reduce the time needed to generate high quality manufacturing tests. Stringent quality goals combined with increasing design complexity stimulated the need to improve ATPG performance at Arrow. By utilising TetraMAX ATPG's multicore processing capability on their quad-core compute servers, Arrow's Custom Logic Solution (CLS) ASIC design engineers cut more than a week from their test development time for a 30 million-gate system-on-chip, meeting their test quality goals ahead of schedule.

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EDA Solutions announces Tanner process design kit support for X-FAB's 0.18µm technologies

EDA Solutions announces that X-FAB has released two 0.18µm process design kits for Tanner Tools Pro on X-TIC, X-FAB's online technical database. Tanner Tools Pro is the software suite for the design, layout and verification of analog, mixed-signal (A/MS), RF and MEMS ICs from Tanner EDA, the world leader in PC-based A/MS and MEMS circuit design software. The release of this new kit extends X-FAB's PDK support for Tanner tools, adding X-FAB's 0.18µm processes to the range of technologies currently supported (0.35, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0µm). The new PDK will ensure a reliable and repeatable development flow and faster development cycles for analog and mixed-signal IC and MEMS designers who use Tanner Tools Pro in combination with X-FAB's 0.18µm processes.

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Strategic relationship with SiliconAid extends ASSET’s ScanWorks platform into chip test and verification

ASSET InterTech and SiliconAid Solutions have formed a strategic relationship whereby ASSET will integrate its first integrated circuit (IC) test tool into the ScanWorks platform for embedded instrumentation and resell SiliconAid's insertion and verification tools that support the emerging IEEE P1687 Internal JTAG (IJTAG) standard. SiliconAid is a supplier of world class chip verification and debug tools that support the IEEE 1149.1 Boundary-Scan Standard, which is commonly referred to as JTAG after the Joint Test Action Group which initiated development of the standard.

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Xplain - Atmel Introduces $29 Evaluation Kit for AVR XMEGA

Atmel Corporation today announced the availability of the Xplain evaluation kit for its AVR XMEGATM microcontroller family. With a suggested resale price of $29 USD, this kit enables users the ability to evaluate features and system performance of Atmel's XMEGA at a minimum hardware cost. The kit is powered through a mini USB connector where end-users can develop their own applications on XMEGA using Xplain. The 8-/16-bit XMEGA microcontrollers, introduced in 2008, are optimized for ultra- low power and high system performance with a very innovative and complete feature set well suited for a wide range of applications.

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SMIC and Cadence Announce 65-Nanometer Low power Reference Flow 4.0

Cadence Design Systems has announced that it has delivered a comprehensive low-power design flow for engineers targeting the 65-nanometer process at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation . Based on the Cadence Low-Power Solution, the flow enables faster design of leading-edge, low-power semiconductors using a single, comprehensive design platform.

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WITTENSTEIN High Integrity Systems and InterNiche Release Fully Integrated Middleware for Cortex-M3

WITTENSTEIN High Integrity Systems and InterNiche Technologies Inc. have extended the range of solutions available under their cross distribution agreement which gives their respective customers better access to a complete range of integrated products.

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Zuken Announces New CADSTAR 'Take Care' Bundles

Zuken has announced the introduction of two new bundles for CADSTAR to help companies keep the software up-to-date at a minimum cost. The new 'Take Care' bundles called CADSTAR DYNAMIC and CADSTAR KYNETIC comprise a licence for the software plus a Take Care package that includes regular software updates, access to the on-line CADSTAR libraries and support.

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Zuken Announces S-Parameter Support for SI Analysis

Zuken recently announced the support of S-Parameter based circuit models within the latest version of its high-speed design and verification environment CR-5000 Lightning. This major enhancement extends the capabilities of SI simulation to include a whole range of new application areas and simplifies the process for layout engineers unfamiliar with S-Parameter based modelling.

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Development kit for STM32 Connectivity Line

Hitex has introduced the STM32-comStick designed for an easy and low-cost start in STMicroelectronics' new Cortex-M3-based STM32 Connectivity Line. The STM32-comStick is a complete small-sized development kit that provides a comprehensive entry to the STM32 Connectivity Line's features.

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Real Intent Webinar on Clock Domain Crossing (CDC) Verification Available; Viewer Survey Affirms Value of Comprehensive Analysis and Concise Reporting

Real Intent Inc., the innovator in automating the intelligence of formal techniques for design verification, announced today its October Webinar on Advanced Clock Domain Crossing (CDC) Verification Using MeridianTM is archived and now available for free viewing at www.realintent.com.

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Gates-on-the-Fly Netlist Editor adds Waveform Viewer Interoperability

SynaptiCAD's Gates-on-the-Fly (GOF), a Verilog netlist editor and incremental schematic viewer, has added schematic back annotation and waveform viewer cross-probing. Using one of SynaptiCAD's waveform viewers, you can view waveforms from a simulation (e.g. a VCD file) or a logic analyzer and show specific logic states annotated on GOF schematic windows. The schematic and the waveform displays are linked so that you can quickly control the simulation time that is displayed from either the schematic or the waveform windows.

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TI announces low power, high speed, HD IP camera reference design

Texas Instruments has announced a new Internet Protocol (IP) camera reference design that provides low power, high definition (HD) video processing for the video surveillance market. The DM368IPNC-MT5 IP camera reference design with H.264 main profile 1080p at 30 frames per second (fps) offers industry-leading compression in a full HD solution, with the complete camera utilizing only three Watts. Based on a new DaVinci video processor, the IP camera reference design provides 30 percent more host processing performance over the previous generation.

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Infolytica Corporation Releases MagNet, ElecNet and ThermNet version 7

Infolytica Corporation announced today the release of MagNet, ElecNet and ThermNet version 7 with multi-threaded 3D solvers which take full advantage of the speedups possible with multicore computers for even faster results than before.

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NVIDIA adopts Synopsys Yield Explorer to reduce time to volume

Synopsys, Inc has announced that NVIDIA Corp. has adopted Synopsys' Yield Explorer solution for yield analysis and yield ramp. NVIDIA, which invented the graphics processing unit, selected Yield Explorer because of its ability to coherently combine and cross-correlate large volumes of data from the design, fab and test domains to quickly identify dominant failure mechanisms. This is accomplished through volume diagnostics based on TetraMAX ATPG and other advanced analysis applications.

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Green Hills Software launches Solution for ARM TrustZone Technology-based Devices

Green Hills Software has announced INTEGRITY Secure Virtualization for ARM TrustZone technology. INTEGRITY Secure Virtualization (ISV) is built on Green Hills Software's INTEGRITY RTOS, the first and only operating system technology to be certified by the NSA to EAL6+ High Robustness, the highest level of security ever achieved for any software product.

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Freescale and Mentor Graphics streamline embedded Android OS development

Freescale Semiconductor has introduced a hardware/software platform that helps systems designers and OEMs deploy the popular Android operating system on Freescale products based on Power Architecture technology.

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Collaboration provides NX users the ability to use Maple’s computational power to analyse and optimise designs

Maplesoft, the leading provider of high performance software tools for engineering, science and mathematics, announced a partnership with Siemens PLM Software, a business unit of the Siemens Industry Automation Division and a leading global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software and services. Maple, the technical computing software from Maplesoft, and available from Adept Scientific (Letchworth, Herts), supplies important analysis capabilities to CAD systems giving users of NX™ software, the digital product development solution from Siemens PLM Software, the ability to use the computational power of Maple to analyse and optimise designs.

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Safety-Critical Software Platform Combines DDC-I’s DO-178B RTOS with LDRA’s Analysis and Test Tools

DDC-I, a leading supplier of software and professional services for safety-critical applications, and LDRA, provider of the industry's most complete automated software testing technology, today announced the integration of DDC-I's DO-178B-certifiable Deos real-time operating system (RTOS) and LDRA's tool suite. The integrated solution will help developers get to market faster with optimized, robust and certifiable software that meets the most demanding safety-critical requirements, including DO-178B Level A, the FAA's highest level of safety criticality.

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ARM launches Mali center for graphics developers

ARM announced today at ARM TechCon 3, Santa Clara, Calif., the launch of the ARM Mali Developer Center – a comprehensive suite of resources for graphics and embedded applications developers working with the Khronos OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0, OpenVG 1.0 and 1.1, as well as other APIs. Accessing these resources as members of the Mali ecosystem will enable developers targeting Mali graphics processing unit (GPU) platforms to bring best-in-class content to market.

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Imagination Technologies says POWERVR SGX driving migration towards shader-based graphics in mobile

Imagination Technologies reports that mobile graphics hit a new milestone this month, with over 100 leading consumer electronics products now utilising Imagination's POWERVR SGX to deliver advanced shader-based graphics.

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Imagination and Futuremark team up to bring Kanzi UI engine to POWERVR Insiders

Imagination Technologies is working with Futuremark to make Futuremark's Kanzi UI engine and toolkit available to members of Imagination's POWERVR Insider developer ecosystem.

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Synopsys enables optimised high performance energy efficient ARM processor-based designs

Synopsys, Inc. today announced that it has created an optimised reference implementation methodology for the ARM Cortex-A8 processor that achieves greater than 2GHz (4000 DMIPS) at 540mW. This result was accomplished by combining optimised methodology, tools and ARM Physical IP to enable new classes of mobile and tethered devices requiring the combination of high performance and energy efficiency.

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AT88CK109STK3 - Atmel Starter Kit Prevents Data Counterfeiting In Medical and Electronics Markets

Atmel Corporation today announced its CryptoAuthentication Starter Kit. The AT88CK109STK3 is a modular and versatile development kit for Atmel's CryptoAuthentication AT88SA102S and AT88SA100S client security devices and AT88SA10HS host security companion IC. Atmel's CryptoAuthentication devices are the industry's most secure authentication ICs that include an embedded SHA-256 engine and 256-bit cryptographic key to make them virtually impossible to crack using brute force methods. The nearest competing authentication IC has a key size of only 128 bits.

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In-System Emulation Technology supports Stellaris Family of MCU from Luminary Micro

GOEPEL electronic, the vendor of JTAG / Boundary Scan solutions compliant with IEEE Std. 1149.x, announces the development of a special model library for Stellaris Mixed Signal MCU from Luminary Micro to support the innovative emulation technology VarioTAP.

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Altera Secures Your Design With Cyclone III LS FPGA Development Kit

Altera has announced availability of the Cyclone III LS FPGA Development Kit. The kit features hardware and software solutions that allow customers to prototype and test designs for Altera's Cyclone III LS FPGAs, the lowest power FPGAs at less than 0.25W of static power for 200K logic elements (LEs). Customers can take advantage of the redundancy and information security features of the Cyclone III LS FPGA for a number of military and industrial applications where security is paramount.

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Wind River Showcases Latest Developments in MILS, Multicore, and Software Defined Radio at MILCOM 2009

Wind River is showcasing its latest aerospace and defense software solutions at MILCOM 2009, the premier international conference for military communications, held in Boston, Mass. at the World Trade Center from October 18 to 21, 2009. At this year's MILCOM, conference attendees will be able to see firsthand Wind River's VxWorks MILS development environment for multilevel secure (MLS) systems and cross domain solutions; its industry-leading, high-performance multicore software solutions with broad support from its board vendor partners; and the software defined radio (SDR) solution that it has developed with PrismTech.

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Norwegian Industrial Electronics Specialists Turn to Zuken for Linux Compatible Electronic Design Software Solution

Norbit, a Norwegian Original Design Manufacturer, has signed an agreement with Zuken to transition their total PCB layout and system level design environment to Zuken's CR-5000 solution. Operating within a highly competitive and innovative market means that it is critical for Norbit to have design tools that allows them to implement the latest technology and continue to push the technological boundaries. In 2008 they had come to a critical point, where they were reaching a brick wall in their projects as a result of design tool limitations.

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UltraSoC Technologies awarded EEDA grant for debugging technology

UltraSoC Technologies, a pioneer of next-generation debugging technology for embedded systems, has been awarded a grant from the East of England Development Agency (EEDA). The grant will part-fund an eight month project, of value up to £115k, to assess the technology and commercial feasibility of an innovative system which will be a key part of UltraSoC's debugging platform.

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CR-5000 Lightning - Zuken Helps Companies Improve Competitiveness by Delivering Low Effort High-Speed Design

Zuken is launching the latest version of its high-speed design and verification environment CR-5000 Lightning, focused on ease of use and advanced capabilities for cutting edge high-speed designs. Version 12.0 highlights include the introduction of automatic 'escape routing' and 'smart fan-out' to simplify the routing process, along with support for S-parameter models, easy-to-use parameter sweep and waveform comparison functionality, and improved error resolution capabilities for the latest high-speed boards.

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Board Designer Steps-up Electronic Product Design Quality

Zuken has announced the launch of version 12 of the PCB layout, placement and routing solution CR-5000 Board Designer, which has been developed with the core objective of increasing electronic product design quality through enhanced editing functionality, collaboration, and verification within Zuken's enterprise-wide environment CR-5000 and selected third party solutions.

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Cypress CEO T.J. Rodgers to Give Keynote Address on Evolution of Embedded Design at ARM techcon3 in Santa Clara

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. today announced its founder, president and CEO T.J. Rodgers will present the keynote address at the 2009 ARM techcon3 in Santa Clara, California on Wednesday, October 21 at 12:00 p.m. at the Santa Clara Convention Center. The presentation, entitled "Not Your Father's Embedded Design: How System-Level Programmability is Now Changing the Engineer's World," will examine how a new embedded design paradigm is enabling greater flexibility to address the rapidly changing market conditions and design demands facing engineers today.

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New lightweight XML tool delivers flexible, custom user interfaces for Windows CE devices and Windows Mobile Apps

ByteSnap Design (www.bytesnap.co.uk), a Windows CE and Windows Mobile design consultancy, has today launched SnapUI, a lightweight user interface (UI) customisation tool. SnapUI enables graphic designers to edit an application's UI independently from the core of the application itself. This means that designers can amend and edit the UI design while developers work on customising core application functionality, resulting in improved usability and reduced development time. SnapUI user interfaces can be developed and demonstrated on Windows desktop machines before being deployed to the target Windows CE platforms.

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IAR Systems launches development tools for ARM processor

IAR Systems today announced comprehensive support for ARM Cortex-R4(F) processor in version 5.40 of IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM.

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Methodics - Support for Subversion 1.6 Design Data Version Control System

Methodics LLC has announced that its VersIC tool suite supports the latest release of the Subversion version control system. The Subversion 1.6 release from the Subversion open-source community delivers powerful new features, including the ability to detect tree conflicts, enhanced file system storage mechanisms that reduce repository space requirements, authentication data handling improvements and improved management of credentials. The VersIC platform integrates the Subversion system into the Cadence hardware design environment, allowing designers to fully exploit the features and capabilities of release 1.6.

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Arrow Electronics Northern Europe offers free 28-day access to leading edge development tools

Arrow Electronics Northern Europe is offering customers in the UK, Eire and the Nordic and Baltic countries the opportunity to use the latest development tools from some of the industry's major semiconductor vendors free-of-charge for 28 days.

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IDT Introduces RAPIDIO GEN2 Development Program

IDT has announced the availability of its Serial RapidIO® Gen2 program consisting of a comprehensive portfolio of IP, switches, evaluation platforms and tools. RapidIO Gen2 addresses designers' increased bandwidth requirements by doubling the speed of RapidIO Rev 1.3, increasing link speeds to 6.25Gbaud and by offering more port choices, increasing flexibility and system level features.

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Artisan Studio Version 7.1 delivers new model-driven development features

Artisan Software Tools has launched a major new version of its flagship model-driven development tool suite, Artisan Studio Version 7.1. It delivers some major new modeling features including comprehensive support for the new OMG Unified Profile for DoDAF and MODAF (UPDM 1.0) standard, improved model diagram presentation through glossUML, all new documentation generation through Artisan Publisher, increased extra-large model support and enhanced UML Activity modeling. Artisan Studio Version 7.1 continues to improve its core technologies with more capabilities for its XMI support, its Automated Code Synchronizer and State Machine simulation as well as support for Microsoft Windows 7.

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Synopsys introduces Synphony High Level Synthesis

Synopsys has introduced its Synphony HLS (High Level Synthesis) solution that integrates M-language and model-based synthesis to deliver up to 10X higher design and verification productivity than traditional RTL flows for communications and multimedia applications. Synphony HLS creates optimised RTL for ASIC and FPGA implementation, architecture exploration and rapid prototyping. In addition, Synphony HLS complements C/C++-based flows by generating C-models for system validation and early software development in virtual platforms.

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GL Announces High Capacity PacketGen Software

GL Communications Inc. announced today the release of its enhanced VoIP Testing tool PacketGen - a software based VoIP Testing tool for real-time VoIP bulk call generation, stress testing, and analysis of VoIP networks and equipment.

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Large Single Numerical Toolkit for MATLAB Now Available

Electrical engineers and electronic products' designers and manufacturers seeking a broad range of mathematical and statistical functionality important to chip design, product engineering and other electronics applications without the considerable expense and bother of sourcing multiple MATLAB toolboxes, can now access 1,415 rigorously tested numerical routines in the Mark 22 Release of the multipurpose NAG TOOLBOX FOR MATLAB.

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NEC Electronics and KPIT Cummins Collaborate on New AUTOSAR 3.0-Compatible Solution

NEC Electronics Corporation and KPIT Cummins, today announced the availability of an AUTOSAR 3.0-compatible software package for various hardware platforms. This software package enables easy design of application software without the need for new developments. The package includes AUTOSAR Basic Software and a comprehensive tool chain, and was developed in close cooperation between the two companies.

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ASH Announces Next Generation CXInsight Release

Adeon Software House, specialists in software systems for global electronics manufacturers, has announced its latest 5.1.2 version of CXInsight; the integrated, one stop shop solution for project and product design data management in the electronics design and manufacturing industry. This latest release delivers added e-collaboration functionality including improved server-to-server connectivity, advanced BOM merge capabilities, user-friendly tools and updated communication technology for the internet.

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Atmel - Evaluation Kit Expedites Development on 400MHz ARM9-based Embedded MPU

Atmel has announced the SAM9G45-EK evaluation kit to support application development on the company's 400 MHz ARM926-based embedded microprocessor (MPU) with DDR2 memory. The SAM9G45 offers 480 Mbps EHCI-compliant high-speed USB with on-chip PHY, Ethernet and SDIO for high-speed connectivity, plus LCD and touch sensing for intelligent user-interfaces (iUIs), and programmable 1.8 or 3.3 V I/O supply voltage implemented in a high-data bandwidth architecture with a dual EBI.

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Agilent's SystemVue 2009.08 Unlocks RF-DSP Co-design, Custom Flow for Model-Based Design

Agilent Technologies has announced that SystemVue version 2009.08 is now available for download. It features a number of new capabilities including an automated link that unlocks RF-DSP co-design and a fully custom, high-performance baseband signal processing design flow. Coupled with new IP reference libraries for DVB-S2, mmWave WPAN (IEEE 802.15.3c) and 3GPP LTE, the SystemVue 2009.08 release accelerates design of high-performance physical layer (PHY) signal processing in both aerospace/defense and commercial wireless applications.

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Dialog Semiconductor to enable rapid prototyping of optimized audio/video portable devices and smartphones with NEC Electronics

Dialog Semiconductor has collaborated with NEC Electronics Corporation to develop a design platform based on NEC Electronics' multimedia processor system-on-chips (SoCs) and Dialog's power management platform ICs. As the market for portable devices, including audio players, video players and smartphones continues to show strong growth, the ability to enable designers to rapidly create differentiated portable devices that exploit advances in power management becomes a key success factor.

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Agilent Technologies Announces MMIC Tool Bar Personality for United Monolithic Semiconductors' pHEMT processes

Agilent Technologies Inc. today announced the availability of an add-on process design kit (PDK) with enhanced, foundry-certified features for United Monolithic Semiconductors's (UMS) popular pHEMT processes (PH25, PH15, PPH25 and PPH15). Providing the most complete MMIC design flow available using Agilent's Advanced Design System (ADS) platform, the new MMIC tool bar personality completely revamps layout functions, adds many design automation and routing capabilities, and helps streamline the MMIC design process. The add-on PDK is available now from UMS.

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VIA Processor Platforms Support Windows 7-Based Windows Embedded Standard 2011

VIA Technologies, Inc today announced its support for Windows Embedded Standard 2011 across its range of processor platforms. Windows Embedded Standard 2011 delivers the power, familiarity and reliability of the Windows 7 operating system in a highly customizable and componentized form, enabling original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to focus on their core competencies and create product differentiation.

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Zuken Takes Systems and PCB Design to the Next Level with CR-5000 2009

Zuken has announced the latest version of the advanced modular and robust design suite for electronics systems and PCBs, CR-5000 2009. This includes the official American and European launch of CR-5000 Design Gateway that unlocks the future world of advanced enterprise-wide design for the most cutting-edge product development; major design quality improvements for CR-5000 Board Designer for layout design; plus increased competitive capabilities within high-speed design and verification environment CR-5000 Lightning.

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The Gateway to the Future of Electronic Product Design: Zuken Launches CR-5000 Design Gateway to America and Europe

Zuken has announced the American and European launch of Design Gateway, the latest solution that unlocks the future world of advanced enterprise-wide design for the most cutting-edge electronic product development. This next generation circuit design creation package is the collaborating force between board level design and hardware design, bringing the two disciplines closer together. It also opens up scope for advanced product lifecycle management, becoming more and more integral to maintaining the competitive position of companies.

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New Release of GNATbench for Wind River Workbench

AdaCore, a leading supplier of Ada development tools and support services, today announced a new release of its Ada Integrated Development Environment (IDE) plug-in, GNATbench 2.3.1. This new release supports Workbench 3.1 and VxWorks 6.7, the latest versions of Wind River's Eclipse-based IDE and real-time operating system, offering real-time/embedded systems developers a sophisticated Ada programming environment tightly integrated into the Wind River Workbench development suite. It also supports Workbench 3.0 and VxWorks 6.6, allowing projects that have chosen those versions to upgrade to GNATbench 2.3.1 and take advantage of its new features.

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PVS-Studio 3.30 for recourse-intensive applications developers

PVS-Studio is a static code analysis tool for C/C++. It is targeted at verification of resource-intensive applications which use the possibilities of modern microprocessors, such as 64-bit mode and multi-core features. The analyzer allows to detect hidden errors during development of 64-bit and parallel OpenMP applications.

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Artisan adds ‘glossUML’ capability to Artisan Studio

Artisan Software Tools has added a 'glossUML' capability to Artisan Studio. An extension to SysML/UML, glossUML enables presentation-quality diagrams to be generated quickly, easily and directly from the models created in Artisan Studio. By improving the visual clarity of Artisan Studio models, glossUML helps to improve communication between all project stakeholders, fundamentally increasing design project understanding. The new glossUML capability is available now in Artisan Studio Version 7.1 released next week.

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Common Platform Alliance qualifies Synopsys IC Validator for 32-nm design rule checking

Synopsys, Inc, a world leader in software and IP for semiconductor design, verification and manufacturing, today announced that the Common Platform technology alliance, a unique technology collaboration between IBM, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing and Samsung Electronics, has qualified IC Validator for 32-nanometer (nm) process design rule checking on Common Platform technology. Synopsys and the Common Platform companies are continuing with the collaboration to complete the qualification of IC Validator at 28nm on Common Platform technology.

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Now hear this!! Agilent Technologies' Genesys Software Speeds Sennheiser's High-End Audio Receiver Development

Agilent Technologies has announced that Germany-based Sennheiser has successfully used Agilent's Genesys RF and microwave design software and Momentum GX electromagnetic (EM) simulator to develop a series of third-generation, wireless multichannel audio receivers for on-stage professional vocal and musical performance.

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Atmel QTouch Library Enables Customization of Touch Functions Across All AVR Products

Atmel Corporation has announced a version 3.0 of the royalty-free Atmel QTouch software library with up to 64 channels of touch support for all Atmel AVR microcontrollers (MCUs) and select 32-bit AVR32 UC3. The increased channel support, and wider range of supported microcontrollers, provide designers with several library files for each device to enable a more flexible and efficient design. By selecting the appropriate library file, designers can now gain a more compact and efficient code using less RAM.

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6WIND Launches Solution to Enable Simplified Networking Scalability and Performance for IP-based Telecommunications and Enterprise Applications

6WIND, a leading provider of embedded software solutions that simplify networking and application development upon multicore processor based equipment, today announced its 6WINDPath solution to deal with IP-based application networking performance bottlenecks inherent in existing architectures. 6WINDPath enables the simplest and fastest path to move IP-based applications from legacy telecommunications and enterprise architectures to higher networking performance multicore-based architectures that remove performance bottlenecks.

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VW-1104 - Fanless Mobile DVR Delivers 4-Channel H.264 Video and 3G Wireless Communications

Lanner Electronics, Inc. today announced the release of the VW-1104, a compact mobile DVR platform built on the Intel Atom CPU and offering WiFi, 3G mobile and GPS communications along with four-channel H.264 video capture and compression.

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Wind River Adds Carrier Grade Linux 4.0 Compliance for MIPS Architectures

Wind River today announced that Wind River Linux 3.0 for MIPS architectures complies with the Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) 4.0 specification from the Linux Foundation, a critical requirement for the telecommunications and high-end data networking markets. This includes MIPS-based multicore processors from Cavium Networks and RMI Corporation, and also extends existing CGL 4.0 support for PowerPC and x86 architecture-based processors from Freescale and Intel.

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Xilinx Extends Next Generation Serial Connectivity Portfolio from Low-Cost Systems to 100 Gigabit Applications and Beyond

Xilinx has announced design support for Virtex-6 HXT FPGAs with the 11.3 release of the ISE Design Suite software. Optimized for 40G/100G wired telecommunications and data communications, Virtex-6 HXT FPGAs deliver serial interface technology to designers of ultra-high bandwidth systems with line rates in excess of 11 Gigabits per second (Gbps). The availability of ISE Design Suite 11.3 gives designers access to a portfolio of connectivity-domain FPGAs spanning the complete spectrum of mainstream, high-end, and ultra high-end serial design applications.

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PLX Extends Leadership in USB with New USB 3.0 Solutions for Multiple Markets

PLX Technology, Inc. today announced completion of key design milestones that bring to market diverse USB 3.0 (SuperSpeed USB) solutions for a wide variety of applications. This PLX development expands on the company's USB 2.0 expertise and PCI Express leadership, and will be compliant with the high-performance and interoperability standards of the USB 3.0 specification. PLX USB 3.0 solutions will initially be delivered to designers focused on direct-attached storage and network-attached external consumer storage products.

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Arm Makes Multi-Chip Debug Affordable In End Product

ARM has introduced multi-drop support into the ARM CoreSight Serial Wire Debug (SWD) solution, enabling simultaneous connection to multiple devices from a single debug host. This latest version of SWD with multi-drop support brings a high performance and low cost 2-pin debug solution to complex, multi-core, multi-chip products such as mobile devices, making debug implementation more affordable in the end product.

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LDRA Offers Security-Critical Software Development and Certification Support

LDRA has tailored a new security-critical development and certification solution to ensure that the LDRA tool suite can meet today's growing demand for security-critical software. LDRA has extended its implementation of the CERT C secure coding standard to also meet Multiple Independent Levels of Security (MILS) and new Homeland Security criteria for security-critical software development. Recognizing that static analysis does not expose all software security vulnerabilities, LDRA has integrated this solution into its entire tool suite from analysis through test and requirements traceability.

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Latest LDRA Tool Suite Geared Up for Enterprise Applications

LDRA has broadened the capabilities of the latest version of the LDRA tool suite to address complex, large-scale applications. The tool suite is optimised for modern multiprocessor environments and offers superior version control—capabilities fundamental to the needs of the military, aerospace, medical and automotive sectors. With an enhanced Eclipse plug-in, the LDRA tool suite v8.1.0 can be easily deployed in enterprise applications and enable developers to participate in the extensible framework of the Eclipse environment.

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Ismosys teams with 6WIND to speed multi-core processor designs

Ismosys has signed a Pan-European agreement with 6WIND, the provider of embedded software which maximizes multi-core performance while significantly minimizing design complexities, time and costs.

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Agilent Technologies' New 3GPP LTE Baseband Exploration Library Enables Throughput Verification for Algorithm, Hardware Developers

Agilent Technologies Inc. today introduced a new LTE baseband exploration library for the SystemVue 2009 design platform. The library (version W1912) provides full source-code access to PHY golden reference algorithms that are consistent with the 3GPP LTE March 2009 standard. Agilent's new LTE library provides key advances for 3GPP LTE baseband algorithm and hardware developers designing next-generation 4G wireless systems, enabling simulation-based throughput performance measurements as well as a graphical user interface that simplifies complex configurations.

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Imagination Technologies - Software development kit

Imagination Technologies has released version 2.5 of its industry leading POWERVR Insider SDK (software development kit). The POWERVR Insider SDK is developers' preferred development environment for the creation of OpenGL ES 2.0 as well as OpenGL ES 1.1 and OpenVG applications. It includes a complete PC-based emulation environment, and is backed by Imagination's unrivalled technical support team.

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IAR Embedded Workbench and Ember EM35x ZigBee Development Kits enable rapid time to market

IAR Systems and Ember Corporation have teamed together to deliver a reliable and easy to use ZigBee development and debugging platform for sensing and control applications such as smart metering and home automation. Ember recently launched the EM35x InSight Development Kit. The EM35x Insight Development Kit is built around ARM Cortex-M3 processor technology and comes with the latest version of IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM, a completely integrated development environment for embedded applications.

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Green Hills Software demonstrates multicore development and debugging solutions at ESC UK

Green Hills Software will be featuring demonstrations of secure networking and medical device platforms, multicore development and JTAG debugging at ESC UK. The company will also be presenting papers in the technical conference on topics including writing efficient code, embedded hypervisors and effective debugging techniques.

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JTAG Functional Test (JFT) bends the Fault Coverage Curve

JTAG Technologies has launched JTAG Function Test (JFT), which bridges the gap between standard structural boundary-scan testing and functional verification. As a complement to JTAG's existing vector-based cluster test generators, JFT makes use of an open-source programming language to give test designers the ability to verify quickly the functionality of non-boundary-scan devices and device 'clusters'.

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Synopsys unveils StarRC Custom parasitic extraction solution

Synopsys has announced its new StarRC Custom parasitic extraction solution for analogue mixed-signal (AMS) and custom digital IC design. By combining the gold standard Star-RCXT extraction technologies and the Raphael NXT 3D fast field solver into a single, unified extraction solution, the StarRC Custom solution offers high performance runtime with tuned accuracy to meet the analysis demands of high sensitivity custom circuits.

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Complete Starter Kits for Compact Qseven Platform

MSC Vertriebs GmbH offers ready-to-use starter kits for the quick evaluation and development of its Intel Atom processor based Qseven platform MSC Q7-US15W. The complete starter kit MSC Q7-SK-US15W-RP-002 contains the reference platform MSC Q7-MP-RP integrating the Qseven module MSC Q7-US15W with Intel Atom Z530 CPU, the Qseven heatspreader MSC Q7-Heatspreader-US15W, an ADD2 VGA interface card and a SVGA TFT display including backlight inverter.

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TI introduces USB stick developent tool to ease development of portable applications

Texas Instruments today announced the availability of the TMS320VC5505 eZdsp USB stick development tool, which drops the cost of a full-featured emulator and integrated development platform down to $49. This enables rapid creation of DSP applications including portable audio players, voice recorders, IP phones, portable medical devices, biometric USB keys, software defined radios (SDRs), hands-free headsets and metering applications. At this extremely low price point, it is the industry's lowest cost DSP tool, making development accessible to existing and potential customers, hobbyists, researchers and students.

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Premier Farnell to sell Altium’s new NanoBoard 3000 series of FPGA-based development boards

Altium has appointed Premier Farnell as the web distributor for its new NanoBoard 3000 FPGA-based development board. The agreement extends to Premier Farnell's family of global marketing and distribution services.

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Crossware Enhances 8051 Suite with Support for Silicon Labs’ C8051F7xx High Pin-Count, Touch-Sensing Chips

The Silicon Labs' C8051F7xx family is designed for cost-sensitive high I/O embedded systems and offers a new, patent-pending touch-sensing feature that is robust, accurate, responsive and easy to configure. With up to 54 general purpose I/O pins and a 25 MIPS 8051 CPU, the C8051F7xx family brings a high level of processing power and flexibility to applications such as industrial controls, security systems, home appliances, keyboards, cash machines and fax/printer/scanner front panels.

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Cypress Revolutionizes Embedded Design with High Performance, Low Power PSoC 3 and PSoC 5 Programmable System-on-Chip Architectures

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. today announced two new architectures in its PSoC programmable system-on-chip platform that dramatically increase performance and extend the world's only programmable analog and digital embedded design platform delivering unmatched time-to-market, integration, and flexibility across 8-, 16-, and 32-bit applications.

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PLX PCI Express Gen 2 Switch Enables ASUS Motherboard Showcasing World's First True SATA 6Gb/s

PLX Technology, Inc., along with digital pioneer ASUSTeK Computer Inc., announced the PLX ExpressLane PEX 8613 PCIe Gen 2 switch is being used on the new ASUS P7P55D Premium motherboard to support the necessary bandwidth and fan-out required of ASUS's latest high-end innovation. The PLX switch enables the P7P55D Premium to provide powerful system design flexibility by using the PEX 8613 switch to act as a reliable high-performance bridge between the Intel P55 chipset and high-speed Gen 2 I/O endpoints that includes multiple expansion slots and SATA 6Gb/s ports.

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Debuggers Support Fujitsu HDTV Decoder Chipsets

Lauterbach has announced that its TRACE32 debuggers support the Real-Time Operating System (FAMOS) of Fujitsu Microelectronics. FAMOS was developed specifically for the ARM11 based HDTV decoder chipsets of the series MB86H6x for set top boxes. The FAMOS awareness is integrated immediately in all new TRACE32 software versions for the ARM architecture.

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Debug probe for NEC Electronics 16-bit microcontroller family

Lauterbach, the leading manufacturer of hardware assisted microprocessor development tools, has launched a new high performance debug probe for NEC Electronics 16-bit microcontroller family 78K0R.

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Real Intent Showcases Innovative Automatic Verification Software for ASIC and FPGA Designs at Verify2009 in Japan

Real Intent is among the leading Electronic Design Automation (EDA) companies, who are supporting and exhibiting at Verify2009 in Japan.

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Sunplus selects Synopsys as its primary EDA partner

Synopsys has announced that Sunplus Technology Co., Ltd, a leading provider of advanced IC solutions for home entertainment applications, has signed an expanded business agreement to establish Synopsys as its primary EDA partner. Under the new multi-year agreement, Sunplus has consolidated on Synopsys' Galaxy Implementation and Discovery Verification Platforms for their chip development and design flows, and has extended its use of Synopsys DesignWare IP.

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Altium - FPGA-based development board makes instant prototyping of electronic designs easy

Altium has launched a new addition to its NanoBoard family of FPGA-based development boards. The NanoBoard 3000 is a programmable design environment, supplied complete with hardware, software, ready-to-use, royalty-free IP and a dedicated Altium Designer Soft Design license.

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TSMC selects Synopsys HSIM Simulator for sub-40nm memory IP characterisation

Synopsys has announced that TSMC has adopted Synopsys' HSIM hierarchical FastSPICE circuit simulator for its sub-40nm memory intellectual property (IP) characterisation flow. The HSIM simulator will be deployed for TSMC advanced SRAM compilers for timing, power simulation, dynamic IR drop and EM analysis, as well as for full-chip simulation with extracted package models. Using the latest version of the HSIM tool, TSMC is able to improve memory characterisation throughput by 10 times while achieving tight correlation to silicon measurements.

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Network Monitor and Analyzer Solution Available as Freeware

Today German based Software company Bluestone Technology GmbH announced that its ARINC664 (AFDX) network monitor and analyzer solution, supNET(A) Rx(free), is available as freeware.

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IAR Systems launches development package exclusively for ARM Cortex-M0, -M1, -M3 cores

IAR Systems has announced availability of IAR Embedded Workbench for Cortex-M. Believed to be one of the world's first integrated development environment designed specifically for ARM Cortex-M0, Cortex-M1, and Cortex-M3 based cores, IAR Embedded Workbench for Cortex-M provides a comprehensive set of tools in a single package. Based on the latest full license edition of IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM 5.40, this limited license edition is competitively priced and helps keep the costs of equipping development engineers with industry respected toolsets to a minimum. It is perfect for developers just entering the ARM Cortex market.

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Toshiba announces availability of free and low-cost development tools for ARM microcontroller families

Toshiba Electronics Europe has announced that the TrueSTUDIO development environment from Swedish embedded systems specialist Atollic is now available for the company's range of ARM926EJ-S and ARM Cortex-M3 microcontrollers. Two versions of the environment can be supplied: Atollic TrueSTUDIO Lite, which, while completely free-of-charge, delivers high levels of functionality; and the low-cost Atollic TrueSTUDIO Professional, which provides further development capabilities. Both are available for download from www.atollic.com.

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Green Hills Software Advances Multicore Debugging Leadership with Latest Probe Release

Green Hills Software has announced the latest firmware release of its leading hardware-assisted microprocessor debugging solution, the Green Hills Probe. In combination with Green Hills Software's comprehensive MULTI software development environment, the Green Hills Probe enables software developers to gain the control and visibility required to perform board bring-up, device driver development, and other system debugging tasks in the least amount of time and with the lowest development cost.

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picoChip brings LTE closer with complete femtocell development system

picoChip has launched a fully-featured LTE development system for small cells, helping OEMs bring to market the next generation of highly cost-effective LTE basestations. Combining the company's field-proven OFDMA technology and market leadership in femtocells, the PC9608/9 accelerates time to market of small form factor LTE products ("Home eNode B") optimized for metropolitan, enterprise and residential applications.

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Synopsys first to announce DDR3 IP with support for 2133 Mbps data rates and 1.35V DDR3L

Synopsys has announced that its DesignWare DDR3/2 PHY and digital controller IP supports the emerging 1866 and 2133 Megabits per second (Mbps) data rates currently being added to the JEDEC DDR3 standard. The DDR3/2 PHY also supports the anticipated Low Voltage DDR3L specification that runs at 1.35V, making the DesignWare IP ideal for power conscious designs where the change from 1.5V DDR3 to 1.35V DDR3L can reduce DRAM power consumption by up to 20 percent. By providing early access to DDR3 IP that supports both 2133Mbps and 1.35V operation, Synopsys enables designers to implement higher performance or lower power DDR3 interfaces today.

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Quadros Systems Offers ARM RealView Development Suite as part of Value-Added Reseller agreement with ARM

Further expanding its portfolio of real-time development and runtime software solutions, Quadros Systems now offers the powerful ARM RealView Development Suite (RVDS). As a value added reseller (VAR) in Europe and the Americas. Quadros Systems will sell and support the RVDS development tools as part of an integrated development solution including the company's RTXC real-time operating system, TCP/IP, USB, file systems, graphical design, simulation and configuration tools and other embedded software.

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Cost-effective hardware development kit from TI enables broad adoption of DOCSIS 3.0 video gateways

Texas Instruments has announced availability of a new Puma 5 DOCSIS 3.0 (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) HDK (hardware development kit) targeted at applications that require scalable and highly flexible RF front-end solutions such as video gateways. The TNETC958 is a cost-effective, low-power HDK that includes TI's Puma 5 DOCSIS3.0 SoC and MPEG tuners provided by MaxLinear allowing end-equipment to fully leverage frequency agility to select content from anywhere in the cable RF spectrum. End products leveraging TI's Puma 5 HDK will allow operators to offer innovative high speed data, voice, digital TV and IPTV services without making changes to their current RF plants.

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ARM - RealView Development Suite 4.0 Pro service pack 2

ARM has released the RealView Development Suite 4.0 Pro service pack 2, which features Linux application trace and profiling with the ARM Profiler.

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Renewable energy systems provide high efficiency and brushless DC Motor Controllers from Orchid help save fossil fuels

The low cost, miniature, brushless DC motor controller packs enormous power into a tiny electronics package. Designed to drive 48-Volt brushless DC motors up to 1400 watts, this miniature controller may be the smallest in its class. Small physical sizes make it possible to develop high torque and operating speeds when overall product size and weight are application limited.

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NEC Electronics and EB (Elektrobit) Collaborate on New AUTOSAR 3.0-Compatible Solution

NEC Electronics Corporation and EB (Elektrobit Corporation) today announced the availability of an AUTOSAR 3.0-compatible software package for various hardware platforms. This software package enables easy design of application software without the need for new developments. The package includes AUTOSAR Basic Software and a comprehensive tool chain and was developed under close cooperation between the two companies.

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Microchip’s Worldwide Embedded Designer’s Forums come to UK and Ireland in November and December 2009

Microchip has announced the opening of registration for its Embedded Designer's Forum (EDF), a worldwide series of technical learning events focused on innovative technologies that will help designers stay ahead in today's competitive environment. The forums will run from October 2009 through February 2010 at 120 locations across the world, with 51 forums located in Europe and 6 forums across UK and Ireland running in November and December.

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Mentor Graphics chooses QA∙C for customized MISRA C Coding Standard

PRQA | Programming Research has been announced as a preferred supplier by Mentor Graphics. Following a competitive tool evaluation in 2008, Mentor Graphics Automotive Network Design selected PRQA's QA∙C toolset based on its MISRA compliance and PRQA's technical training. Mentor Graphics' Automotive Networking Business Unit, located in Hungary, Budapest, used PRQA's QA∙C in the development of Volcano; an in-vehicle network design tool. An initial prototype deployment using QA∙C with MISRA in 2008 was followed by full rollout to a satellite site in Egypt, with further investment and upgraded licences for the Budapest office.

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Ubixum achieves product-ready design at first silicon with Synopsys Galaxy Custom Designer solution

Synopsys has announced that Ubixum has used Synopsys' Galaxy Custom Designer implementation solution to successfully design its latest advanced image sensor chip. The chip has been verified to be product-ready with first silicon. Custom Designer is a modern-era custom implementation solution that delivers superior ease-of-use and leverages Synopsys' Galaxy Implementation Platform to provide a unified solution for custom and digital designs. The Custom Designer toolset enabled Ubixum to achieve higher productivity and better integration with their optimised design process.

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Low cost and open LPC2148 development board launched

NGX Technologies Bangalore, has launched a very low-cost and feature rich ARM7 evaluation/educational board. The product is named 'BlueBoard-lpc2148' and is based on the popular LPC214X series of ARM7 microcontrollers from NXP semiconductors. BlueBoard is an open-source initiative at realizing cost effective prototyping and solutions.

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Freescale and the Rochester Institute of Technology Host Designing With Freescale Embedded Technology Conference

The 2009 Freescale Rochester Technology Symposium (FRTS), scheduled for Thursday, November 5th at the Rochester Institute of Technology's College of Integrated Manufacturing Systems facility, will bring together more than 200 customer design engineers, engineering professors and students, third-party tools partners, and executive managers for a one-day, multi-track training seminar on Freescale technologies and system design. The Symposium will kick off with an opening keynote from Lisa Su, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Freescale's Networking Systems Group.

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New Eclipse-based IDE from Texas Instruments enables customers to develop embedded applications for less than $100

As software design and debugging represents the majority of development cost and time for many applications, efficient design tools play a critical role in managing project cost and deadlines. To simplify development while accelerating identification, analysis and resolution, Texas Instruments has announced the availability of Code Composer Studio v4, a major upgrade to its industry-leading integrated development environment (IDE) based on the Eclipse open source software framework (www.ti.com/ccs4-prprod).

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National Instruments Introduces High-Performance FlexRay and CAN Interfaces

National Instruments has announced NI-XNET CAN and FlexRay embedded network interfaces, which help engineers working in industries such as automotive and aerospace quickly prototype, simulate and test next-generation FlexRay and controller area network (CAN) devices and networks. The NI-XNET embedded networks platform consists of 14 new high-performance PCI- and PXI-based interfaces for FlexRay and CAN and a new, universal API for rapid application development. The platform is designed for demanding applications, such as hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and end-of-line test, which require hundreds of signals and submillisecond latency.

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RiskCAT supports ISO 26262

The tool RiskCAT provides support for applying ISO 26262. RiskCAT 26262 allows to determine the ASIL ("Automotive Safety Integrity Level") and indicates for every possible measure of ISO 26262 the degree of obligation ("recommended", "highly recommended", etc.).

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Real Intent Helps Designers Prevent Re-Spins

Real Intent Inc announced today that it is shipping PureTime 3.2 with new product options-- PureTime Constraints and PureTime Exceptions. The PureTime product family helps designers prevent faulty circuits and avoid expensive re-spins. It offers best in class, high-performance constraints validation and timing exceptions verification tools designed to provide users with ultimate confidence in the timing constraints employed across all phases of implementation flow.

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OpenRTOS extends support and cuts development costs for Cortex-M3 applications

Wittenstein High Integrity Systems has extended the range of ARM Cortex-M3 based processors supported by its OpenRTOS embedded kernel to include Atmel SAM3, NXP LPC1700 and STM32 Connectivity Line chips. The OpenRTOS kernel is fully compatible with FreeRTOS™, meaning embedded designers can develop new embedded industrial, medical, power and consumer applications on the new generation of 32-bit microcontrollers without incurring licence fees. At the appropriate time users can upgrade to the commercially supported version with additional components.

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Tomorrow's designers to use the world’s next generation electronics design solution

Altium Designer has been chosen as the electronics design solution for the WorldSkills Competition's electronics category. The WorldSkills Competition is a event held every two years that brings together more than 900 of the best young professionals from around the world. The electronics design category is one of 45 in which competitors compete for gold at this prestigious event. The competition takes place 1-7 September, 2009 in Calgary, Canada. For more information, visit www.worldskills2009.com

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Automotive steering-wheel angle sensor provides data over the CAN-Bus

This microprocessor based steering angle sensor provides real-time steering angle data over the CAN-Bus. Automotive electronics present demanding requirements to the electronic product designer. High volume, low cost and highly rugged, feature packed designs are necessary to win. This automotive steering angle sensor can sense high-resolution angle displacement of 1400 degrees of rotation and beyond.

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Tensilica - New DSP Engine Combines Outstanding Performance, Compact Size, and Easy Programmability

Tensilica has introduced the high-performance, small, low-power ConnX D2 16-bit dual-MAC (Multiply Accumulator) DSP (Digital Signal Processor) engine for its proven Xtensa LX dataplane processor cores for SOC (System-on-Chip) designs. The ConnX D2 DSP engine provides uncompromised performance from C code, unlike many other DSPs that require time consuming assembly coding for maximum performance. This means that virtually any C program, including those written with C intrinsic functions for the TI C6x family or ITU (International Telecommunications Union) reference code, can run unmodified and with excellent performance on the ConnX D2 DSP engine.

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Polar to sponsor a Dr. Eric Bogatin webinar on stackup design using differential pairs

Polar Instruments has announced a free webinar on PCB layer stackup design using differential pairs. Presented by signal integrity guru, Dr. Eric Bogatin, the webinar will be held at 1.00pm EST (6.00pm UTC) on Wednesday 16th September and present a master-class on how the physical design of differential pairs affects interconnect performance in printed circuit boards (PCB).

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Renesas Technology selects Synopsys' Proteus OPC for 45nm node production

Synopsys today announced that Renesas Technology has adopted Synopsys' Proteus OPC for 45nm production. With the introduction of 45nm and below technologies, the demand for optical proximity correction (OPC) becomes greater due to design complexity and layer volume, making time to market and cost of ownership critical factors in OPC vendor selection. Proteus OPC is the industry's most cost-effective solution since its highly scalable engine runs on standard hardware.

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Free Webinar - FPGA design without specialist VHDL/Verilog skills

Altium is hosting a free webinar demonstrating how electronics designers, with no prior experience, can develop and test sophisticated systems using FPGAs. The webinar takes place on September 22, 2009, 2pm EDT, 11am PDT, 6pm GMT.

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Adeneo Embedded announces Free Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R2 Self-Paced Online Training

Adeneo Embedded, a Windows Embedded Official Training Partner awarded by Microsoft "Best Windows Embedded Training Partner of 2008", announces today a FREE self-paced online training for Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R2.

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National Instruments - Tools for Creating Custom Data Management Applications in LabVIEW

National Instruments has announced the release of the NI LabVIEW DataFinder Toolkit, an extension of the LabVIEW graphical system design platform that helps engineers and scientists search and find valued data faster. Engineers and scientists worldwide have adopted LabVIEW because of the ease of use of graphical programming as well as the performance it delivers.

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Altium: Time for electronics designers to get serious about programmable devices

Altium will be challenging electronics designers to look at new ways of using programmable devices at the centre of their designs at the 19th International Conference on Field Programmable Logic and Applications. Altium is presenting the challenge in a talk - 'System on an FPGA in a Unified Design Environment' - at the conference being held in Prague, Czech Republic, August 31 – September 1, 2009.

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Perforce Software Releases a Pure Java SCM Plug-In for Eclipse Integration

Perforce Software announced the release of a pure Java version of its Perforce Plug-in for Eclipse. With this release, developers can employ Perforce version control tools that previously have not been available from within the Eclipse environment. Perforce, the Fast SCM system, versions and manages source code and digital assets for enterprises large and small.

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Perforce Software Releases Pure Java API for its Award Winning SCM System

Perforce Software has announced the release of P4Java, Perforce's pure Java API for accessing Perforce SCM services from within Java applications, servlets, plug-ins, and other Java contexts. P4Java allows developers to tightly integrate Perforce functionality into tools such as CruiseControl, Maven and Ant, and in environments such as J2EE-based web application and web service frameworks. Perforce SCM versions and manages source code and digital assets for enterprises large and small.

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Pebble Bay ports SQLite database engine to Green Hills Software's INTEGRITY

Pebble Bay has announced that it has ported the SQLite database library to the Green Hills INTEGRITY real-time operating system (RTOS). This is a commercial-grade implementation of SQLite running on INTEGRITY that has been validated using the rigorous TH3 test suite which runs tens of thousands of test cases, built on years of SQLite test experience, to produce a robust product suitable for use in the most demanding embedded applications.

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Synopsys delivers HDMI IP solution for 90nm to 40nm process technologies

Synopsys has announced the broad availability of silicon-proven High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) transmitter and receiver digital controllers and PHY IP solutions as part of Synopsys' DesignWare IP portfolio. Synopsys' DesignWare IP for the HDMI interface is compliant to the standard specification and supports High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). Synopsys also provides a roadmap for HDMI 1.4 with product availability anticipated at the end of 2009. The IP is available in leading process technologies from 90nm down to 40nm, and includes sample software drivers for system development. Synopsys' HDMI IP solution is differentiated in terms of feature set, available process nodes and worldwide technical support.

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Software Radio Receiver designed for long range navigation

Orchid Technologies Engineering & Consulting has completed the development of a LORAN Software Radio Receiver designed for long range navigation. Orchid Technologies selected the Texas Instruments TMS320C6713 floating point DSP processor for the four-channel LORAN receiver implementation.

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Infolytica to Release MagNet v7 Multi-threaded for Faster Solutions

Infolytica Corporation today announced that MagNet, the company's electromagnetic field simulation software based on finite element analysis, will include significant changes in the next release which is due out this fall. Version 7 will be a multi-threaded application and will leverage the computation power available with multicore platforms.

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NI LabVIEW 2009 Targets Emerging Applications With New Technologies

National Instruments has announced LabVIEW 2009, the latest version of the graphical system design software platform for control, test and embedded system development. LabVIEW 2009 simplifies the development challenges of parallel hardware architectures with new virtualization technology that takes advantage of multicore systems as well as by offering new compiler improvements and IP that enhance field-programmable gate array (FPGA) design.

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3D EM for Power Integrity Analysis

Engineers working on the design of power delivery networks will benefit from CST's latest addition to CST STUDIO SUITE. The new CST PCB STUDIO Power Integrity solver, based on a special 3D FEM approach, helps calculate accurate impedance profiles within a full 3D simulation, but in a fraction of the time required by traditional 3D solvers.

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PGI Visual Fortran 9.0 Adds Support for MPI Debugging on Windows HPC Server 2008 Clusters

The Portland Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics, today announced the general availability of PGI Visual Fortran (PVF) Release 9.0 for Windows workstations, servers and clusters. PVF 9.0 is the first general release to include support for the building, launching and debugging of Microsoft MPI (MSMPI) Fortran applications from within the Microsoft Visual Studio integrated development environment.

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High Integrity Systems announces free OpenRTOS CONNECT evaluation licence

Wittenstein High Integrity Systems has announced a completely free evaluation license for its OpenRTOS CONNECT software package. The licence gives access to High Integrity Systems' suite of embedded middleware components that vastly simplify development cycles.

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Real Intent Announces New Functional Verification Solution to Ensure X-Robust Designs

Real Intent Inc., the innovator in automating the intelligence of formal techniques for design verification, announced today that its early functional verification product family AscentTM now includes the first commercially available automated solution to ensure X-robust designs, available through the Ascent Path-Based Verification (PBV) product.

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Development kit for STM32 Connectivity Line

Hitex has introduced the STM32-comStick designed for an easy and low-cost start in STMicroelectronics' new Cortex-M3-based STM32 Connectivity Line. The STM32-comStick is a complete small-sized development kit that provides a comprehensive entry to the STM32 Connectivity Line's features.

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Synopsys Introduces Galaxy 2009 with a claimed 2x Faster Throughput

Synopsys has introduced the latest release of its Galaxy Implementation Platform delivering 2x faster design implementation and signoff throughput with new multicore performance and multi-corner/multi-mode (MCMM) technologies. Built-in support for multicore processing across the Galaxy Platform enables engineering teams to immediately boost runtime performance using their existing compute servers. Additionally, the Galaxy Platform includes new MCMM technology providing improved quality of results and faster design closure when using a combined Design Compiler Graphical and IC Compiler flow. The Galaxy 2009 release is available now.

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Lattice Announces Update, More Accessible CPLD Design Tools

Lattice Semiconductor has announced the immediate availability of Version 1.3 of its ispLEVER Classic design tool suite. Version 1.3 includes updated support for Lattice CPLDs (Complex Programmable Logic Devices), including the widely popular ispMACH 4000 device family. Designers can quickly download, for free, ispLEVER Classic for Windows, as well as optional Synopsys Synplify logic synthesis and Aldec Active-HDL simulator modules from: www.latticesemi.com/products/designsoftware/isplever/ispleverclassic. The ispLEVER Classic software download has been segmented into modules to make download and installation faster and more convenient.

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Autorouter and layout device generator from Tanner EDA speeds up analogue and mixed-signal ASIC design

EDA Solutions has announced the availability of version 14.10 of Tanner EDA's Tanner Tools Pro and HiPer Silicon design software, including a new interactive autorouter, SDL Router, and a layout device generator, DevGen. Both these additions increase designers' productivity and speed up development of full custom analogue IC and MEMS design.

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Altium accelerates move towards continuous updates

Altium continues to provide new features in Altium Designer, its electronics design software, to help electronics designers stay continuously updated on new technology and trends. "We think the days of an industry model that somehow forces users to wait for significant new releases and features, that appear only once every few years, are numbered," says Nick Martin, CEO of Altium.

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Oasys Design System Signs WorldWide OEM Agreement to Integrate Concept Engineering’s NlView Visualization Engine

Concept Engineering today announced that Oasys Design Systems, Inc., developer of the RealTime Designer full-chip physical register transfer-level (RTL) synthesis product, has signed a worldwide OEM license for Concept Engineering′s Nlview visualization engine. Nlview is integrated into RealTime Designer to power its debugging GUI. Design engineers using RealTime Designer bundled with Nlview benefit from a high-performance, high-capacity debugging cockpit and from very detailed visual feedback about the RTL code and the physical synthesis process.

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Leading EDA Companies Join New Arm Fast Models Enablement Program

ARM today announced at DAC, San Francisco, Calif., that CoWare, Mentor Graphics and Synopsys Inc. have joined the ARM Fast Models Enablement Program. Members of the Program are able to integrate fully validated Fast Models from ARM, for a range of ARM processors, into their virtual platform environments and deliver to their customers. This ensures that mutual customers can create complete ARM Powered virtual platforms using the design flow of their choice. By using virtual platforms built around ARM processor Fast Models, engineers can develop software well in advance of final hardware implementation, with application and driver software running at near to real-time system performance.

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Autorouter and layout device generator from Tanner EDA speeds up analogue and mixed-signal ASIC design

EDA Solutions has announced the availability of version 14.0 of Tanner EDA's Tanner Tools Pro and HiPer Silicon design software, including a new interactive autorouter, SDL Router, and a layout device generator, DevGen. Both these additions increase designers' productivity and speed up development of full custom analogue IC and MEMS design.

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Real Intent Shows Design Automation Functional Verification Software at Design Automation Conference

Real Intent is showcasing and demonstrating new software products and capabilities of its Ascent, Meridian and PureTime verification families at the Design Automation Conference (DAC09). Ascent now includes the first commercially available automated solution to ensure X-robust designs, available through its Path-Based Verification (PBV) product.

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Synopsys - Galaxy Constraint Analyzer improves designer productivity

Synopsys has introduced Galaxy Constraint Analyzer, a new tool which improves designer productivity through look-ahead constraint analysis technology tuned for the Synopsys Galaxy Implementation Platform. The Galaxy Constraint Analyzer is an intuitive tool that enables designers to quickly assess the correctness and consistency of timing constraints. Correctness and consistency lead to more efficient runtimes in Synopsys' Design Compiler synthesis and IC Compiler physical implementation tools. The Galaxy Constraint Analyzer features unique constraint debug capabilities to help designers eliminate long "trial and error iterations" during implementation, reducing design cost as a result of more predictable schedules all the way to full-chip signoff.

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Fairchild Semiconductor Launches IntelliMAX Design Tool

Fairchild Semiconductor provides designers of portable applications a web-based simulation tool to quickly and accurately assess the performance of advanced load switches in actual application circuits. The IntelliMAX design tool is unlike other simulation tools because it offers an intuitive, user-friendly environment containing models of Fairchild's advanced load switches in pre-defined application circuits. This feature enables designers to quickly and easily adjust the circuit component values to more closely approximate their applications' operating conditions.

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STMicroelectronics Will Unveil Latest Advances in Design Methodologies at DAC 2009

STMicroelectronics will participate as presenter or co-author of several papers at the DAC 2009 (Design Automation Conference), which takes place from July 26-31, 2009, in San Francisco, California. ST's contributions to the conference cover advances in design methodologies and automation in the areas of 3-D stacking for complex SoC (System-on-Chip) ICs, physical- and system-level chip design, and IC reliability.

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Artisan acquires HOOD Bridge from Objektum Solutions

Artisan Software Tools has announced that it has acquired the HOOD Bridge technology from Objektum Solutions and renamed it Artisan HOOD Bridge. In addition, key personnel from Objektum will be working with Artisan in its legacy migration efforts, while also continuing to support existing customers.

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Green Hills Software Delivers Enhancements to Industry-Leading Platform for Medical Devices

Green Hills Software has announced major enhancements to its Platform for Medical Devices by adding support for Secure Guest OS Virtualization and expanding the existing networking, file system and target hardware options. The Platform for Medical Devices significantly reduces the cost and risk of Class II and Class III medical product approval while providing faster time-to-market for customers requiring either the premarket notification process, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) 510(k), or the more stringent Premarket Approval (PMA) process. It also reduces the hardware costs, design complexity, physical footprint and power and heat dissipation of next-generation medical device designs.

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AVIX-RT releases version 3.1 of its AVIX RTOS offering a performance no competing product can meet

Building on the interrupt handling capabilities of its predecessor this new version 3.1 offers even more flexible integration between interrupt handlers and application threads. The ease with which AVIX allows interrupts to be integrated in your application is unmatched by any competing product.

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Synopsys introduces IC Compiler In-Design Rail Analysis to accelerate design closure

Synopsys has introduced its In-Design Rail Analysis capability to accelerate design closure. Part of Synopsys' IC Compiler in-design ecosystem, In-Design Rail Analysis utilises embedded PrimeRail analysis and fixing guidance technology to enable designers to easily perform power network verification throughout physical implementation. By identifying and fixing voltage-drop and electromigration issues earlier in the flow, designers can eliminate costly iterations late in the design process. Working in concert with IC Compiler's Power Network Synthesis (PNS) and In-Design Physical Verification(TM) capabilities, In-Design Rail Analysis provides designers with a comprehensive solution for both the implementation and verification of power networks.

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Achronix deploys Synopsys IC Validator and IC Compiler for next generation FPGA design

Synopsys has announced that Achronix Semiconductor Corporation, maker of ultra-fast field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), has deployed Synopsys' IC Compiler and the recently announced IC Validator, the newest addition to the Galaxy(TM) Implementation Platform, for designing their next generation of high end FPGAs.

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Synopsys accelerates development of SoC designs with complete IP solution for PCI Express 3.0

Synopsys has announced its complete DesignWare IP solution for PCI Express 3.0 consisting of digital controllers, PHY and verification IP. PCI Express 3.0 is the next generation of the PCI Express I/O standard, which is currently under development within the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG(r)) at a preliminary revision 0.5. Synopsys' high-quality DesignWare IP enables easy integration of the 8.0 GT/s PCI Express 3.0 interface into system-on-chips (SoCs) for high-performance enterprise computing applications. Built on the trusted DesignWare IP for PCI Express 2.0 and 1.x architecture, which has been silicon-proven in more than 250 SoC designs, the DesignWare IP for PCI Express 3.0 allows designers to quickly incorporate the new PCI Express 3.0 features into their products with less risk and improved time to market.

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edXact Releases Electromigration-Aware Version of Jivaro and Production-Proven Version of Comanche. To Preview Jivaro 5.0 at DAC

edXact SA, layout verification specialist, today announced that it will release versions 4.3 of its flagship simulation acceleration software Jivaro and version 3.1 of its parasitic rule checking analyzer Comanche at DAC. edXact also will showcase the new path finder feature as a major upgrade of the upcoming Jivaro 5.0 generation of its netlist reduction tools. Jivaro 4.3, preview Jivaro 5.0 and Comanche 3.1 will be demonstrated in Booth # 3765 at this year's Design Automation Conference, being held in San Francisco, July 26-31.

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Atmel - Evaluation Kit and Software Ecosystem Jump-Start Cortex M3-based Application Development

Atmel has announced the availability of the SAM3U-EK Evaluation Kit for rapid application development on the industry's first ARM Cortex -M3 based Flash microcontroller with high-speed 480 Mbps USB + Phy. In addition to a plug-and-play socket for the high-speed USB device it features a high speed SDIO/SDCard/MMC slot, two UART connectors, a ZigBee radio header, two analog inputs, audio in- and outputs and a JTAG-ICE debug port. For application development purposes, the SAM3U-EK board contains a 240 x 320 TFT color LCD display with resistive touch-panel and backlight, 3D accelerometer and temperature sensor, potentiometer, on-board 512K x 16-bit PSRAM and 2G-bit x8 or x16 NAND Flash Memories, 12MHz and 32KHz clock sources and a backup battery.

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Actel Shipping its Fusion Advanced Development Kit

Actel has announced that it is shipping the Fusion Advanced Development Kit. Featuring Actel Fusion mixed-signal FPGAs, the kit enables the development of system and power management applications in a single board with multiple on-board voltage regulators, an array of indicator LEDs, and an OLED display to provide direct feedback on flag status, system messages, and voltage, temperature, or current readings.

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Actel - Mixed-Signal Power Manager Provides Complete Graphical Design Approach for Fusion Mixed-Signal FPGAs

Actel has announced the availability of its free Mixed-Signal Power Manager. A reference design and graphical user interface tool included in the recently announced Fusion Advanced Development Kit, MPM enables designers to control and reduce power at the system level, offering fully-verified, timing-closed, proven-in-hardware power supervision and management capabilities. This latest offering highlights the significant integration benefits of Actel's Fusion device, the industry's first mixed-signal FPGA.

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Renesas can halve SiP Design Time with SiP Top-Down Design Environment

Renesas has announced the development of its SiP Top-Down Design Environment to boost efficiency when developing system in package (SiP) products combining multiple chips, such as system on chip (SoC) devices, MCUs, and memories, in a single package. It uses a top-down design approach in which key characteristics, such as design quality and heat dispersion, are verified during the initial design stage.

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Strategic Test claims World’s first Freescale i.MX25 SOM and Development Kit

Strategic Test has announced a Freescale i.MX25 processor-based System on Module (SOM) and Development Kit. Called the TX-STAR, it measures just 67.6 x 26 x 3.5 mm (2.6" x 1" x 0.09") and contains a 400 MHz i.MX25 processor coupled with 64 MB SDRAM, 128 MB NAND flash memory and a 200-pin SODIMM connector. The TX-STAR is targeted at embedded applications where an operating temperature range from -45 to +85 degrees C, low price, small size and low power consumption are critical factors.

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In-System Emulation Technology qualified for additional ARM Architecture

GOEPEL has announced the development of a special model library for ARM Cortex-M3 architecture processors to support the emulation technology VarioTAP. The libraries, described as VarioTAP models, are structured modularly as intelligent IP and enable a complete fusion of Boundary Scan test and JTAG emulation. Employing this technology, embedded or external Flash can be in-system programmed via the native processor function. Furthermore, VarioTAP supports interlaced Bus Emulation Tests (BET) and System Emulation Tests (SET) for extended JTAG/Boundary Scan functionality.

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Green Hills Networking Platform Adds Support for Freescale’s VortiQa Software Products

Green Hills Software, Inc. today announced the integration of the Green Hills Platform for Secure Networking with Freescale VortiQa software for networking equipment. Customers using this combined offering can accelerate product development and optimize application performance of multicore-based designs. The combined offerings are being introduced across the four VortiQa software product lines that Freescale announced today for service provider equipment, enterprise equipment, small business gateways and SOHO/residential gateways.

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Adeneo brings embedded design expertise to TI's Elite Design House Network

Adeneo, a Texas Instruments Developer Network member with facilities in Europe and the U.S. has been selected by TI to participate in their Elite Design House Program, a group of independent design services companies offering system design, development, prototyping and manufacturing services to customers worldwide with strong hardware and software design expertise using TI analog and embedded processing technology.

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Pulsic Granted Patent For Routing According To Current Density Rules

Pulsic has announced that it has been granted a US Patent for a routing innovation incorporated in its physical chip design software. This patent, titled "Automatic routing nets according to current density rules", protects unique technology incorporated in Pulsic's UniRoute automated router.

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Synopsys MVSIM adopted for low power verification of mobile SoC platform

Synopsys has announced that ST-Ericsson has adopted Synopsys' MVSIM low power dynamic verification solution for its STw8500 system-on-chip (SoC) platform for the mobile phone market. ST-Ericsson selected MVSIM for its proven ability to comprehensively verify low power techniques, including standby and built-in automated low power assertions, which enable the early detection of bugs. The tool's extensive support for the IEEE 1801 [Unified Power Format (UPF)] power format, on which the STw8500 project team has standardised, was also a deciding factor.

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Toshiba - Physical layer and protocols provide complete MIPI IP solution for SoC development

The latest intellectual property from Toshiba Electronics Europe's ASIC & Foundry Business Unit will simplify and speed the implementation of MIPI-compliant system-on-chip (SoC) designs for mobile phones and associated devices. The Toshiba MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface) offering comprises a physical layer and protocols that build on this layer to support the rapid development of complete MIPI-compliant transmit and receive solutions.

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NXP Launches Breakthrough New Online Design Tool for Power Management IC’s Compliant with PMBus Protocol Specifications

NXP Semiconductors has launched an innovative new web-based design and monitoring solution for power management ICs. To help designers keep development time as short as possible, the tool provides comprehensive online design support and technology to create a one-stop shop for the full design cycle.

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Agilent Technologies - Advanced Design System for RF and Microwave High-Power Device Models Receives AMCAD Engineering Endorsement

Agilent Technologies and AMCAD Engineering today announced that AMCAD has endorsed Agilent's Advanced Design System (ADS) electronic design automation (EDA) software for the development of advanced high-power device models. Using ADS, the industry's leading RF EDA tool, AMCAD engineers have achieved a significant breakthrough in RF/microwave device modeling -- successfully modeling hot and cold operation modes of high-power devices such as amplifiers and mixers.

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Achronix selects Synopsys as its leading EDA partner

Synopsys has announced that Achronix Semiconductor Corporation, maker of ultra-fast field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), has signed an expanded business agreement to establish Synopsys as its leading EDA partner for the design of its next generation FPGAs. As a result of the new multi-year agreement, Achronix has consolidated on Synopsys' Galaxy Implementation and Discovery Verification Platforms throughout its internal development and design flow.

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PGI 9.0 Compilers Simplify x64+GPU Programming

The Portland Group has announced the general availability of the PGI Release 9.0 line of high-performance parallelizing compilers and development tools for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. PGI Release 9.0 is the first general release to include support for the high-level PGI Accelerator programming model on x64 processor-based Linux systems incorporating NVIDIA CUDA-enabled GPUs.

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PGI and NVIDIA Team To Deliver CUDA Fortran Compiler

The Portland Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of STMicroelectronics and a supplier of compilers for high-performance computing (HPC), today announced an agreement with NVIDIA under which the two companies plan to develop new Fortran language support for CUDA GPUs.

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Scannex Chooses Green Hills Software Toolchain for PBX Data Range

Green Hills Software has been selected to provide the real-time operating system (RTOS) and development tools for the Scannex ip.buffer range of PBX data collection products. Scannex chose Green Hills Software's INTEGRITY RTOS, MULTI integrated development environment, optimizing compilers and Green Hills Probe for its ARM9-based system.

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Adeneo Embedded announces Windows Embedded CE BSP for Gumstix Overo computer-on-module series

Adeneo Embedded presented today at TI Tech Days 2009 a preview of its new Windows Embedded CE 6.0 Board Support Package for the Gumstix Overo computer-onmodule series, which is based on Texas Instruments OMAP35x Applications Processors.

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New Release of 3L’s Diamond Multiprocessor Tool-Suite Accelerates the Design, Verification and Implementation of Multiprocessor Systems

3L has announced immediate availability of Diamond 3.2, the latest and most powerful release of its Diamond multiprocessor tool-suite. This release of Diamond sets a new standard in complex multiprocessor design performance, and dramatically improves designer productivity. Diamond's multiprocessor compiler automatically creates and then optimizes communication paths between multiple processors.

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Synopsys continues Galaxy Custom Designer momentum with 2009.06 release

Synopsys has announced availability of advanced analogue simulation and layout capabilities in its Galaxy Custom Designer(tm) implementation solution. The new features in the 2009.06 release deliver productivity advances to aid analogue circuit designers and layout engineers, enabling Synopsys to further extend its reach in the custom implementation segment.

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TSMC selects Synopsys Galaxy Implementation Platform for Integrated Sign-Off Flow

Synopsys has announced that TSMC selected Synopsys' Galaxy Implementation Platform for its new Integrated Sign-Off Flow. The RTL-to-GDSII design flow deploys the advanced optimisation technologies of Synopsys' Design Compiler synthesis and IC Compiler physical implementation solutions, and the PrimeTime sign-off and Star-RCXT extraction solutions—the industry yardsticks for IC design sign-off. The new flow is now available for 65nm designs with planned extensions into other process technology nodes.

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Agilent's New TriQuint Process Design Kit Streamlines MMIC Design Process

Agilent has announced the availability of a powerful foundry-certified process design kit (PDK) to support TriQuint Semiconductor's popular TQPED GaSs E/D pHEMT process. Providing the most complete MMIC design flow available using Agilent's Advanced Design System (ADS) platform, the new TQPED PDK completely renovates layout functions, adds many design automation and routing capabilities, and provides a MMIC toolbar personality to help streamline the MMIC design process. The PDK is available now from TriQuint.

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Freescale Chooses Green Hills Software’s Development Tools for Automotive Microcontrollers

Green Hills Software has announced the successful launch of optimized software products that support automotive microcontrollers (MCUs) jointly developed by Freescale Semiconductor based on the Power Architecture technology.

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Altera Eases Development of 40-nm FPGAs with Stratix IV GX FPGA Development Kit

Altera has announced availability of the Stratix IV GX FPGA Development Kit. The kit features hardware and software solutions for the rapid creation of designs using Altera's high-performance 40-nm Stratix IV GX FPGAs with integrated 8.5-Gbps transceivers. The development kit provides an ideal environment for designing and testing high-speed serial interfaces, such as PCI Express (PCIe) Gen2, with up to x8-lane configurations.

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Agilent's Industry-First Half-Size Mid-Bus Probing Solution for PCI Express

Agilent has introduced a half size mid-bus probing solution for its PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 E2960B Series analyzers. The half-size mid-bus probe is critical for lower link width designs (up to x4) where space constraints make it difficult to design in a full-size debug point. The new probe will allow designers to monitor the PCI Express protocol with a probe that is much more compact, reducing routing concerns and simplifying the board layout. The half-size mid-bus probe supports both 2.5 GT/s and 5.0 GT/s PCI Express data rates.

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Infolytica Releases MotorSolve v2.2 for Induction Machines

Infolytica Corporation has announced the availability of MotorSolve v2.2, an upgrade to the company's design software for rotating electric machines. The extensive list of new features includes simulations and performance results for induction machines, system modeling tools and additional templates for induction and brushless machines.

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Agilent Claims First Complete Front-to-Back Solution for MMIC and RF Module Design

Agilent has announced Advanced Design System (ADS) 2009 Update 1, said to be the industry's first complete, front-to-back solution for monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) and RF module design. The release integrates 3-D electromagnetic (EM) analysis, wireless standards-based design verification libraries, X-parameter simulation, and statistical design and yield optimization. Advanced Design System 2009 Update 1 enables designers to stay within the design and simulation platform of choice for their entire design cycle and eliminates the need for separate, time-consuming point tools.

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NXP Demonstrates 3-way Doherty Reference Design for More Energy Efficient RF Base Stations

Expanding its portfolio of industry-leading RF power solutions, NXP, the independent semiconductor company founded by Philips, today unveiled an efficient 3-way Doherty amplifier, enabling a new standard of energy efficient RF base stations.

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Fourth generation development tools from XMOS put C programmers in control of pins

XMOS has announced the latest version of its integrated development environment (IDE) allowing programmers to directly program IO and watch the source code control the pins. James Foster, President and CEO, XMOS, commented: "XMOS event-driven processors are so predictable that they enable C programmers to implement hardware interfaces.

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Green Hills Announces Additional High Assurance Software Components for its Certified and Field-Proven RTOS

Green Hills Software has announced the availability of three new high assurance software components for its INTEGRITY-178B real-time operating system (RTOS): an RTCA/DO-178B Level A-compliant Partitioning Journaling File System called PJFS-178B, an RTCA/DO-178B Level A-compliant network stack, called IPFLITE, and an ARINC 615A dataloader.

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LFoundry Releases Low Power and RF 0.15 µm PDK for Tanner EDA’s Analog/Mixed-Signal Electronic Design Software

LFoundry today announced the availability of a high performance process design kit (PDK) for A/MS electronic designs, developed using Tanner EDA's HiPer Silicon software, for its LF150 modular 0.15 µm Low Power and RF CMOS process. This grants Tanner EDA customers access to Europe's leading pure-play foundry CMOS technology.

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SiliconXpress is latest Tensilica Design Center

Tensilica has announced that SiliconXpress has become its newest authorized design center. SiliconXpress is a fabless chip provider, headquartered in Lubbock, Texas, offering one-stop design, fabrication, test, and packaging services. Tensilica is a major semiconductor IP supplier specializing in dataplane processor cores which are a combination of CPU and DSP that can be rapidly customized to provide 10-100x the performance of standard CPUs and DSPs.

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Atmel Rhino+ USB Demonstration/Evaluation Kit for SHA-256 Cryptographic Authentication Chip

Atmel has announced its AT88SA-ADK1 Rhino+ AVR -based development kit for its AT88SA102S CryptoAuthentication IC. Atmel's AT88SA102S device is the industry's most secure authentication IC, with an embedded SHA-256 engine and 256-bit cryptographic key that make it virtually impossible to crack using brute force methods. The nearest competing authentication IC has a key size of only 128 bits. Priced at less than $1, the AT88SA102S CryptoAuthentication IC is more secure and costs 40% to 60% less than competing solutions.

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Artisan continues worldwide expansion with plans for a direct office in France

Artisan Software Tools is continuing to expand its global operations with a direct office in France. The new French office will complement Artisan's global sales and support operation. In addition, Artisan has announced the appointment of Olivier Casse as the Territory Channel Manager for France with responsibility for representing Artisan in France and the Benelux region and co-ordinating its distribution channels. Olivier has extensive experience in the embedded market going back over ten years with Monditech, an automotive market embedded specialist, Embelec, a former distributor of Artisan Studio in France, LiveDevices, an RTOS supplier to the transportation market and I-Logix, the embedded software tools supplier now part of IBM.

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Green Hills Software and Radvision Partner to Secure IP Voice and Video Communications

Green Hills Software and RADVISON, the leading provider of products and technologies for unified visual communications over IP and 3G networks, has announced the availability of integrated solutions that will enable secure, next-generation fixed and mobile IP content delivery and management.

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NIWeek 2009 will Examine ways to Developing Applications Faster and More Cost-Efficiently

National Instruments has announced plans for NIWeek, its graphical system design conference and exhibition that attracts more than 3,000 engineers, educators and scientists. NIWeek 2009, the company's 15th annual customer and technology conference, running Aug. 4-6 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas, provides three full days of technical sessions, hands-on workshops, targeted summits and interactive exhibitions on the latest developments for design, control, automation, manufacturing and test.

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Altera Delivers Stratix IV GX Transceiver Signal Integrity Development Kit

Altera has announced the availability of the Transceiver Signal Integrity Development Kit, Stratix IV GX Edition. This full-featured hardware development platform has an Altera Stratix IV GX FPGA with transceivers that operate up to 8.5 Gbps, allowing engineers to prototype and test their high-speed interfaces quickly and easily. By utilising this kit, customers can test drive Altera's new 40-nm Stratix IV GX FPGA under their specific design system requirements.

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Altium appoints new Israeli reseller

Altium has appointed TACT Software Solutions as its new reseller in Israel. TACT will resell Altium Designer, Altium's next generation electronics design solution, and its TASKING embedded software development tool.

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AdvancedIO Systems' expressXG Framework for Rapid High-Bandwidth Application Development

AdvancedIO Systems has announced the availability of expressXG, an FPGA framework that accelerates customers' ability to tackle challenging system communication problems. The framework gives customers the tools to embed their own applications directly into AdvancedIO's 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) interfaces. The applications quickly benefit from the line-rate performance capability of FPGAs by leveraging AdvancedIO's expertise implementing Ethernet communications for demanding real-time systems.

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Agilent's EDA Software has Expanded Role in Skyworks' RF Module Design

Agilent Technologies today announced an expansion of the use of its Advanced Design System (ADS) EDA software at Skyworks Solutions Inc., an innovator of high-performance analog and mixed-signal semiconductors. The two companies have customized the ADS platform for an integrated and efficient design-for-manufacturing flow. The expansion enables rapid development, high performance and manufacturability for Skyworks' front-end power amplifier modules.

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PICMG's new COM Express Design Guide on MSC's Website

The PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturer Group PICMG has made available on its website the new, freely available Design Guide for COM Express. MSC Vertriebs GmbH also played an active role in the creation of the currently available version 1.0. The document contains extensive information for designing custom System Carrier Boards for COM Express modules from different manufacturers.

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Altium provides lifeline for OrCAD Capture users

Altium is following its challenge to electronics designers to answer the question "What makes you so special?" (20 April 2009) by introducing a powerful alternative for front-end electronics designers that lets them reach into new areas of design and stay relevant in a fast changing industry.

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Green Hills Adds Virtualization to Platform for Secure Networking

Green Hills Software has announced a major enhancement to its Platform for Secure Networking, adding secure virtualization and new reference platforms. Green Hills Software's approach to system virtualization enables a complete Linux operating system and its applications ecosystem to securely and seamlessly coexist with the performance, reliability-critical, and real-time portions of networking devices – all on a single general purpose microprocessor.

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Artisan launches Artisan Studio: DoD Architect Edition (5)

Artisan Software Tools has launched Artisan Studio: DoD Architect Edition and Artisan Studio: DoD Advanced Architect Edition, responding directly to the architectural framework needs of the US DoD, its suppliers and DoDAF users.

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Altium to change its pricing policy

Altium is making dramatic changes to how it prices its solutions, changes which remove a key barrier to designers and their organizations being able to design the new wave of intelligent, connected electronic products. "Electronics designers and their organizations must answer one question: what makes me so special? This is the crucial question for everyone seeking to more than just survive this recession," said Emma Lo Russo, President of Altium.

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Arm Claims Industry's Broadest 40nm G Physical IP Platform

ARM has announced the availability of the industry's most comprehensive IP platform for TSMC's 40nm G manufacturing process. This latest silicon- validated physical IP from ARM enables cost-effective development of performance driven consumer devices requiring advanced functionality without increasing power consumption. Created for developers looking to advance their designs using the 40nm process, the platform enables higher levels of technology innovation while maintaining power budgets in performance driven consumer devices including disc drives, set-top boxes, mobile computing devices, networking applications, high-definition televisions, and graphic processors.

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Altera Delivers Stratix IV GX Transceiver Signal Integrity Development Kit

Altera has announced the availability of the Transceiver Signal Integrity Development Kit, Stratix IV GX Edition. This full-featured hardware development platform has an Altera Stratix IV GX FPGA with transceivers that operate up to 8.5 Gbps, allowing engineers to prototype and test their high-speed interfaces quickly and easily. By utilizing this kit, customers can test drive Altera's new 40-nm Stratix IV GX FPGA under their specific design system requirements.

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Pigeon Point offers ATCA Starter Kits Based On Actel Fusion Mixed-Signal FPGA

Adding to its growing portfolio of management solutions for the expanding TCA market, Pigeon Point Systems and its parent, Actel, today announced that Pigeon Point Systems is now shipping AdvancedTCA (ATCA) Board Management Reference starter kits for Actel's Fusion mixed-signal FPGAs. These new, comprehensive development platforms for ATCA hardware platform management employ the Actel Fusion mixed-signal FPGA, an embedded 32-bit ARM CortexTM-M1 processor and Pigeon Point FPGA designs, board schematics and firmware.

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PICMG Consortium Releases New COM Express Design Guide

congatec AG announces the immediate availability of Version 1.0 of the COM Express Design Guide for developers of COM Express modules.

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NI Extends Design and Prototyping Platform for Hands-On Learning

National Instruments has introduced the NI Educational Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Suite (NI ELVIS) II+ design and prototyping platform, a single, integrated system that is ideal for the lab or classroom because it connects theory to real-world applications. The latest addition to the NI ELVIS family incorporates an onboard, 100 MS/s oscilloscope and features a series of new add-on boards to extend the platform beyond instrumentation and circuits applications.

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AVX's component simulation software improves design-in process

AVX has developed a new component modeling and simulation software that can save cost, time to market and reduce potential quality issues. Designated AVX Component Simulator, the software enables designers to view all basic characteristics and parameters for Accu-P, Accu-L, Thin Film Low Pass Filters, Couplers, 3dB Splitters, Hi-CV SMT, LICC, LGA and IDC products. The simulation software features multiple parameter graphing options including Smith Charts, S-parameter, ESR, impedance, current, inductance and capacitance values.

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Actel now shipping the IGLOO PLUS Starter Kit

Actel has announced the availability of the low-cost IGLOO PLUS Starter Kit. The new kit features the IGLOO PLUS family of low-power field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which offer the industry's best power-, logic- and feature-per-I/O ratios in a programmable device.

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EDA Solutions and Cascoda partner to provide design support to European Tanner EDA users

EDA Solutions, the exclusive European representative for Tanner EDA, and Cascoda, a semiconductor design company, has announced a partnership to provide design support to Tanner EDA customers in Europe. The agreement will enable EDA Solutions to offer seamless support to Tanner users, from initial set-up and training to physical design kit development and design services. Tanner is the world's leading vendor of PC-based EDA tools for analogue and mixed-signal semiconductors. The company's tools encompass schematic capture, simulation, physical layout, verification and parasitic extraction. They run under both Microsoft Windows and Linux.

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Luminary Micro launches Stellaris SBC Intelligent Display Reference Design Kit

Luminary Micro has announced the new Stellaris Intelligent 3.5-inch Landscape Display Single-Board Computer Reference Design Kit (RDK-IDM-SBC), featuring fully integrated 10/100 Ethernet (MAC+PHY), USB Host, and CAN interfaces. Based on the feature-rich Stellaris LM3S9B92 microcontroller, the new intelligent display reference design combines a 3.5-inch QVGA landscape-oriented touch-screen user interface with several serial, digital, and analog connectivity options for easy implementation as a Human Machine Interface (HMI) touch display panel in an embedded control device.

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Microchip Expands Security Capabilities of KEELOQ Authentication System

Microchip announces it has expanded the security capabilities of the patented KEELOQ authentication system. The KEELOQ 3 Development Kit demonstrates these enhancements to the KEELOQ system with a patented secure-learning algorithm that prevents differential power analysis attack techniques. Additionally the technology now supports 128-bit encryption keys, longer data transmissions and bi-directional communication authentication; and also supports alternative encryption algorithms, such as XTEA and AES. The enhanced microcontroller-based encoder solution enables customisation, so that further security enhancements can be implemented over time.

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New Version of LDRA Tool Suite Provides First End-to-End Software Verification Solution

LDRA has launched v8.0 of the LDRA tool suite, the first fully automated end-to-end solution for software verification support. With the integration of requirements management, LDRA has enabled companies for the first time to trace, verify, and test their code through all stages of software development from requirements through static and dynamic analysis and testing. By tailoring standardized best-programming practices for cross-industry adoption, LDRA extends the cost- and resource-savings advantages to the embedded industry as a whole.

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Express Logic Upgrades TraceX Graphical Tool for Real-Time System Event Analysis

Express Logic today announced the release of TraceX V5, the most advanced version of its graphical event analysis tool for real-time systems. To ensure faster identification of errors, TraceX V5 adds several new features that enable embedded system developers to better visualize and understand the behavior of their real-time systems.

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Comprehensive IP camera and DVR reference designs from Texas Instruments

To answer security designers needs to create advanced surveillance products with less resources, Texas Instruments has announced today two comprehensive and cost-effective reference designs for Internet Protocol cameras and digital video recorders. These reference designs, powered by the new TMS320DM365 digital media processor based on DaVinci technology, provide high-definition (HD) H.264 in high, main or base profile (D1, 720p @ 30 fps or 1080p at reduced frame rate) with tri-streaming support.

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Cadence and NEC Announce Encounter Digital Implementation System To Support NEC's System LSI with Built-In V850 CPU Core

Cadence and NEC Electronics have announced the development of prototypes of NEC Electronics' state-of-the-art V850 -based System LSI, made possible by support of Cadence's new Encounter Digital Implementation System v8.1. NEC Electronics developed its LSIs next-generation CPU core, successfully reducing the total design turnaround time by fifty percent while including complete full multi mode, multi-corner analysis and optimization throughout the back end of the design flow.

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Tundra Semiconductor Announces RapidIO Gen2 Program

Tundra Semiconductor today announced its new RapidIO Gen2 program. Backwards compatible with RapidIO Specification Rev 1.3, Tundra's new RapidIO solutions will offer OEMs increased system performance, reduced power consumption and lower system costs when designing next generation systems.

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congatec Expands its Design Activities in Czech Republic

congatec has announced that the company will be further extending its design activities in the Czech Republic as of May 1, 2009. For this purpose congatec will be taking on the complete design team of a major business alliance partner. This team, situated in Brno, consists of eight experienced hardware and software engineers and will be concentrating on the development of customized carrier boards for Qseven, XTX and COM Express computer modules.

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Medical imaging developers can speed time to market with TI’s new embedded processor software toolkit

Texas Instruments has announced the availability of an embedded processor software toolkit developed for medical diagnostic ultrasound manufacturers. The first in a family of products, TI's toolkit helps manufacturers quickly and easily develop ultrasound applications on the improved processing power of TI's C64x+ DSP platforms, enabling clinics and practitioners to deliver faster, more accurate results to their patients.

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Motor control reference platform eases development of sensorless motor control designs

Renesas Technology Europe today announced the MCRP06 motor control reference platform that can use either asynchronous or synchronous motor control techniques. With an integrated power module, it is designed to drive any 3-phase motor up to 2kWatts rating using sensorless field oriented control algorithms.

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Multimode mobile WiMAX/GSM-EDGE smartphone reference design platform

Comsys has announced the launch of their latest ComMAX reference design platform, the CM1125RD - an optimized multimode mobile WiMAX/GSM EDGE smartphone reference design platform. Based on the ComMAX CM1125 baseband processor and integrating market-leading solutions from Comsys Mobile's Ecosystem partners, it incorporates all the features and functionalities required of smartphones, from antennae up to application processor.

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Ecliptic’s RocketCam Digital Video Systems Built with INTEGRITY

Green Hills Software has announced that Ecliptic Enterprises Corporation is using it's INTEGRITY real-time operating system in Ecliptic's next-generation RocketCam Digital Video System (DVS). INTEGRITY manages all DVS command and telemetry functions as well as demanding, real-time video processing tasks in a rugged environment. The INTEGRITY-based RocketCam DVS is being successfully applied in NASA's Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle capsule Pad Abort Test program, employing high-speed digital video cameras to capture onboard video of Orion's parachute deployments during each test flight. This test program is being managed by NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards, California.

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MAZeT offers Interbus-IP for customized FPGA and ASIC implementation

MAZeT GmbH offers the IP core certified by the originator for the EnDat master for implementation in FPGAs and ASICs. The serial communication interface for rotary and linear distance measuring systems was developed by MAZeT and maintained as product. In customized applications, it is often required to directly integrate this interface into the FPGA or ASIC.

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MAZeT offers Interbus-IP for customized FPGA and ASIC implementation

MAZeT GmbH offers IP cores for the Interbus protocol (SUPI4 / Phoenix Contact) for implementation in FPGAs and ASICs. The protocol chip for serial communication interfaces in automation technology was developed and maintained by MAZeT. The SUPI4 protocol chip, presented by Phoenix Contact at SPS/IPC Drives 2008, is an implementation of the Interbus-IP core, which has enhanced functionality in comparison to the previous protocol ASIC SUPI3.

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Interface Development Suite supports creation of ultimate user experience for display-based designs

Anders Electronics and Tilcon Software have announced the launch of the UMR Interface Development Suite (IDS) that enables rapid creation and deployment of embedded graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Using IDS, designers can deliver enhanced, display-based user experiences while streamlining product development, reducing project risk and speeding time-to-market.

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New Version of CompactRIO Module Development Kit from NI Simplifies Custom Module Design

National Instruments has announced the latest version of a module development kit that further simplifies the process for users, OEMs and system integrators to design custom C Series modules for NI CompactRIO and add-on boards for NI Single-Board RIO. With the NI cRIO-9951 Module Development Kit (MDK), customers and third-party resellers can design custom solutions for industrial and embedded applications based on common NI reconfigurable I/O (RIO) architectures and in small form factors. The cRIO-9951 MDK also works with NI LabVIEW 8.6 and includes updated electrical design requirements documentation.

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Infolytica to Release Updated MotorSolve for Induction Machines

Infolytica has announced that a major update to MotorSolve IM will be available in April 2009. A new fully automated finite element analysis (FEA) results module will be included with the software which will solve critical performance parameters accurately.

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XMOS to hold design seminar and conference in Bristol

XMOS, the creator of Software Defined Silicon (SDS) is holding a design seminar and conference on Thursday 16th and Friday 17th of April at the Bristol University Computer Science Department. The seminar on the afternoon of the 16th April is aimed at designers and engineers new to XMOS who want an introduction to designing with XMOS tools and devices.

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ON Semiconductor to Offer New IP Blocks for Industry-Standard Interfaces, Microcontrollers and Peripherals

ON Semiconductor has announced the expansion of its intellectual property portfolio with the addition of more than 30 silicon-proven IP blocks. Customers developing application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) and system-on-chip (SoC) solutions based on the company's digital and mixed-signal process technologies will now have access to expanded IP for industry-standard interfaces, microcontrollers and peripherals.

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Actel Announces Next Generation Free Embedded Software Development Environment

Actel has announced the availability of SoftConsole version 2.2, the next-generation free development environment for embedded design. This new version includes enhanced capabilities for debug and the downloading of programs, including a new flash loader, and support for the Microsoft® Vista operating system. Leveraging Actel's IGLOO low-power FPGAs and Actel Fusion mixed-signal FPGAs, SoftConsole is a single programming environment that enables software engineers to write and debug C and C++ programs targeted at Actel's portfolio of embedded processors, including ARM Cortex-M1TM and Core8051s.

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Altium reseller Transfer adds TASKING compiler to Altium solution portfolio

Altium has appointed existing Benelux reseller Transfer B.V. to resell its TASKING embedded software development solution. The appointment complements Transfer's status as a reseller of Altium Designer, Altium's next generation electronics design solution.

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Atmel Introduces Digital Audio Gateway Reference Design for Digital Audio Streaming, Decoding and Playback

Atmel has announced the AVR32 ATEVK1105 Digital Audio Gateway kit, demonstrating digital audio streaming, decoding and playback. These audio capabilities serve the exploding market of audio accessories and peripherals that connects home and car Hi-Fi audio systems to the digital age. This includes the popular iPod docking stations. The kit is based on the AVR high performance AT32UC3A 32-bit Flash microcontrollers and provides developers with a ready-to-use hardware/software platform and a variety of interfaces and evaluation capabilities to meet their audio systems requirements and get faster to market.

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Arrow platform speeds development of Intel Atom embedded systems

Arrow's European Reference Board team has expanded its family of embedded system support tools with the launch of a development platform for the Intel Atom processor family. The new platform will support the development of embedded applications ranging from mobile devices and gaming machines to building automation, interactive kiosks and industrial systems.

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National Instruments Expands Multisim Resources to Simplify Circuit Design

National Instruments has announced enhancements to the NI Multisim and NI Ultiboard printed circuit board (PCB) design experience, including the release of the Multisim and Ultiboard 10.1.1 software packages. The latest versions of the software deliver functional enrichments, such as several enhancements to user interface functionality including improved database synchronisation, added temperature simulation parameter support and more than 300 new components from leading third-party manufacturers. These new resources help those new to circuit design with National Instruments tools quickly begin prototyping with improved accuracy.

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Multiprocessing TCP/IP Inside 3L Diamond

3L, the Multiprocessor Design Company and DFCDesign, a specialist provider of custom embedded systems and IP, has announced the integration of Diamond TCP, a full function, high performance TCP/IP networking stack into the 3L Diamond multiprocessor tool-suite. Optimized for multiprocessing and Gigabit Ethernet the stack supports the low level TCP, UDP, IP, IGMP, ICMP and ARP stack protocols. Diamond TCP provides multiprocessor designers with a high-performance stack that delivers the high data rates required in processor intensive applications such as high-end video and imaging, wireless base stations and networking.

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PRQA Launches QA•C/QA•C++ Legacy Mode for managing the quality of legacy code

Following an extensive early adopter program, PRQA/Programming Research has announced the general release of QA•C/QA•C++ Legacy Mode, which offers a solution for managing the quality of legacy code. In targeting the maintenance of legacy code it provides developers with the tools they need to re-use valuable legacy software with confidence.

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Multi PCB Ltd. supports Altium Designer

Multi PCB, a leading German printed circuit board manufacturers, now supports data from Altium Designer. Altium Designer was created by Altium for the purpose of unifying the entire process of electronic product development. Altium Designer combines the design of hardware, software and programmable hardware in one unified design environment, allowing effective cooperation both within design teams and across entire organisations.

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NI Announces Suite of Prototyping Hardware to Lower Development Time and Costs

National Instruments has announced a suite of prototyping hardware that makes it possible for engineers and scientists to prototype industrial and embedded projects faster, reduce time to market and lower development costs. The five new NI CompactRIO reconfigurable chassis feature a Xilinx Virtex-5 field-programmable gate array (FPGA), the largest and fastest FPGA available today in NI hardware. Additionally, the new NI cRIO-9022 controller features a Freescale 533 MHz industrial real-time processor that delivers faster real-time processing for time-critical control applications.

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Compact RTOS Evaluation platform from Renesas simplifies RTOS and stack selection and testing

Renesas Technology Europe and Hitex Development Tools have announced the launch of the compact low power RTOS Evaluator. Based on a low power H8S/2472F microcontroller, it allows the evaluation of several real time operating systems, TCP/IP stacks, USB stacks and FLASH file systems. Accompanying the evaluation platform is a DVD that includes software contributions from CMX, Euros, FreeRTOS, HCC- embedded, Micrium, Segger, Sevenstax, Thesycon.

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Software Tool from AVX Improves PC-based Design-in Process

AVX has developed a new component modeling and simulation software that can save cost, time to market and reduce potential quality issues. Designated AVX Component Simulator, the software enables designers to view all basic characteristics and parameters for Accu-P, Accu-L, Thin Film Low Pass Filters, Couplers, 3dB Splitters, Hi-CV SMT, LICC, LGA and IDC products. The simulation software features multiple parameter graphing options including Smith Charts, S-parameter, ESR, impedance, current, inductance and capacitance values.

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Atmel Launches Ultra Wideband Evaluation Kit for CAP Customizable Microcontroller

Atmel has announced an Ultra Wideband Evaluation Kit for rapid, low-cost development of UWB applications built around the AT91CAP9 ARM926EJ-S-based Customizable Microcontroller. The UWB Media Access Controller (MAC) is implemented, together with any application-specific logic, in the FPGA that emulates the CAP Metal Programmable (MP) Block. The UWB Physical Access Layer (PHY) is implemented in transmission and reception extension boards that plug into the CAP Development Board.

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Full-featured ARM9 development kit announced by Hiteg

Hiteg has announced a Windows CE/Linux hardware/software development kit for Samsung's ARM9-based S3C2440 microprocessor. The AT2440EVB-II dev kit features the workhorse S3C2440 processor clocked to 533MHz, and targets embedded development training applications, industrial control equipment, and consumer electronics devices such as PDAs and PNDs (personal navigation devices).

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Dedicated Evaluation Board for Intelligent Power Modules

The new Evaluation Board EVBPS2XA7X from Mitsubishi Electric is specifically developed for design engineers using the 1200V DIPIPM Version 4 (DIPIPMTM: Dual In-Line Package Integrated Power Module) as the Evaluation Board provides users with an image of the system interface.

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JTAG ARM emulator adds Ethernet capability

Phaedrus Systems is now shipping the J-Link ARM Pro, a high performance JTAG emulator for a wide range of ARM architectures. Based on the successful SEGGER J-Link emulator, the J-Link ARM Pro has an Ethernet interface, allowing complete electrical isolation between host and target and remote operation, additional memory for increased firmware downloads and two additional LEDs to act as hardware status indicators.

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Altium further extends FPGA-based design

Altium has announced another new daughter board for its desktop NanoBoard reconfigurable hardware development platform. This latest plug-in daughter board targets features Altera's low-cost Cyclone III EP3C40 FPGA in a 780 BGA package. The daughter board includes a range of on-board memories for application use and a 1-Wire memory device used to store board identification and related information.

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DDC-I Best-in-Class RTOS to be Integrated with LDRA Analysis and Test Tools

DDC-I, a leading supplier of software and professional services for safety-critical applications, and LDRA today announced that they are collaborating to deliver an integrated safety-critical software platform that combines DDC-I's Deos real-time operating system (RTOS) with the LDRA tool suite. The integrated solution will help developers get to market faster with optimized, hardened software that meets the most demanding safety-critical requirements, including DO-178B Level A certification, the FAA's highest level of safety criticality.

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NI LabVIEW Toolkits Automate Software Testing to Ensure Quality and Reliablity

National Instruments has announced the NI LabVIEW Unit Test Framework and LabVIEW Desktop Execution Trace toolkits, which are new software engineering tools for the LabVIEW graphical development environment. This coincides with the release of NI Requirements Gateway 1.1 requirements management software.

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Altium expands programmable device options for next generation electronics design

Altium continues to expand programmable device options for its desktop NanoBoard reconfigurable hardware development platform. It's released a new daughter board aimed at high performance signal processing, FPGA-based applications. The new daughter board hosts a member of the Xilinx Virtex-4 device family, the XC4VSX35-10FFG668C device. It's housed in a 668-ball grid Array and comes complete with on-board memories for application use, and a 1-Wire memory device used to store board identification data.

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Maxim Launches EE-Sim Online Simulation Tool

Maxim and Transim Technology Corporation have announced the launch of Maxim's EE-Sim Design Center, powered by Transim's WebSIM online design technology. A virtual design environment, EE-Sim allows engineers to create and simulate complex circuits online in a matter of mere minutes, greatly reducing design time.

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Evaluation modules ease integration and development of USB 2.0 High Speed interfaces

Future Technology Devices International (FTDI) has announced the availability of two evaluation modules to support their recently announced FT2232H and FT4232H USB 2.0 High Speed devices, which have the capability of being configured in a variety of industry standard serial or parallel interfaces such as UART or FIFO. The module PCB measures just 36mm (L) x 30mm (W) x 12mm (H –including connector pins). Each module provides access to all the required signals through two 26 way (2 rows, 0.1" pitch) male headers measuring 32.9mm x 5.08mm. The pin length is 6mm.

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picoChip launches eight-user HSPA femtocell reference design

picoChip has announced the PC8219, a complete baseband solution for eight-user WCDMA femtocells designed to run on its established PC202 processor chip. Two of picoChip's lead customers are key development partners for the product.

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congatec's conga-ARkit is a reference platform for automation

congatec has introduced the conga-ARkit, a complete solution package for the implementation of PLC functions. This comprehensive package was developed in conjunction with 3S-Smart Software Solutions GmbH, Real-Time Systems GmbH and OSCAT ('Open Source Community for Automation Technology'). It addresses PLC manufacturers and companies that intend to integrate PLC functionality in their applications.

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In-System Emulation Technology supports Intel XScale Architecture

GOEPEL electronic has developed a dedicated model library for the XScale processors PXA2xx and PXA3xx that supports the innovative emulation technology VarioTAP. The libraries, described as VarioTAP models, are structured modularly as intelligent IP and enable a complete fusion of Boundary Scan test and JTAG emulation. Employing this technology, frequently used NAND flash can be in-system programmed with the help of the processor function. Furthermore, VarioTAP® supports interlaced Bus Emulation Tests (BET) and System Emulation Tests (SET) for extended JTAG/Boundary Scan functionality.

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Display Interfacing Workshop for Design Engineers

Densitron will be running two interactive workshops in March and April to help design engineers tackling problems they encounter in the display interfacing process. The workshop offers a unique opportunity to gain practical knowledge on the interfaces of TFT and OLED displays, and discusses and provides solutions to common interfacing problems.

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Westinghouse Rail Systems reduces SIL4 validation effort by 70% with Artisan Studio

Artisan Software Tools has announced that Westinghouse Rail Systems Limited (WRSL) has extended its use of Artisan Studio to develop an automated Safety Integrity Level 4 (SIL4) validation process that has dramatically improved validation speed, resulting in a 70% reduction in its SIL4 validation effort.

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Aonix Releases ObjectAda for Wind River VxWorks RTOS

Aonix, a provider of solutions for safety and mission-critical applications, today announced the release of ObjectAda 8.4 for Windows, targeting PowerPC embedded and real-time systems running the Wind River VxWorks 6.6 real-time operating system (RTOS). This is the first ObjectAda release supporting full Ada tasking atop VxWorks 6.6 via Real-Time Processes (RTP).

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NEC Unveils a Complete Set-Top Box Reference Design

NEC Electronics Europe has announced the availability of a complete cost and power consumption optimized manufacturer's kit based on NEC Electronics' EMMA3SL/LP MPEG-4 digital TV processor which drastically reduces the time to market of MPEG-4 standard definition set-top box.

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Demonstrator proves XFP 10GEPON technology and accelerates future system design

Phyworks is shipping a highly integrated 10GEPON XFP transceiver demonstration module for Optical Networking Unit (ONU) applications. Compatible with existing 10GEPON MAC evaluation boards, the module enables FTTx system and optical module manufacturers to evaluate the 10G Phyworks chipset in advance of final ratification of the IEEE802.3av standard.

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Microchip Expands Support for Motor Control with New Tools and Libraries

Microchip has announced expanded support for Motor Control applications based on the dsPIC Digital Signal Controller (DSC). The dsPICDEMTM MCLV Development Board (part #DM330021) is a new low-voltage Brushless DC (BLDC) motor-control development platform supporting the dsPIC33F family of motor control DSCs. It provides a cost-effective method for evaluating and developing sensored or sensorless BLDCs and Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) control applications.

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Patent Pending for LDRA’s New Automated Management of Software Requirements

LDRA has created new technology that automates the administration and traceability of software requirements. This patent-pending technology automates the techniques and tools for the integration of requirements traceability with software testing and verification. On completion, the technology will be integrated into TBreq, the portion of the LDRA tool suite devoted to requirements-driven testing.

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edXact major contributor in CILOE cluster dedicated to HPC and SaaS

Backend verification specialist edXact SA today announced that it is a major contributor in the joined development and innovative business model project, dubbed CILOE, led by Minalogic to help SMEs to develop massively parallel and optimized versions of their software on threaded processors and computing farms.

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Alstom Transport chooses Artisan Studio

Artisan Software Tools, the world's largest independent supplier of industrial-grade, collaborative modeling tools for complex, mission and safety-critical embedded systems and software, has announced that Alstom Transport has chosen Artisan Studio as the core platform for its new, global systems engineering strategy based on SysML.

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Green Hills Announces Formation of Software Performance Division

Green Hills Software has announced that it has formed a new division, Software Acceleration. Software Acceleration will provide consulting services, leveraging the company's extensive software performance engineering expertise, to make products run faster, use less power, and require less memory. Software Acceleration utilizes an extensive library of advanced profiling and optimization tools, combined with expert application methodology, to ensure success - backed by a Software Performance Guarantee.

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Green Hills to show first EAL6+ certified operating system at Embedded World

At Embedded World, Green Hills Software will be showcasing its INTEGRITY real-time operating system for applications that require high levels of security, safety and/or reliability. The exhibition will host the first European public demonstration of the EAL6+ certified INTEGRITY-178B OS, which is the world's first and only operating system certified to protect classified information against sophisticated hackers. In addition to the high security focus, the company will also be demonstrating INTEGRITY in industrial, avionics and other applications where high reliability is essential.

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Tensilica Enables Single Audio Core Blu-ray Disc Player SOCs

Tensilica has announced that it will demonstrate DTS-HD Master Audio Lossless decoding on the HiFi 2 Audio DSP (digital signal processor), the industry's lowest power, most area efficient audio processor core, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, January 8-11, 2009. The HiFi 2 DSP offers significant cost savings and a simplified programming model, as all Blu-ray audio processing can be done in one core, unlike other solutions that require two or more cores.

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Mixed-signal IP cores from Toshiba provide LVDS integration in SoCs for flat panel displays

Toshiba Electronics Europe's ASIC & Foundry Business Unit has launched two new mixed-signal IP cores that will simplify and speed integration of LVDS (low-voltage differential swing) transmitter and receiver functionality into system-on-chip (SoC) designs for flat panel display (FPD) applications.

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3D PCB design performance benchmarks from Altium

Altium has published a set of benchmarks for 3D PCB design performance using Altium Designer, its next generation electronics design solution. Altium is a pioneer of real-time, 3D PCB design environments, with the introduction of 3D board layouts, real-time 3D ECAD-MCAD collaboration, and now (with the launch of the winter 09 release of Altium Designer) enhanced performance in the PCB design engine. The latest winter 09 release uses less memory and run faster, up to six times faster in some systems.

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IAR Systems releases new version of IAR visualSTATE for high-integrity small embedded systems

IAR Systems has announced the launch of IAR visualSTATE 6.20, the latest release of its unique high-level design tool featuring code generation, simulation and test, and formal verification. The new release of IAR visualSTATE provides dramatically improved speed and memory efficiency, enabling rapid verification of more complex designs. This makes IAR visualSTATE even more suitable as a design tool for small embedded designs that require high integrity.

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Actel announces Barco's DO-254 Certifiable ARINC 429 IP Core Targeted to ProASIC3 FPGAs

Actel has announced that the Barco Silex BA511 ARINC 429 IP core, targeted for Actel's ProASIC3 FPGAs, has been DO-254 certified through implementations in multiple safety-critical avionics applications.

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Sundance Expands IP Portfolio

Sundance has announced that is has extended its partnership with Cadre Codesign, a specialist provider of IP and embedded FPGA design solutions, to deliver Cadre's CT-JPEG04 core across a range of it's modular DSP FPGA multiprocessor hardware solutions. Based on the JPEG ISO/IEC IS 110918-1 standard image-compression algorithm, the core compresses images of 1280 x 1024 pixels resolution at a rate of 500 frames/sec and can sustain an input of one 8 bit pixel every 660MHz. This level of performance makes the solution ideally suited to applications where images are either analyzed on the fly or stored for later reference and analysis.

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Actel has announced the availability of Libero Integrated Design Environment (IDE) version 8.5.

Actel's comprehensive suite of software design tools extends support for the recently announced nano versions of IGLOO and ProASIC3 field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Libero IDE version 8.5 also introduces support for instantiation and configuration of embedded mathblocks for use in Actel's new radiation-tolerant RTAX-DSP family.

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Sibridge Technologies Becomes Tensilica Authorized Design Centre

Tensilica has announced that Sibridge Technologies has become an authorized Tensilica design center, supporting customers of both the Xtensa configurable processors and the Diamond Standard processor cores. Sibridge has offices in Fremont, CA, and Ahmedabad, India, and supports a number of global electronics companies.

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Renesas Develops IP Supporting PCI Express 2.0 High-Speed Serial Interface Standard

Renesas Technology has announced the development of logical and physical layer intellectual property (IP) conforming to PCI Express Base Specification Revision 2.0 (PCI Express 2.0), a high-speed serial interface standard.

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XMOS ships 300th development kit

XMOS, the creator of Software Defined Silicon, has announced the shipment of 300 development kits in the two months following their introduction. Take-up of the XMOS development kits has been worldwide, covering a diverse range of users and a broad spectrum of applications, from networked audio and LED display panel control through to industrial automation. Two-thirds have gone to commercial users, a third to research and academia.

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Real-time, 3D PCB design from Altium

Altium has launched the winter 09 release of its next generation electronics design solution Altium Designer. Altium has introduced a number of new design technologies and concepts to help electronics designers innovate, exploit advances in technology, and make the task of designing a product and getting it to market easier and faster.

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P-Product Becomes Tensilica Authorized Software Design Center

Tensilica has announced that P-Product, of Needham, MA, has joined Tensilica's Xtensions Partner network as an authorized software design center, specializing in efficient implementations of digital signal processing (DSP) software. P-Product has extensive expertise in audio and video as well as in WiMAX and LTE. P-Product has already ported multiple audio software modules to Tensilica's popular HiFi 2 Audio Engine.

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Sundance gets IET award

Sundance DSP Inc., the supplier and manufacturer of advanced digital signal processing (DSP) and reconfigurable computing platforms, advanced IP cores, libraries and tools today announced that its PARS (Parallel Application from Rapid Simulation) software development environment was named winner of the Software Design category at the Institution of Engineering and Technology's (IET) Innovation Awards 2008.

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Green Hills and 3S-Smart Software Solutions Partner to Deliver IEC 61131-3 Programming Capability to Platform for Industrial Safety

Green Hills Software has announced that it has signed a partnership agreement with 3S-Smart Software Solutions, makers of CoDeSys, the leading IEC 61131-3 programming system for creating controller applications. 3S will integrate CoDeSys SP, the run-time environment for CoDeSys applications, with the Green Hills Platform for Industrial Safety.

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Microchip announces PICkit™ 3 Debug Express

Microchip announces higher performance for its most popular low-cost PICkit™ development platform. The PICkit 3 Debug Express kit includes PICkit 3 debugger and programmer probe, 44-pin demo board populated with a PIC18F45K20 MCU, free MPLAB® IDE and free version of the MPLAB C Compiler for PIC18 MCUs. All this is supported by easy-to-understand lessons and tutorials, and a host of other software utilities, examples with source code and full documentation.

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congatec Starter Kit Enables Use of Intel® Atom™ Low-Power Technology in Vehicles

Applications based on the latest Intel® Atom™ processors offer high performance with minimal power consumption and are thus optimal for use on the go. Especially in cars, the symbol of mobility in our age, numerous applications are possible. congatec AG, in cooperation with Intel, Xilinx and Wind River, has developed a new starter kit to demonstrate the successful implementation of modern PC technology in demanding in-vehicle applications. With the comprehensive conga-IVI Starter Kit automotive solutions can be quickly and easily created.

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National Semiconductor Introduces Six PowerWise Energy-Efficient Subsystem Reference Designs

Six new PowerWise® reference designs from National Semiconductor Corp. empower design engineers to speed through the design process, delivering products that consume less power, extend battery life and generate less heat. PowerWise reference designs combine energy-efficient devices and arrange them in a system to actively lower power consumption and reduce heat dissipation.

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picoChip femtocell designs enable self-organizing wireless networks

picoChip has announced three software reference designs that provide the first integrated network listen (or 'sniffer') capabilities for femtocells. The PC8210, PC8211 and PC8810 Radio Environment Scanners (RESs) enable femtocells to detect WCDMA, GSM and TD-SCDMA networks respectively.

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Geensys’ AUTOSAR Builder claims first with ARTOP (AUTOSAR Tool Platform) compliance

Geensys has announced that its AUTOSAR Builder is the first AUTOSAR development tool to provide compliance with ARTOP – the new AUTOSAR Tool Platform being established by the ARTOP User Group (ARTOP-UG) and officially launched to the AUTOSAR community on October 27th.

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Microchip unveils high-speed in-circuit debugger

Microchip has announced the MPLAB ICD 3 - a cost-effective, high-speed development tool that supports in-circuit programming and debugging of Microchip's Flash-based 8-bit PIC microcontrollers (MCUs), and its entire line of 16- and 32-bit MCUs and 16-bit dsPIC Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs). With robust system capabilities and high-speed circuitry, flash MCU programming times are 15X or faster than the current generation, plus the MPLAB ICD 3 offers full compatibility with the MPLAB IDE, exceptional programming speed and reliability.

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Artisan announces Early Availability Program for Artisan GSN Modeler

Artisan® Software Tools has announced the Artisan GSN Modeler. Artisan GSN Modeler provides developers of safety-critical systems with a powerful and easy-to-use visual modeling environment for the creation of well-structured, complex Safety Arguments using the Goal Structuring Notation (GSN). Artisan GSN Modeler will particularly appeal to Safety Case developers within the aerospace, defense, transportation and power industries that need to rigorously document and apply Safety Cases. Artisan GSN Modeler is available free-of-charge to new applicants accepted on to Artisan's Early Availability Program.

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Pigeon Point Systems Unveils Breakthrough Integrated HPI For Leading ATCA Shelf Manager

Pigeon Point Systems today introduced its new IntegralHPI™, an innovative implementation of the Hardware Platform Interface that can be installed as an integrated subsystem of the company's market-leading Shelf Manager.

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Extreme Engineering Solutions Provides 3U VPX Development Chassis

Extreme Engineering Solutions is pleased to introduce the XPand1000, a VITA 46 3U dual-slot conduction-cooled chassis. The chassis is intended to provide 3U VPX system engineers with an inexpensive desktop platform to jump-start their software or hardware development.

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Aonix Brings Ada Kernel Certification Kit to Market

Aonix's ObjectAda RAVEN certification kit provides the evidence and tools customers need to certify to DO-178B Level A and other standards. Since certification costs from $50 to $100s per line of source code, such tools save companies a significant amount of development cost and time.

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NI Announces High-Performance, Deterministic Ethernet Hardware for LabVIEW

National Instruments has announced a high-performance 8-slot chassis that delivers deterministic expansion I/O to the NI LabVIEW graphical development platform. The new chassis provides high-speed, jitter-free communication for applications such as distributed control, machine building and hardware in the loop.

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IAR Systems launches Development Kit for NXP LPC2478

IAR Systems has announced the launch of the IAR KickStart Kit for NXP LPC2478, a complete development kit that provides a design platform with a touch screen display for multi-interface communication applications featuring Ethernet and USB device and host. The new development kit is ideal for industrial, medical, point-of-sales and other connected applications, and contains all the necessary hardware and software to allow the developer to design, develop, integrate and test new applications.

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Express Logic and PolyCore Software Announce Commercial RTOS Integration of Multicore Association’s MCAPI Communications API

Express Logic, Inc and PolyCore Software, Inc. today announced the first commercial RTOS integration of the Multicore Association's recently released Multicore Communications API (MCAPI) specification. MCAPI provides an industry standard, implementation agnostic API for multicore systems communication. PolyCore Software's Poly-Messenger/MCAPI is a communications framework simplifying multicore communication. Express Logic's ThreadX RTOS is a widely-used, small, fast, royalty-free real-time operating system for embedded applications.

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Hardware development kit provides fast track to Software Defined Silicon designs

XMOS, the creator of Software Defined Silicon, has introduced a credit card sized development board that provides everything needed to start developing applications based on its XS1-G family of programmable devices. The XC-1 development board is available as part of the US$99 XC-1 hardware development kit and comes with all necessary support hardware and immediate access to XMOS' web-based tool suite.

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National Instruments and WisyTech Collaborate on WiMAX Toolkit for LabVIEW

National Instruments has announced its collaboration with WisyTech, a wireless systems specialty spin-off of Italy's National Research Council and Politecnico di Milano and partnership with ATE integrator Alfautomazione, on a forthcoming WiMAX toolkit for the NI LabVIEW graphical system design platform. The plug-in toolkit extends the ease-of-use of LabVIEW graphical programming to engineers and scientists developing WiMAX RF compliant devices, semiconductors, base stations and customer premises equipment.

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On-line LED designer pack from Aerco

The LEDules2 range of LED modules from CML Innovative Technologies, now available in the UK from Aerco, is supplied with an on-line 'designer's pack' that includes application notes and technical data sheets on how to incorporate drivers, heatsinks and other aspects of LED technology.

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Green Hills µ-velOSity for ARC 600 Core Family

Green Hills Software has announced that µ-velOSity is now available for ARC International's ARC 600 Core Family of configurable cores and ARC Sound Subsystem. With a ROM footprint as small as 2K bytes, RAM footprint as small as 1K bytes, and service call times as low as 30 cycles, µ-velOSity is ideal for the cost-sensitive, high-performance applications for which ARC cores and subsystems are ideally suited.

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New Class D audio power amplifier reference design from International Rectifier

International Rectifier has introduced the IRAUDAMP7 reference design for Class D audio amplifiers above 25W per channel including home theatre applications, musical instruments and car entertainment. With a power range from 25W to 500W, the IRAUDAMP7 offers a high degree of scalability on a single layer PCB.

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Aonix User Interface Management System Delivers GUI Development for 64-bit Platforms

Aonix has released TeleUSE version 4.0, the latest version of its object-oriented User Interface Management System environment, for 64-bit architectures. New platform support in TeleUSE 4.0 enables seamless cross-platform Motif graphical user interface (GUI) application development on the latest 64-bit systems running Linux, Solaris, and HPUX. A 32-bit edition of TeleUSE 4.0 continues to support development of applications on 32-bit platforms.

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NEC Electronics Europe Announces Applilet2

NEC Electronics Europe has announced the availability of Applilet2 device configuration software. The Applilet2 software provides an easy to use graphical user interface to configure all of the features and peripherals available on all of NEC Electronics' microcontrollers. This new free to down load software tool significantly reduces the development cycle for new products and applications.

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TI introduces 14-bit, 800-MSPS digitiser solution

Texas Instruments has introduced an evaluation module (EVM) that combines TI's fastest 14-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) in an interleaved fashion with a Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGA to create the best-performing high-speed digitizer solution in the market. The FPGA comes pre-installed with SP Devices' proprietary time-interleaving technology to eliminate interleaving spurs, which enhances performance and facilitates rapid system-level evaluation for wireless communications, military, test and measurement applications. The EVM joins TI's portfolio of support tools for customers using high-speed data converters in wide-bandwidth applications.

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Artisan launches Artisan Studio 7.0

Artisan Software Tools has launched version 7.0 of Artisan Studio, its flagship model-driven development tool suite. Artisan Studio provides complete support for UML, OMG SysMLTM, and Architectural Frameworks in a single, integrated environment.

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IAR Systems, NXP Semiconductors and Micrium collaborate to launch flexible RTOS-based reference design platform

IAR Systems, NXP Semiconductors, and Micrium have announced the launch of a new reference design platform targeted at RTOS-based, ARM-powered embedded systems for industrial applications. The new platform gives software and hardware engineers a fast time to market for systems based on the LPC2468 ARM7 microcontroller from NXP Semiconductors, starting from a proven hardware/software platform with flexible pre-designed modules for a wide range of applications.

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Green Hills Supports Freescale’s MPC5121e Microprocessor

Green Hills Software has announced the immediate availability of its software development solution targeting Freescale's MPC5121e microprocessor, built on Power Architecture technology. Components of the Green Hills Software development toolkit include royalty-free RTOSes, optimizing C/C++ compilers for Power Architecture technology, MULTI integrated development environment (IDE), virtual prototyping platform, and high-speed hardware probes.

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Layer 3 Routing for Freescale Multicore Processors from Green Hills

Green Hills Software has announced the availability of a secure, multicore-optimized networking and routing solution for the Freescale QorIQ processor portfolio. Based on the security and safety certified INTEGRITY operating system, this solution defends against security threats by eliminating vulnerabilities commonly found in the core software of deployed telecom systems. Green Hills Software's Platform for Secure Networking offers commercial-grade, field-proven, dual IPv4/IPv6 routing stack, cryptographic communications suite, and Layer 3 routing protocols including OSPF, BGP, and RIP. This high-performance integrated solution is optimized for both symmetric and asymmetric multiprocessing on Freescale's QorIQ platform.

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National Instruments Introduces Single-Board RIO Platform

National Instruments has announced new NI Single-Board RIO devices that offer engineers and scientists a low-cost, integrated hardware option for deploying embedded control and data acquisition applications. The eight new sbRIO-96xx devices combine an embedded real-time processor, reconfigurable field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and analogue and digital I/O on a single printed circuit board (PCB), making them ideal for applications that require flexibility, high performance and reliability in a small form factor. Engineers and scientists can use the NI LabVIEW graphical system design platform to customise NI Single-Board RIO hardware as well as develop all aspects of their embedded systems for increased productivity and shorter time to market.

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Aonix PERC Ultra Supports Latest VxWorks Release

Aonix nnounces the release of PERC Ultra 5.1 cross development and target support on Wind River's VxWorks 6.6 real-time operating system and Wind River Workbench development suite. With more than 1 million field systems in markets such as aerospace, defense, telecommunications, industrial control and robotics, PERC Ultra well suits the broad real-time market leadership of VxWorks. These joint solutions will enable developers to take advantage of Java language capabilities while ensuring that critical deterministic behavior requirements can still be met.

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Green Hills Software Announces Secure Device Management

Green Hills Software has announced what it says is the world's first secure device management solution. Green Hills Software's Device Management Solution enables customers to securely perform in-field and remote diagnostics, debugging, upgrade, and management of deployed software.

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Software Defined Silicon development kit from XMOS accelerates electronic design

XMOS Semiconductor has introduced a development kit providing everything needed to develop a wide range of applications using its XS1-G4 programmable device. Designs are created using a C-based software development flow that dramatically shortens the time required to build electronic products and systems.

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SoC design and verification platform from Toshiba

Toshiba Electronics Europe (TEE) has announced a new system-on-chip (SoC) design and verification platform that will significantly shorten ASIC and ASSP development time. The CPS (Chip-Package-System) co-design/co-verification platform supports the rapid identification of the optimum SoC package as well as delivering the cost/performance benefits and improving verification accuracy prior to hardware prototyping.

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Green Hills Software Supports for Xilinx Virtex-5 FXT FPGAs

Green Hills Software has announced the availability of its software development solution targeting the Xilinx Virtex-5 FXT FPGAs with embedded PowerPC 440 processor blocks. Components of the Green Hills Software solution include the INTEGRITY real-time operating system, optimizing C/C++ compilers for Power Architecture, MULTI integrated development environment (IDE), virtual prototyping platform, DoubleCheck static analyzer, and high-speed hardware debug probes. Green Hills Software's technologies form a co-developed and highly integrated solution that enables system developers leveraging the system integration capabilities of Virtex-5 FXT FPGAs to create reliable, high-performance applications in the least amount of time and at the lowest cost.

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Evaluation board from Toshiba speeds development of sensorless BLDC motor control designs

Toshiba Electronics Europe has expanded its family of motion control development platforms with a new evaluation board that will speed implementation of sensorless drives for three-phase brushless DC (BLDC) motors. The new board is ideal for testing and prototyping drives for motion control applications requiring motor bridge voltages ranging from around 10V to 42V.

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Green Hills Software Joins Power.org

Green Hills Software has announced its membership at the Sponsor level in Power.org, the open organization that develops and promotes Power Architecture technology. Green Hills Software is providing leadership and experience to help develop, enable, and promote Power Architecture technology, optimize interoperability, and accelerate innovation. Green Hills Software's experts are participating in the Power.org technical subcommittees, including debugging, hypervisors, operating systems, embedded platform requirements, virtual platforms, and application binary interfaces.

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Polar Instruments introduces Impedance Coupon Generator

Polar Instruments announce the launch of an automatic coupon generator which dramatically reduces the time required to generate impedance test coupons compared to manual or scripted systems. Conventional methods of coupon generation require both skill and time, and even scripted systems may not be able to produce complex coplanar or waveguide coupons. These systems are also prone to errors which can result in incorrect line widths on the finished coupon.

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DeviceSQL on Blackfin improves efficiency and performance while accelerating software development in a wide range of applications

Encirq and Analog Devices, Inc. today announced the availability of DeviceSQL, an embedded database SDK, optimized for developing applications on the ADSP-BF548 Blackfin processor from Analog Devices. DeviceSQL is an award-winning SDK that is used to build a variety of high-speed data management functions including embedded databases, data loggers, search engines, language tables and more. It makes it easy to build extremely fast, tight, reliable code for processing and managing data in set-top box applications, portable media players, automotive infotainment systems, home entertainment systems and more. DeviceSQL is shipping in millions of consumer electronics devices with proven performance in a wide variety of applications.

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Green Hills Software Extends Support for Texas Instruments’ DaVinci Digital Media Processors

Green Hills Software has announced the immediate availability of its comprehensive software development solution targeting Texas Instruments' DM355 DaVinci digital media processor. Components of the Green Hills development toolkit include: royalty-free real time operating systems, optimizing C/C++ compilers for ARM, MULTI integrated development environment (IDE), DoubleCheck integrated static source code analyzer and high-speed JTAG hardware probes.

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Tensilica Announces Open Source Linux Emphasis, Broadens Processor Core Ecosystem with New Linux PartnersTimeSys and Embedded Alley

Tensilica has announced that Embedded Linux 2.6 and GNU tools based on GCC 4.2, both available at www.linux-xtensa.org, is now backed by two well-respected Linux industry partners. Embedded Alley Solutions, Inc. of San Jose, CA, provides Platform Optimized Linux Solutions, Linux consulting services and training. Timesys, of Pittsburgh, PA, is providing subscriptions to LinuxLink for Tensilica customers to access embedded software, tools, documentation, and support and Timestorm: an Eclipse-based IDE that provides a point-and-click interface for kernel and root filesystem configuration, profiling, testing, and debugging.

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National Instruments Advances Medical Device Design with Technology and Training

National Instruments has announced three initiatives to help support safe and efficient medical device development. Beginning this month, National Instruments is offering a series of free workshops that demonstrate how to develop a medical device using NI technology as well as provide instruction on how to secure validation for the device from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The company is also co-hosting a two-day workshop in August to give physicians, scientists and engineers a forum to network and share ideas on addressing some of the challenges and solutions for device research, development and commercialisation. Additionally, National Instruments has started a grant programme that will provide software, support and training to start-up companies developing medical devices.

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Electronics designers and mechanical designers can collaborate in real time

Altium has introduced technology that, for the first time, lets electronic designers fit their boards into enclosures in real time, in 3D, without guesswork. They can eliminate the numerous costly, trial-and-error, "wait-and-see" ECAD-MCAD iterations that, until now, have delayed bringing a product to market.

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Teklatech’s floorplanning EDA tool exclusively selected by Think Silicon

Teklatech, a technology leader in floorplanning and clock distribution network solutions, has announced that its FloorDirector product has been exclusively chosen by Think Silicon for use in 90 nm and 65 nm designs. Think Silicon, an innovative European design center and supplier of various IP and turnkey solutions, has selected the FloorDirector EDA tool for its unique floorplanning optimization technology which is required for a wide range of SoC applications, including multimedia, DSP, wireless, networking and mobile. FloorDirector's ability to deliver SoC power shaping and provide robustness to on-chip-variation were key factors in Think Silicon's decision.

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AMOLED Demonstration made easy with Densitron’s Exclusive Evaluation Kit

Densitron's in-house developed OLED Evaluation Kit has been en-hanced to support Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED) displays, complete with power supply requirements. A powerful and easy to use demonstration tool for driving OLED displays from the USB port of a desk-top or laptop PC, the Kit is hot pluggable and does not require extra power supply to run, enabling quick download of pictures and creation of slide shows for immediate demonstration.

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Optical module reference design from Phyworks provides instant digital solution

Phyworks has introduced a complete hardware and software reference design for 125Mbps – 1.25Gbps SFP optical modules offering a fully digital configuration and monitoring capability. Aiming to help datacomm module makers and network operators significantly reduce costs and time-to-market, this flexible reference design does not require specialised software engineering knowledge.

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NI Introduces Prototyping Platform for Interactive, Hands-On Learning

National Instruments has announced NI ELVIS II, the latest version of the design and prototyping platform that educators worldwide have adopted for hands-on, project-based learning. Based on the powerful LabVIEW graphical system design software, NI ELVIS II gives educators 12 new USB plug-and-play instruments and complete integration with Multisim 10.1 software for SPICE simulation to simplify the teaching of circuit design. In addition, educators can use NI ELVIS II with a suite of third-party boards and curriculum resources to teach control design, telecommunications and microcontroller concepts.

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Development platform speeds design and prototyping of display-based applications

Arrow's European reference board team has created an advanced, FPGA-based development platform that will speed the implementation of display-based applications. The new PABLO reference design provides a powerful yet easy-to-use reference design that enables the rapid design and prototyping of applications requiring integrated graphic and display controller functionality.

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Artisan launches C# Synchronizer for Artisan Studio

Artisan Software Tools has launched the C# Synchronizer for Artisan Studio. Artisan's C# Synchronizer facilitates a "best-of-breed" methodology for C# programmers by enabling software architecting to be undertaken in UML using Artisan Studio while allowing them retain the context of C#-aware features by implementing the coding detail using their preferred C# IDE or program editor.

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CoWare and Agility Team to Accelerate the Simulation of Complex DSP Algorithms

CoWare, Inc and Agility Design Solutions, Inc have announced a strategic relationship focused on accelerating the simulation and implementation of complex DSP algorithms starting from MATLAB models. CoWare is offering its customers integration support for accelerated C models generated by Agility's RMS and MCS products into the entire range of CoWare's ESL 2.0 solutions.

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Actel Introduces Igloo-Based Portable Control Solutions

Further expanding its offerings for the portable market based on the industry's lowest power field-programmable gate array (FPGA), Actel has announced two plug-in daughter cards developed to manage human machine interface (HMI) and miniature motor control functionality. The new HMI Daughter Card and the Motor Control Daughter Card are offered as plug-ins to Actel's popular IGLOO Icicle Kit. Combined with the company's previously announced IGLOO-based storage and display-related development boards, design examples and intellectual property (IP) cores, the company believes these new control-related solutions will increase market penetration for Actel's 5 microwatt (µW) IGLOO FPGAs in the rapidly growing portable market.

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National Instruments Introduces Graphical Differencing and User Interface Toolkit for Comparing Models Developed Using The MathWorks, Inc. Simulink® Software

National Instruments has announced the NI Graphical Differencing and User Interface Toolkit, a software solution that helps engineers and scientists identify differences between models built using The MathWorks, Inc. Simulink software. Engineers and scientists can also use the toolkit to easily create user interfaces to interact with their models built using Simulink. The ability to easily compare models and identify differences makes the toolkit ideal for team-based application development in industries such as aerospace, automotive and medical. Valid for worldwide use, the toolkit is offered in collaboration with ExpertControl, a technical software company headquartered in Germany.

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Lighting design kit from Texas Instruments has remote-controlled LED board

Texas Instruments continues to drive advancements in the lighting industry with the introduction of a wireless remote control RGB light emitting diode (LED) design kit. The TPS62260LED plus TI's award-winning eZ430-RF2500 development tool completes a fully supported platform to design new and exciting color lighting innovations for consumer, commercial, professional and architectural applications.

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TI's untra-thin chip module enables production of high-quality graphics-rich branded contactless cards

Texas Instruments has announced the availability of its ultra-thin module for contactless payment applications which removes another technology barrier for broader proliferation of contactless payment. Now 26 percent thinner than conventional packaged contactless chip offerings, the new ultra-thin module enables card manufacturers to produce an increasing array of colorful and distinctive products with higher yields as a result of causing fewer visual imperfections than thicker chip modules.

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Artisan appoints Tess-com Group to distribute Artisan Studio in Italy

Artisan Software Tools, the leading independent developer of premium-quality, collaborative modeling tools for complex, mission-critical embedded systems and software, has appointed Tess-com Italia as the Italian distributor for Artisan Studio, its award-winning, all-in-one, standards-based development tool suite.

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Movie Player Video/Audio Playback Software Achieves High-Performance Video Processing on the SH-Mobile Application Processor for Mobile Phones

Renesas has announced the development of a Flexible Movie Player video/audio playback software package for embedded systems using the SH-Mobile application processor for mobile phones. The software will be available from July 2008 in Japan.

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Actel Partners With Pigeon Point Systems To Deliver TCA Management Solutions

Building upon its existing portfolio for the growing TCA market, Actel has announced it has partnered with Pigeon Point Systems, a market-leading supplier of TCA management components, to deliver system management platforms for higher performance applications. Leveraging Actel's single-chip, mixed-signal Fusion Programmable System Chip (PSC) with an embedded FPGA-optimized 32-bit ARM Cortex-M1 processor and optimized Pigeon Point firmware, the first products will include development kits to speed the design of Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (ATCA) and Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) carrier board management controllers, all based on the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) architecture.

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Lattice Semiconductor and Synplicity Expand Partnership

Lattice Semiconductor and Synplicity, Inc., have announced an expansion to the companies' existing OEM agreement. Under the terms of the new agreement, Synplicity will be Lattice Semiconductor's exclusive synthesis partner, and Lattice will broaden its synthesis offering in its ispLEVER design tool suite to include the industry-leading Synplify Pro logic synthesis software for higher-level designs.

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IAR Systems partners with Atmel to deliver tools support for AVR XMEGA

IAR Systems has announced the launch of Version 5.10 of IAR Embedded Workbench for AVR, which now supports the new AVR XMEGA family of 8-bit microcontrollers from Atmel. This latest release is the result of a close partnership with Atmel during their development of XMEGA, and consolidates the position of IAR Embedded Workbench as the leading high-end C/C++ compiler for AVR.

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IAR Systems supports Luminary Micro’s expanded range of Stellaris microcontrollers featuring USB

IAR Systems has announced that IAR Embedded Workbench® for ARM® now features full support for the new USB-enabled additions to Luminary Micro's award-winning ARM Cortex-M3-based Stellaris® microcontroller family, also announced today. At the same time Luminary Micro has announced two new evaluation kits, both featuring a free code size limited KickStart Edition of IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM.

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Synplicity Introduces System Designer: System-Level Implementation and IP Integration Tool for FPGA Design

Synplicity®, Inc. today introduced System Designer™, a device-independent intellectual property (IP) configuration and system-level assembly environment that has been added to Synplicity's Synplify Pro® and Synplify® Premier FPGA design implementation tools. The System Designer™ capability allows users to select, configure and assemble internal and third-party IP delivered in the IP-XACT format, integrate that IP and then easily implement it into a variety of FPGA vendor devices, including those from Actel, Altera, Lattice Semiconductor and Xilinx. The new tool flow provides FPGA designers, using IP and system-level blocks, with an extremely productive path to implementing complex systems in FPGAs.

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Synplicity Launches ReadyIP Program: the Industry’s first Universal, Secure IP Flow for FPGA Implementation

Synplicity®, Inc. today announced the ReadyIP Initiative, a program that takes aim at simplifying the access, evaluation, and use of intellectual property (IP) for FPGA-based system design. The ReadyIP program delivers the industry's first and complete universal, encrypted design methodology for FPGA implementation, allowing users to incorporate and easily integrate IP from several third-party vendors within their designs using the Synplify Pro® and/or Synplify® Premier solutions, Synplicity's industry-standard synthesis environments.

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Jennic Starter Kit de-skills low power wireless connectivity for just $219

Jennic announces the immediate availability of a new low-cost Starter Kit which allows developers with little or no wireless experience to develop products. Priced at just $219, the JN5139-EK020 IEEE802.15.4/JenNet Starter Kit, simplifies the evaluation and application development of low power wireless connectivity products using Jennic's robust and reliable JenNet networking stack.

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Three-phase motor drive application kit

Arrow has announced the availability of a three-phase motor drive application kit that provides all of the hardware and software needed to rapidly develop energy-efficient variable speed motion control designs based on motors with ratings to 750W.

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IAR Systems announces native hardware debug and C++ compiler support for Microchip Technology devices

IAR Systems has strengthened its support for Microchip Technology's range of 16-bit PIC24 microcontrollers (MCUs) and dsPIC33F digital signal controllers (DSCs) by adding native hardware level debug support, through the inclusion of the Microchip MPLAB REAL ICE In-Circuit Emulator System within its C-SPY debugger, an integral component of IAR Embedded Workbench.

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Micrium Completes First Ports to Analog Devices’ Blackfin Processors

As part of its commitment to supporting all major microprocessor platforms, Micrium has announced that its uC/OS-IITM real time operating system (RTOS) and uC/TCP-IPTM network stack have been ported to Analog Devices' Blackfin family of microprocessors. The company's uC/ProbeTM monitoring tool is also fully compatible with Blackfin processors.

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Young robot designers innovate with Altium’s support

Altium Limited has donated licenses of its Altium Designer integrated electronics design software to FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) for use in its annual robotics design competition.

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FTDI first vendor to release Microsoft certified USB-UART driver for Windows Server 2008

Future Technology Devices International Limited (FTDI) has announced the availability of its latest Microsoft certified CDM device driver for all Windows platforms, including Vista SP1 and the newly released Server 2008.

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Synplicity Announces Immediate Support For Xilinx Virtex-5 FXT FPGAs

Synplicity, Inc has today announced that its advanced FPGA synthesis solution Synplify Pro, now supports Virtex-5 FXT field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) from Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX), the world's leading supplier of programmable logic solutions. In addition, Synplicity has created an automated solution for integrating its Synplify Pro FPGA synthesis solution into the Xilinx Embedded Development Kit (EDK) so designers can achieve maximum productivity and quality of results for their embedded system designs.

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Synplicity’s Synplify DSP 3.6 Software Speeds DSP Algorithm Design for ASICs and FPGAs

Synplicity has released its newest version of the company's Synplify DSP ESL synthesis software for ASIC and FPGA design. The Synplify DSP 3.6 software includes new enhancements to its architectural optimizations and DSP synthesis methodology, as well as new Intellectual Property (IP) blocks and capacity improvements that will benefit customers working on complex digital multimedia and wireless IC designs.

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Multi-carrier, multi-standard development platform for wireless infrastructure base stations

Texas Instruments Incorporated has announced a scalable, programmable development ecosystem enabling base station OEMs to support multiple carriers of established and evolving wireless standards from a single platform. Based on TI's multicore TMS320TCI6487 and TMS320TCI6488 digital signal processors (DSPs) and multi-interface software libraries, the development platform covers all major air interfaces including GSM-EDGE, HSPA, HSPA+, TD-SCDMA , LTE and WiMAX. With a single development platform, OEMs largely "design once-deploy multiple" base stations, significantly reducing design costs, while speeding the deployment of new 3G features and beyond 3G standards.

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Tensilica's GUI Cuts Chip Energy Consumption

Tensilica has announced that it has added a new graphical user interface (GUI) to its popular Xenergy estimator, a unique energy estimator for both Xtensa configurable processors and Diamond Standard processors. This first of its kind tool allows software developers to evaluate trade-offs, so their software can be optimized for power, and lets hardware designers optimize the design of Xtensa configurable processors for total energy consumption.

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Express Logic and IAR Systems team up to provide ThreadX RTOS support in IAR Embedded Workbench IDE for Freescale ColdFire

Express Logic and IAR Systems, have announced that IAR Embedded Workbench now supports Express Logic's ThreadX RTOS. Developers using ThreadX now can elect to use IAR Embedded Workbench IDE for their ColdFire software development tools.

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New version of MagNet will support enhanced core loss calculations

Infolytica Corporation plans to release a new version of MagNet that will be available in the spring of 2008. Topping the list of new features is a total revamp of core loss calculations.

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Mouser Now Stocking Microchip’s PICDEM Touch Sense 1 Demonstration Board

Mouser Electronics has announced it is stocking the PICDEM Touch Sense 1 Demo Board from Microchip Technology, a leading supplier of microcontroller and analog semiconductors.

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Synplicity Announces Acquisition By Synopsys

Synplicity, Inc., a leading supplier of solutions for the design and verification of semiconductors, has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Synopsys, Inc., a world leader in software and IP for semiconductor design and manufacturing. When completed, the acquisition will expand Synplicity's product portfolio and extend the market reach of its industry leading products.

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Mouser Now Stocking Actel’s Icicle Development Kit

Mouser Electronics is now stocking the new Icicle Kit from Actel, the leading supplier of low-power FPGAs and programmable system chips. Leveraging Actel's 5-microwatt (5µW) IGLOO FPGA, the kit showcases the unprecedented low-power advantages, flexible implementation options, and significant battery savings offered by IGLOO FPGAs for portable applications.

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Green Hills RTOS announced for NEC Electronics V850 32-bit Microcontrollers

Green Hills Software has announced that its µ-velOSity RTOS is now available for the NEC Electronics V850 family of embedded microcontrollers. With a ROM footprint as small as 2K bytes, RAM footprint as small as 1K bytes, and service call times as low as 30 cycles, µ-velOSity is ideal for the cost-sensitive, high-performance applications for which V850 is intended.

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Converters’ chip scale packaging offers portable systems designers major space savings

By taking advantage of lower component profiles, reduced stray inductance, capacitance and resistance and enhanced electrical characteristics, converters using chip scale packaging (CSP) from AnalogicTech enable designers of cell phones, Bluetooth headsets and other space-constrained portable systems to reduce footprint, improve AC performance, and drive down manufacturing costs.

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Electronics Industry Embraces Synplicity’s Confirma Platform for ASIC Verification

Synplicity Inc. has confirmed new product capabilities, widespread customer adoption and increased demand for its Confirma ASIC/ASSP Verification Platform. Since the introduction of the Confirma Platform just six months ago, Synplicity has received over one hundred orders with leading electronics companies worldwide, including the BBC, and has received dozens of positive reports from global design teams who have shaved months off their design times.

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Visual Enhancement Engine enables next generation mobile multimedia experiences

QuickLogic has announced the Visual Enhancement Engine (VEE) to enable next generation multimedia products. The proprietary VEE technology provides high quality contrast optimisation for a wide range of mobile consumer and prosumer devices. It specifically addresses the mobile industry's need to provide consumers with a TV-quality viewing experience while extending battery life at the same time.

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Tanner EDA upgrades chip design tool suite with productivity enhancements throughout design flow

Tanner Tools V13.0 is a significant upgrade to Tanner EDA's Windows-based tool suite for analog and mixed-signal IC and MEMS design. Tanner Tools consists of S-Edit for schematic capture, T-Spice for simulation, L-Edit for layout and HiPer Verify for design verification. The latest upgrade adds Verilog-A model support to T-Spice. L-Edit is boosted with better library support, improvements in schematic driven layout (SDL) and a new SDL automatic router. HiPer Verify gets a hierarchical, foundry-compatible netlist extraction tool – HiPer Extract. In addition, Tanner have added HiPer PX, a 3D RC extraction tool, allowing accurate 3D extraction of interconnect parasitics.

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Objektum Solutions and Artisan team with BAE Systems to resolve the HOOD-to-UML migration challenge on the Nimrod project

Artisan Software Tools and Objektum Solutions are working with BAE Systems to resolve the HOOD-to-UML migration challenge for its Nimrod project legacy designs. By providing a solution combining Objektum Solutions' HOODbridge utility, the Artisan Studio UML/SysML tool suite and the BAE Systems Ada Profile, the resulting solution significantly reduces the time it takes to migrate legacy designs into Artisan Studio ready for use.

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Focus EDL Signs IP House MorethanIP

Focus EDL, the leading electronic components distributor specializing in providing the communications and high-performance datacoms industries with a broad range of products from the United States, Asia and Europe, announces that it signed MorethanIP, the design house recognised for its ability to support FPGA devices from leading vendors including Altera and Xilinx.

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Teklatech will make Worldwide Debut at DATE Exhibition in March

Start-up EDA company, Teklatech will debut its new EDA software tool, FloorDirector, at the DATE show March 10-14 ICM in Munich. Using its new floorplanning and clock distribution technology, semiconductor vendors can overcome critical dynamic voltage drops which can result in unpredictable signal integrity and noise effects that can cause silicon failure.

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STMicroelectronics Delivers Free TCP/IP Stack for STR91x Designers

STMicroelectronics has made the NicheLite TCP/IP stack available free of charge with its STR91x 32-bit Flash microcontrollers featured for networking applications, lowering cost-of-entry to that of open-source offerings but with the advantage of vendor support facilities. Compared to other third-party stacks, NicheLite is also royalty-free, helping manufacturers predict and manage their production costs.

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Super fast JTAG / BDM debugger and Flash Programmer

The BDI3000 is the latest in Abatron's popular range of BDM/JTAGJTAG interface for use with the GDB debugging package or as a flash programmer. They offers substantial performance enhancements compared with earlier models with support for GDB debugging and flash programming for ColdFire, PowerPC, ARM, Xscale and MIPS processors.

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Green Hills Software Adds Embedded RTOS Support for its Padded Cell Secure Hypervisor

Green Hills Software has announced it has added secure virtualization support for Wind River's VxWorks embedded real-time operating system with its Padded Cell Secure Hypervisor. This technology breakthrough provides safe, reliable, independent execution and containment of the VxWorks guest operating system and unmodified VxWorks applications while allowing parallel execution of mission critical applications on the Green Hills INTEGRITY RTOS.

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Single Source Access to Advanced Layer 3 Routing Solutions

Green Hills Software has announced the availability of a comprehensive collection of advanced layer 3 IPv4 and IPv6 routing software products intended for use with its Platform for Secure Networking.

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Esterel Technologies Expands Certification Coverage with SCADE

Esterel Technologies, the leading world-wide provider of model-based solutions for the development of mission and safety-critical systems has expanded its support for certification and qualification standards in the military, aerospace, railway, industrial, nuclear, and automotive domains.

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Eclipse-Based Applications Programming Interface for SCADE Suite Mission and Safety-Critical Model-Based Development Environment

Esterel Technologies, the provider of model-based solutions for the development of mission and safety-critical systems has expanded its open and flexible SCADE Suite development environment to include integration with the Eclipse™ platform and Wind River's Workbench software development platform. SCADE Suite now supports the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) by providing a Java-based Applications Programming Interface (API) that enables access and connectivity to the SCADE Suite Models from other Eclipse-based tools. This API is provided in addition to the existing TCL API already in place with SCADE Suite. This technology integration gives SCADE Suite users the freedom to work with other tools in the development chain that support the Eclipse Framework, including Integrated Development Environments such as Wind River Workbench.

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Esterel Technologies and Artisan Software Tools Integrate Model-Based Development Environments to Offer Complete System to Deployment Solution for Safety-Critical Embedded Systems

Esterel Technologies has teamed with Artisan Software Tools to integrate the Esterel SCADE Suite product line with Artisan Software Tools' Artisan Studio. This integration brings best-in-class products to the model-based design community developing safety-critical applications. Artisan Studio, supporting the latest version of the Systems Modeling Language (SysML) and UML standard, gives systems and software engineers unprecedented ability to specify, document, and validate individual embedded systems. By integrating Artisan Studio with SCADE Suite, now systems and software engineers can collaborate more effectively in the development of safety-critical systems. In fact, now these often disparate domains can easily share design information in and across the tool-chain.

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Esterel Technologies and National Instruments Provide Integrated Model-Based Development and Rapid Prototyping Solution for Mission and Safety-Critical Applications

Esterel Technologies has integrated its technology with the leading worldwide supplier of measurement and rapid prototyping solutions for embedded applications, National Instruments. This relationship and the resulting product integration give mission and safety-critical application developers the ability to simulate and measure the intended functionality and behaviour of their systems very early in the development process when design flaws are cheaper to fix. The companies have formed a partnership to offer an integrated model-based development environment that combines National Instrument's LabVIEW plant modeling solution with LabVIEW Real-Time rapid prototyping hardware and the Esterel SCADE Suite design and development environment. This solution provides a complete workflow to developers, enabling realistic system simulation, hardware-in-the-loop testing, and embedded rapid prototyping with complete production-quality code generation for mission and safety-critical applications

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Evaluation board provides complete development platform for Vinculum embedded USB host designs

Future Technology Devices International Limited (FTDI) has announced its V-EVAL hardware development platform for Vinculum VNC1L-based embedded USB host designs. Supplied as a complete kit, it includes the V-EVAL development board, power supply, USB A/B cable and a USB gender change for use with USB slave applications. A downloadable human interface class (HID) example project for a PIC, in C language is also available.

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IAR Systems announces major upgrade to state machine design tool

IAR Systems has announced the launch of IAR visualSTATE version 6.1, which incorporates several major enhancements, including: generation of fully human-readable code; build integration with IAR Embedded Workbench; verification improvements; and logging to test sequence files.

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ARM processor Starter Kit provides reference platform and software support for simplified development of industrial and consumer applications

Toshiba Electronics Europe has launched a Starter Kit that will allow engineers to rapidly and cost effectively develop and prototype applications featuring the company's new TMPA910CRAXBG 32-bit ARM926EJ-S-based microprocessor. Believed to be the lowest cost tool in its category, Toshiba's BMSKTOPASA910 'Plug & Play' Starter Kit brings together all of the hardware and software needed to develop and test applications based on the TMPA910CRAXBG.

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SH7722 and Linux based reference design for multimedia products, Office Automation equipment and industrial systems

Renesas Technology Europe has announced the immediate availability of the MIGO-R, "Multimedia Integration GO", reference design based on the Linux Operating System and the SH7722 low power multimedia processor with dedicated video processing engine supporting H.264 video encode and decode.

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Artisan previews Artisan Studio v7.0

Artisan Software Tools is previewing the forthcoming Artisan Studio Version 7.0, its all-in-one standards-based development tool suite, at Embedded World 2008 (Hall 10, Stand 408).

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LDRA launches TBreq 2.0

LDRA has launched TBreq 2.0, the latest version of its collaborative, requirements-based embedded software development and verification solution. TBreq 2.0 incorporates important new and enhanced features for the automation of key verification activities along with a new, more intuitive GUI that significantly improves usability.

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National Instruments Introduces the LabVIEW 8.5 Control Design and Simulation Module

National Instruments has announced the release of the NI LabVIEW 8.5 Control Design and Simulation Module, an extension of the LabVIEW graphical system design platform that helps engineers and scientists analyse open-loop model behavior, design closed-loop controllers, simulate systems and create real-time implementations. The latest version of the module introduces new design features such as analytical proportional integral derivative (PID) for improving system closed-loop stability and model predictive control to multivariable systems.

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IAR Systems and SEGGER announce flash breakpoints functionality in IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM

IAR Systems and SEGGER Microcontroller, leading manufacturers of software packages for embedded systems, today announced the availability of 'Flash Breakpoints' integrated into IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM.

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XMOS chooses CoSy for Software Defined Silicon

XMOS Semiconductor is using the CoSy compiler development system from ACE Associated Compiler Experts in the development of the tool suite for its XCore processor. An event driven, multi-threaded processor, XCore is programmed using C and the XMOS originated XC language, which adds support for parallel processing, event driven control and time-driven programming models.

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DSCs provide fixed point affordability and floating point ease-of-use to enable energy-efficient industrial applications

Embedded control engineers prefer the simplified programming provided by floating-point architectures, but are often deterred by the higher cost. Addressing this paradox, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) today announced what is said to be the first fixed-point digital signal controllers (DSCs) that are entirely compatible in hardware and software with high-performance floating-point DSCs. TI's new TMS320F282x series of DSCs combine the affordability of a fixed-point architecture with the faster software development inherent to floating-point devices. Floating-point algorithms that previously required significant recoding for fixed-point operation can now be recompiled in minutes to run on the F282x devices. The DSCs bring savings in time-to-market and manufacturing costs, enabling developers to design energy-efficient, less expense industrial applications such as servo controllers, automotive radar, solar inverters and wind turbines.

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Green Hills to Support AMCC PowerPC 405EX and 405EXr

Green Hills Software has announced the availability of its software development solution targeting Applied Micro Circuit Corporation's (AMCC) PowerPC 405EX and 405EXr embedded processors. Components of the Green Hills Software development toolkit include: optimizing C/C++ compilers for Power Architecture, MULTI integrated development environment (IDE), virtual prototyping platform, DoubleCheck static analyzer, and high-speed hardware debug probes.

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Comsys expands ComMAX reference design platform to include ExpressCard/34 form factor

Comsys Communication and Signal Processing has announced at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that it has extended its converged cellular/WiMAX reference design platforms offering to include the ExpressCard/34 PC card format. The platform offers ODMs a rapid route to implementing converged cellular/mobile WiMAX functionality for the new generation of laptop PC equipped with an ExpressCard slot.

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Altium to preview its extended range of deployment NanoBoards at DesignCon 2008

Altium has previewed its extended range of deployment NanoBoards at DesignCon 2008 and will showcase the new solution in Europe at Embedded World 2008.

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Design environment puts device intelligence at the center of the design process

Altium Limited has launched the Altium Innovation Station which combines the Altium Designer unified electronics design software with the newly-extended Altium NanoBoard range of reconfigurable hardware platforms.

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First public demonstration of Lime Microsystems' broadband transceiver reference design at MWC

The first public demonstration of the world's first MicroTCA broadband transceiver reference design will be given at Mobile World Congress by the design's originator, Lime Microsystems. Mobile World Congress (formerly 3GSM) will be held in Barcelona, February 11 – 14, 2008. Demonstrations will be given on the Freescale Semiconductor stand (stand 8B91 in hall 8) throughout the show.

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Sensorless Field-Oriented Motor-Control Solution for ARM Cortex Based Devices

STMicroelectronics has announced a complete three-phase motor-control development kit based on the STM32 Flash microcontroller – launched mid-2007 – which provides all the necessary hardware and firmware to enable users to evaluate this 32-bit solution, and to begin development of their own sensorless motor-control application. The STM32 uses the powerful ARM Cortex-M3 core, developed specifically to address the requirements of cost-sensitive home-appliance and industrial applications that need high MCU performance with exceptional energy efficiency.

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TI's development platform HSPA+ for wireless infrastructure applications

Enabling the trend toward 'flat architectures' for the cellular network, Texas Instruments has announced the availability of a development platform for the recently ratified HSPA+ (High Speed Packet Access Plus) standard. Based on the wireless infrastructure-optimized, multicore TMS320TCI6488 digital signal processor, the platform offers updated WCDMA Receive Accelerator (RAC) software drivers and a reference platform. Now, base station manufacturers can design a single product spanning HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE (Long Term Evolution), greatly reducing development costs.

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picoChip and mimoOn partner on delivery of industry’s first LTE basestation reference design

picoChip has announced that it is collaborating with mimoOn to deliver the industry's first complete LTE (Long Term Evolution) basestation reference design. The new PC86xx family of LTE reference designs cover the full range of eNode Bs from femtocells to multi-sector macrocells and is supported on the same common hardware platforms as picoChip's WiMAX products. The system and its MIMO capabilities will be demonstrated at Mobile World Congress 2008 in Barcelona, 11-14 February on the picoChip stand 1D56.

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Software Development Solution for AMCC Power Architecture 405EZ

Green Hills Software has announced the immediate availability of its comprehensive software development solution targeting Applied Micro Circuit Corporation's Power Architecture 405EZ embedded processor. Components of the Green Hills Software development toolkit include: royalty-free RTOSes, optimizing C/C++ compilers for Power Architecture, MULTI integrated development environment (IDE), virtual prototyping platform, DoubleCheck integrated static analyzer, and high-speed hardware debug probes.

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BDM/JTAG debugger offers higher speed and performance enhancements

The Abatron BDI3000, now available in the UK from Computer Solutions, is the latest generation of Abatron's popular range of BDM/JTAG debuggers, and offers higher speed and performance enhancements compared with earlier models. Features of the BDI3000 include support for GDB debugging and flash programming for ColdFire, PowerPC, ARM, Xscale and MIPS processors. It will also support low-voltage processors down to 1.2 V.

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Esterel Technologies and AbsInt form Technology Partnership

Esterel Technologies, the provider of model-based solutions for the development of mission and safety-critical systems and AbsInt, the provider of timing and stack usage analysis solutions announced today their partnership to offer a uniquely integrated environment for developing mission and safety-critical embedded software applications, featuring a seamless workflow between Esterel SCADE and AbsInt's aiT and StackAnalyzer products.

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Data Converter Evaluation and Development Toolkit Helps Designers Speed Time to Market

Analog Devices has introduced an advanced Converter Evaluation and Development (CED) toolkit that is said to be the industry's first to combine leading data converter evaluation technology with a robust end-product development environment. Thanks to a flexible design that provides four interface ports and up to eight separate power supplies, the CED toolkit platform is capable of shaving six to eight weeks off the converter selection and design-in process.

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Arrow announces advanced motor control development platform

Arrow has announced an advanced, FPGA-based development platform that will dramatically speed the design, prototyping and testing of motor control applications. Created by Arrow's European reference board team in conjunction with key suppliers and partners, the MotionFire platform provides all of the hardware, software and documentation needed to rapidly and cost-effectively implement motion control systems.

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Alenia Aermacchi chooses Artisan Studio for new OMG SysML/UML software development methodology

Artisan Software Tools has announced that Artisan Studio, the all-in-one UML, OMG SysML and Architectural Framework tool suite used by teams of engineers for the analysis, design and development of complex, mission critical systems, has been chosen by Alenia Aermacchi, a Finmeccanica company, as the preferred tool for its new OMG SysML/UML-based software requirements, design, development and analysis process in the flight control systems area.

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Synplicity’s Synplify Premier Platform Delivers Additional Time-to-Market Benefits and Expanded Device Support for FPGA Designers

Synplicity, Inc has announced that its Synplify Premier software has been enhanced to provide more time-to-market benefits to designers using high-density FPGAs. In release 9.0, the company's award winning graph-based physical synthesis technology has been optimized for Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGAs to deliver exceptional timing closure, analysis and debug for these advanced devices. This latest release extends the graph-based physical synthesis technology which has been implemented for Xilinx Spartan-3, Virtex-II Pro and Virtex-4 FPGAs for more than two years. Synplicity also announced it has extended these benefits to FPGA designers targeting Altera Stratix-III, Stratix-II and Stratix-II GX FPGAs, through the company's Synplify Premier Beta Program.

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LDRA tool suite to support the new MISRA-C++:2008 standard

LDRA has further enhanced the capabilities of the LDRA tool suite to comply with the soon to be released MISRA-C++:2008 standard from the Motor Industry Software Reliability Association (MISRA). The support for MISRA-C++:2008 complements the LDRA tool suite's existing enforcement support for the MISRA-C:1998 and MISRA-C:2004, HIS (Herstellerinitiative Software) and GJB (Chinese Military Standard) standards for the C programming language.

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Compact COM Express baseboard for validation and small volume projects

Kontron has introduced a compact and COM Express compliant ETXexpress miniBaseboard with a footprint of merely 170 mm x 145mm. For applications designed to run on COM Express compliant designs, the Kontron ETXexpress miniBaseboard serves as a universal platform for rapid software validation.

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IAR Systems partners with System Semiconductor on motion controller developer’s kit

IAR Systems has announced that IAR Embedded Workbench has been selected by System Semiconductor for inclusion in its newly announced M3000 Developer's Kit for chip level motion control. The M3000 Developer's Kit contains all the tools needed to begin developing applications using the System Semiconductor M3000 Motion Controller, which is a highly integrated, mixed signal system-on-a-chip. The device combines all the major building blocks necessary to control and position multi-phase stepper motors, while also working as a high-speed general-purpose microcontroller incorporating extensive communication, analogue and system functions.

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Trident introduces ARTiGO solution for the Pico-ITX

Trident announce the introduction of the ARTiGO from VIA, an ideal evaluation and development environment supporting the popular Pico-ITX. The new ARTiGO Pico-ITX builder kit from Trident will enable embedded system designers to quickly configure a fully functioning PC based on the Pico-ITX motherboard for software development, debugging and pre-production testing. Once the evaluation hardware is assembled, the operating system can be installed, providing a fully functioning platform.

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Tensilica Adds Support for High-Speed, Hardware-Based Processor Simulations Using Avnet's Xilinx Virtex-4 LX200 Development Kit

Tensilica has announced it has added support for Avnet's Xilinx Virtex-4 LX200 Development Kit for high-speed hardware-based simulations of its Xtensa configurable and Diamond Standard processor families. Now software developers can choose between the cost-effective Avnet LX60 board and the high-capacity Avnet LX200 board to speed their software design, debug and program optimization processes.

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Renesas teams up with Thesycon to provide USB support on H8SX/1664 microcontroller

Renesas Technology Europe and its alliance partner Thesycon have announced the immediate availability of a complete USB stack support for the H8SX/1664-based, RSK1664 Renesas Starter Kit (RSK). The H8SX/1664 features a USB function and a 50 DMIPS H8SX CISC CPU core. From the PC side, Thesycon provides a generic USB device driver for Windows, called USBIO. This allows Windows application developers to control any kind of USB device. No DDK development is required.

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EZURiO’s Telematics Devices Built with Green Hills' OS

Green Hills Software has announced that EZURiO is using its INTEGRITY family of operating systems, including the velOSity real-time operating system, in EZURiO'