Embedded Linux systems consulting

We announce yet another design win which resulted in successful Linux porting to customized embedded board with Atmel AT91SAM9RL64 processor.

Small form-factor stacked board with CAN, WiFi and GPS interfaces was specially designed for use in automotive environments for data capture purposes. Cutting-edge 2.6.34 Linux kernel gives an advantage of CAN support via PF_CAN socket API and advanced power-saving techniques in IEEE802.11 wireless stack and Marvell “libertas” Linux driver.

Well, Digital electronics developers forum (DEDF’2009) is over.

Here is a short afterword:

For the first time such event for digital electronics developers was held in Minsk, Belarus. DEDF’2009 was devoted to Analog Devices products especially Blackfin processors. There were around 110 attendees and 15 presentations. Here is a brief translation to english for the most interesting presentation topics:

— Section 1: Blackfin and uCLinux applications —

1) Streaming audio player based on Blackfin processor

2) Building surveilance systems using Blackfin processor

3) JPEG2000 videorecorder development using ADV212

4) Open Hardware projects

5) Using Eclipse IDE for Blackfin and uCLinux development

6) Profiling and Blackfin software optimization under uCLinux

— Section 2: Signal Processing —

7) Laser 3D scanning system

8) Audio codec applications for compressed data transfers on low-speed channels

9) Development of acoustic noise analyzers using Blackfin processors

10) Digital data transmission over high-voltage power lines

11) Delta-Sigma encoding method

12) Signal processing in vibration control systems

Full contents of presentations and related material can be found on official DEDF site

Presented seminar outlines the possible challenges and best practice of Set-top box development using technologies from STMicroelectronics

Challenges of STB development using STi71xx and STi52xx chipsets from STMicroelectronics:

1. Brief overview of STi71xx and STi52xx chipset family
2. Target device and a choice of chipset: DVB-T, DVB-S, DVB-C, combo
3. Software approach: Linux or OS21?
4. Software approach: STAPI
5. The choice of the GUI library
6. Licensing issues
7. Evaluation kits, development boards, JTAG adapters
8. Tuner and demodulator choices - major suppliers
9. Software architecture approach for STB
10. Some Linux fast-boot and size optimization techniques
11. Summary and points to watch

The seminar was presented by E. Sobol, Linux application engineer. It covers Asterisk and related Blackfin hardware topic.

Modern open-source telephony platform based on Asterisk (Blackfin Asterisk, SIP, GSM, Dialplan)

1. What is an open-source telephony
2. Asterisk’s history
3. Asterisk is today and future of open-source telephony
4. VoIP (Voice over IP)
5. SIP (Session Initiation Protocol)
6. RTP (Real-time protocol)
7. Zaptel (Zapata Linux Telephony driver), FXO/FXS
8. Asterisk modules and configs
9. Dialplans, Asterisk contexts, Asterisk built-in extensions
10. Advantages of Asterisk, comparison to other telephony projects
11. Practical example: Asterisk running on IP04 hardware based on Blackfin processor
12. IP04 technical specifications
13. IP04 hardware architecture
14. Compiling Asterisk from source for Blackfin platform
15. Programming device, running Linux kernel and root filesystem
16. Some practical demos - call from land-line phone to SIP phone, call between GSM and SIP, SIP to SIP calls, voicemail demo, menu demo, conference call demo

This seminar was recently presented by V. Nikonov, member of our firmware engineering team.

LEON3: 32-bit Softcore FPGA processor of SPARC architecture

1. General overview of Sparc v8 processor architecture
2. LEON3 implementation by AeroFlex Gaisler
3. GRLIB IP Library for LEON3
4. Using Eclipse IDE along with GRMON monitor
5. GRSIM and TSIM simulators
6. U-boot: compilation, configuration for LEON3, loading into RAM via JTAG
7. Linux: compilation, configuration, customization for LEON3, loading via tftp
8. Comparing LEON3 to other soft-core processors
9. Summary

Usually we have a weekly seminar dedicated to some interesting topic in embedded system design, especially under Linux operating system. The seminar dedicated to various aspects of unit testing and code coverage was presented by V.Shakhov - Linux s/w engineer.

Unit testing under Linux for programs written in C language

1. Unit testing (modular testing) - definition, drawbacks and advantages, regression and automatic testing
2. Types of input data
3. Code coverage, metrics
4. Useful Linux tools for unit testing
5. Using cunit and ggcov in example project

Welcome to my homepage and blog dedicated to design of embedded systems running Linux. Why yet another site? I find it interesting for hardware or system level engineer to cover such topics as choosing suitable processor or system-on-chip for particular embedded Linux design, supported bootloaders and linux cross toolchains for target hardware platform or just to get know the linux kernel support status for particular processor or system-on-chip. Often such information is spread over chip manufacturer’s sites not allowing easy search and compare. I won’t cover ASICs and specific chips for large volume ODM, my goal is to provide a quick overview of possible system-on-chip solutions for embedded linux designs which are capable to be developed by any small or medium-sized company.

I’m quite fond of Linux and gadgets and did Linux bring-up for more than dozen of PCB boards of various processor architectures (x86, ARM, Blackfin, MIPS) so those who want to see their embedded board or device with Linux support do not hesitate to contact me! I will tweak it free of charge in my spare time, however if the following conditions are met: resulting work is released under GPL and you have to cover board shipping costs to my location. Requests related to GPLed hardware projects are treated with a higher priority. If you need a quick linux bring-up with the highest priority for your custom proprietary hardware then you may consider paid consulting and support services. Custom board designs services on ARM7, ARM9, Blackfin and TI OMAP as well as various mezzanine boards are available.

Quick navigation links on my site:
Linux-friendly System-on-chip selector
Linux and Atmel AT91RM9200
Linux and RDC R8610
Linux and Cirrus Logic EP93xx