Industry-first solution for developing multicore embedded designs

Citation

(2003), "Industry-first solution for developing multicore embedded designs", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 75 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.2003.12775aab.013

Industry-first solution for developing multicore embedded designs

Industry-first solution for developing multicore embedded designs

Keywords: Aircraft, Software

Wind River, a leading provider of software and services for creating connected devices, has introduced the Wind Power ICE hardware bring-up and software development tool. Claimed to be the industry’s first true solution for developing and debugging heterogeneous multiprocessing and multicore embedded applications, Wind Power ICE is said to enable developers to quickly and easily get products to market that combine several processors in a single system or several processing cores on a single piece of silicon. Developers now have a single tool for performing critical test and debug functions with these “distributed computing” designs, delivering improved performance and significant time-to-market benefits.

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics is currently using Wind Power ICE technology to develop software for the Vehicle Systems component of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) project, which includes flight controls and test set support.

“The ability to develop software for multiprocessor designs will make the effort of testing and debugging the flight control and flight support systems for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) project much easier and quicker than other products that only provide a single processor solution”, said Elisha Graham, Vehicle Systems Processing test station software lead for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics.

According to Wind River, until now, developers of products implementing multicore designs have had to use cumbersome and time-consuming processes to debug, develop and test individual components of their systems. The company believes that its innovative new JTAGServer technology, Wind Power ICE provides the capability to simultaneously or individually debug code on one or more CPUs of the same or dissimilar architecture, whether they are individual components or embedded within a system on chip (SoC), using a single tool. At the same time developers are debugging CPUs, Wind Power Ice can also reportedly download field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), program complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs), or control any type of silicon device.

“Our customers are increasingly turning to multiprocessing and multicore designs due to the enormous performance benefits offered. But debugging these systems has historically been complex and arduous”, said Tony Tryba, vice president and general manager of Wind River’s Embedded Technologies business unit. “Wind Power ICE delivers a new paradigm in multicore system development, simplifying product design and shortening development cycles for virtually any multicore or distributed processing configuration.”

In addition to multicore development, Wind Power ICE is said to address the entire product development cycle, from board bring-up to debug and production test. Other key features claimed of Wind Power ICE include the following.

Supports multiple debug sessions such that a single user can debug multiple CPUs simultaneously or multiple developers can debug multiple, even unrelated, devices in a system – all through a single connection and one piece of external hardware.

Wind Power ICE open API allows integration of powerful capabilities into your own custom environment, and allows fast and flexible integration of Wind Power ICE with other tools in the development environment.

High-speed JTAG run control and program download, on-chip debug target control, built-in hardware diagnostics, flash memory programming, external triggering, source-level debugging, internal register configuration, remote firmware update via web server, and more.

This technology is integrated with Wind River’s popular visionCLICK source-level debugger, which can be used as the software interface for Wind Power ICE. The product is also supported by Wind River’s next-generation integrated development environment, the Wind Power IDE – a complete IDE for hardware bring-up and embedded application development.

Wind Power ICE is currently available for beta customers on select architectures and will be fully available after this fall. For architecture support and other product information, call your local Wind River account manager or visit www.windriver.com

Joint Test Action Group (JAG) is an IEEE-adopted industry standard for testing and debugging hardware and complete target boards, with hardware utilising this technology referred to as “JAG devices.” Wind Power ICE is a network-based, hardware-assisted, JAG emulator that enables true multicore, multi-session debugging by supporting multiple JTAG devices. Using a single interface for debugging eliminates the need for separating the JTAG scan chain and using precious real estate on the target board for additional headers. Fewer headers also means reduced complexity of routing and increased target board yield rates, and reduced product size as well as more available target board space to place other key components.

Wind Power ICE addresses the recent dominant trend in microprocessor design whereby two or more processor cores are combined in a single piece of silicon, delivering improved performance and reduced power consumption. In addition, several silicon building blocks are being combined to improve performance and reduce processing bottlenecks. Such applications are popular in several markets including aerospace and defence systems, network infrastructure and consumer electronics equipment requiring real-time data processing.

Details available from: Wind Drive. Tel: +44 (0) 20 7494 6570; E-mail: windriver@rainierco.co.uk