Enabling interoperability in high-performance embedded applications

OpenVPX expands on the VPX Base and Dot Specifications and provides a System Specification to address interoperability issues between VPX modules and Chassis. OpenVPX is an extensible specification which addresses the current and future needs for computing in harsh environments.

Risk management for counterfeit materials

Counterfeit materials will continue to challenge the defensive capabilities of manufacturers in the military and aerospace industry.

Overview about the 6U VPX single board computer VPX6-185

This Video is presented by Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing’s VPX6-185 6U VPX single board computer is a high performance rugged processing platform.


Early verification and validation using model-based design

One of the primary benefits of model-based design is the opportunity to do rigorous verification and validation in parallel with all other development steps, especially early in the development process.

Smarter products - software becomes the most active ingredient

As software becomes the most active ingredient in product innovation, traditional manufacturers are essentially becoming software companies. While this transformation is sparking unprecedented leaps in product value, it is also introducing new challenges and implications.

Building ultra-slim embedded systems with Em-ITX

Building a slimline or thinline embedded system can be a difficult task or a relatively simple one depending on the form factor chosen for the task. But how slim is slim enough?

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Embedded News & Know-how Newsletter

(Feb 3, 2010)
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NEC: Lighting Communications demonstration kit

NEC Electronics has released the 78K0 Lighting Communications demonstration kit, enabling lighting ballast designers to adopt lighting specific communications such as DALI and DMX512. The kit includes a master communication controller board which provides interfaces and supports communications to lighting slave devices by DMX512, DALI and even IrDA for remote lighting controls including dimming. The board populates connectors for the supported interfaces and can be easily connected to the recently released 78K0/IX2 LED demonstration kit or any other lighting slave controller in a network supporting DALI or DMX152 standards.

The DALI Master GUI controller and the DMX512 Master GUI controller, are included in the 78K0 Lighting Communications kit,. By connecting the board to a PC using the provided USB cable, the light output of a slave device such as 78K0/IX2 LED kit can be remotely controlled by using the easy-to-use GUI tools, depending whether the boards are connected via DALI or DMX512 interfaces between them.

The DALI Master Controller GUI allows users to implement real time control of the light output and to benefit from a number of effective features such as power control settings for dimming and turning the lights on and off, or setting maximum and minimum dimming levels while the system is running. All dimming levels can be specified without difficulty in the graphical tool. Users can also design scenes and even specify the fade settings such as fade rate and time once the addresses of the slave devices are set.

The DMX512 Master Controller GUI provides users with the content of the DMX512 protocol, helps to understand its concept and allows graphically designing mixed color scenes and flashing sequences. Once the slave addresses are specified, designers can simply step through each scene they created manually or run in real time at the rate they specified. Scene data can also be saved or loaded into CSV format for later use. Documentation and the user's manuals for both tools are included in the 78K0 Lighting Communications kit.