Read about some of the successful projects completed by the Altium Professional Services team.
Project: Bootloader for D.A.R.E!!
D.A.R.E!! is a company specializing in high quality services and delivering products in the field of EMI/EMC, automotive, radio, telecom, product security, electronics and ICT. D.A.R.E!! contracted Altium Professional Services to develop a high-performance C196KB bootloader and provide a matching PC-based flash application. A bootloader is used to control the startup of a C196KB application, allowing normal booting or file loading into the 8MB Flash memory, accessible via bank switching.
In close cooperation with the customer, Altium Professional Services developed a bootloader that used a highly optimized protocol to minimize the download time of files, in some cases from a few hours to a couple of minutes for a full 8MB file. This reduced load time significantly reduced application development. The bootloader also provides some common functions for the application:
- I2C initialize/read/write routines
- serial (UART) initialize/read/write routines
- read/write data to other memory banks
- accessibility to functions in other memory banks
- redirectable default interrupt handlers
Altium Professional Services delivered to D.A.R.E!! a good working bootloader and flexible Windows flash application that provided optimized file downloading to minimize application development.
Project: MP3 Message Player
Altium Professional Services was contracted by D.A.R.E!! to design an MP3 Message Player capable of playing short, relatively low audio quality (5 KHz mono, 16 Kbit/s) messages and tunes of variable length.
The design of MP3 Message Player called for a device able to play short MP3 messages or tunes stored in external flash memory. The player receives its commands, such as play, stop and volume, via an RS232 link. The player was to be based on a C196KB CPU from Intel and the STA013 MP3 decoder from STMicroelectronics, with 8MB of flash memory connected to the C196KB to store the MP3 messages.
Altium Professional Services developed an advanced, time-optimized technology that used all available CPU power to play the MP3 messages with a quality up to 56 Kbit/s, without disturbing RS232 communications (available playback time is dependent on the quality chosen). The STA013 MP3 decoder is controlled through an I2C command interface and uses a high-speed (up to 20 MHz) serial bit stream data interface.
Project: JTAG wiggler for Altium Limited
Altium Professional Services was used for the in-house development and realization of a low cost JTAG wiggler, needed for ongoing tool development by Altium Limited.
The wiggler is connected to a PC running Altium's TASKING CrossView Pro debugging software. The commands it gets from CrossView Pro are converted into JTAG signals that connect to the target hardware and vice versa. In addition to providing JTAG interface for debugging purposes, the wiggler provides means to program flash memories. Based on Mitsubishi's M16C/62 microcontroller, JTAG Xpress uses RS232 to communicate with the host PC. Communication speeds are automatically detected and reach up to 115200 bps. It offers interfacing to target signals ranging from 1.65V to 5V at configurable clock frequencies up to 4 MHz.
The JTAG Xpress hardware can be powered from an external power supply or it can run on a standard 9V battery. An on-board power saving system maximizes the lifetime of this battery by shutting down all activity automatically when it is not used.
Project: Application porting for Robert Bosch GmbH
Robert Bosch GmbH stands for competence and product diversity in the automotive equipment, power tool, thermo-technology, household appliance, communication, automation and packaging machine industries.
What sets Bosch apart from the competition are its innovative drive and its ability to manufacture technologically-advanced products in high volume. Bosch maintains its edge as a leading supplier of cutting-edge technology with a constant stream of new products and processes in all sectors of its activities.
Bosch turned to Altium Professional Services to help expedite its product development, which had relied on assembly programming tools provided by the semiconductor manufacturer. Altium Professional Services ported Bosch's assembly code to the C/C++ development environment of Altium's TASKING DSP56xxx tools. As a result of this migration, Altium Professional Services helped Bosch to achieve an enhanced embedded development environment for its product design. This is an example of how Altium Professional Services can apply both experience in tools technology and highly skilled porting and development services to aid product development.
Project: EMIT Application Development for Matsushita Electric Works
Matsushita Electric Works (MEW) is a large multi-national involved in a broad range of electronics related activities. MEW is the parent company behind brands like National and Panasonic.
MEW signed a multi-million dollar licensing agreement to use EMIT device networking software to add Internet connectivity for remote access, management and diagnostic capabilities to more than 500 of its building automation, medical device and home automation products.
MEW formed a special project team committed to integrating the technology into new and existing products. MEW's first EMIT-enabled device was a health CARE Monitor for use in nursing homes.
Altium Professional Services provided prototype and production development services to MEW for EMIT-enabled device applications. Using Java, Altium Professional Services developed the client user interface for the CARE Monitor product and supported Matsushita with the implementation of EMIT.
Image data from a camera and alarm data from different kinds of sensors are stored on the CARE device. The alarm sensors are monitored continuously and the gateway is informed of an update of the alarm value (the alarm value is constructed of the information from the sensors).
In the CARE System, there can be up to 255 devices. To tell one device from another, the devices are provided with an address that is unique. The device application determines the address, based on dip-switch settings on the device, making it very easy for an engineer to replace one of the devices.
The Client application, formed by HTML pages and a Java applet on the gateway, is designed to connect to all devices (up to the 255 maximum) that are connected to the gateway. The user does not have to worry about the addresses of the devices, the applet checks everything.
The applet has a panel with buttons (representing a connection to a device) and a panel with four monitor displays. At a single glance, the user can see if there are any patients with an alarm set. The user can also select to display the camera pictures of any of the devices in one of the monitor displays. When the device is in alarm mode, the monitor display is updated automatically.
Project: Telediagnostic system for Teuco Guzzini S.p.A.
Teuco, part of the Guzzini group, specializes in the production of advanced multi-function whirlpool bathtubs and showers fashioned from methacrylate and tempered glass.
Teuco needed to develop a system for the remote control and remote fault diagnosis of whirlpool bathtubs and showers. Altium enabled Teuco to use this technology in their products by making a prototype as proof of concept.
The saunas and baths produced by Teuco consist of two separate modules connected by an RS485 link. Altium Professional Services was contracted to develop a separate module, called the TeleD unit, which connects to this RS485 bus and provides internet connectivity for the system. This module listens to passing status messages, stores this information, sets up a service call to the Teuco call center, delivers information on request, and injects commands its own.
The TeleD unit is EMIT-enabled and both whirlpool bathtubs and shower TeleD units are connected by a second RS485 bus to an embedded gateway running EMIT software.
The embedded gateway is a small embedded PC (486 with 16 MB RAM) based on a minimal Linux system. For this project Linux was stripped to let the entire system fit in 4MB flash. The gateway runs the EMIT server software in combination with an Apache webserver. Altium Professional Services developed an SMS engine that "listens" to a GSM modem and communicates with the TeleD units to remotely control the whirlpool bathtub and shower.
A user-friendly Java applet, developed by Altium Professional Services according to the user interface specifications given by Teuco, is served by the webserver.
When errors from a whirlpool bathtub or shower are detected, the Java-applet provides visual feedback as to which internal parts are responsible for the failure.
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