The Hindu Business Line : `Processors driving changes in embedded design'

DISTRIBUTED computing, which involves the use of two or more processors to solve an application, is a new technology trend in the field of embedded design. According to Mr Dave Wilson, Director, International Marketing, National Instruments, US, this trend is being driven by the ubiquity of processors.

At the two-day event held by the company in the city, NI Days, Mr Wilson said processors were becoming cheaper, and designs were changing to incorporate them.

On the use of processors in automobiles, he said the modern car is "a computer on wheels." An automobile can use some 112 processors, and car manufacturers use distributed systems in the design of automobile electronic stability systems, said Mr Wilson.

National Instruments announced a major upgrade to its flagship product LabView. Significant updates to real-time, field programmable gate array (FPGA), personal digital assistant (PDA), data logging and supervisory control modules have been made to LabView 8. This software runs on the Windows, Linux, Mac and real-time operating systems. "Our software is open, so it allows all programming languages to integrate with it. This is useful in completing designs with faster time-to-market. With the right tools, engineers can develop products faster," said Mr Jayaram Pillai, Managing Director, NI Systems India.

Labview is being used in India for railway safety design.

Dr Sanjay Gupta, Chief Scientific Officer, IIT Kanpur, who heads the project, said, "We are working on a compact, re-configurable FPGA-based system." He is working on `Hot Box Hotwheel', which involves sensors that determine the temperature of the train's wheels.

"The hardware is targeted for rugged, real-time system, but the essence is the software. In the next two years, we will contribute to improving railway safety using LabView," said Dr Gupta.

National Instruments made over half a million dollars in revenues last fiscal and spent 16 per cent of it on research and development. The total headcount of the US-based company is 3,600.

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