Newsletter 6 Verantw

Preface 2

Technology Flash 1 u AnSem - Tracking marine animals with SATCOMS 1 u Philips AmbiLux UHD TV debuts Ambilight projection for the ultimate 2 immersive viewing experience – TP Vision u DAB-Embedded brings new platform for medical applications. 4 u Macnica Americas and intoPIX bring a new FPGA reference design for 4 UHD4K Live production over IP, using RTP transport and TICO lite compression

In the spotlights 6 u Caeleste: Supplier of beyond state of the Art Custom CMOS Image sensors 6 u Fuji Xerox Reduces Silicon Area by More than 50 Percent Using Synopsys 7 ASIP Designer u PragmaDev - Find the best architecture 8 1 u Antmicro - Emul8: The Open Source Embedded Systems Emulator 8 u Fully automated human digestion simulator for unprecedented scientific 10 testing – the T&M Solution

Embedded corner 11 u UGent HES group leads European project on run-time reconfigurable computing 11

Upcoming Events 11

Contact Information 12 3 AnSem - Tracking marine animals with SATCOMS

Satellite monitoring of wildlife has become and better understand the environment. a critical tool for environmental research Argos is operated by CLS (FR), a leading and nature preservation. In acknowledge- provider of satellite services for environment of this, ESA has been supporting the mental and maritime applications. 7 development and testing of a new low-cost wildlife tag. Currently being developed in The new tag developed in this ARTES 5.1 an on-going ARTES 5.1 activity, the new activity has a tiny transmitter powered system works in conjunction with the Argos by a battery or a solar panel that sends satellite monitoring system, a non-profit ini- messages of short duration (less than tiative established in 1978 that is dedicated one second) to the Argos constellation, to helping the research community monitor whose six satellites circle at 850 km in polar sun-synchronous orbit, meaning they pass over a given location on Earth at approximately the same time each day. 10 continuation on page 2 newsletter 6

continuation from page 1

Currently available wildlife tags that use the Argos 1/2 first-generation satellite services are rather inefficient, with poor battery life and low data collection volumes. The goal of this ARTES project is to develop a low-cost tag which can take advantage of the newer, more sophisticated Argos 3/4 services. With the support of ESA, a new microchip, called ARTIC, was

developed by the Belgian semiconduc- Blue shark, South Africa. Photo: ESA/P. de Maagt

The key improvements include small- These first samples of the ARTIC chip er weight and size, increased lifetime, have passed certification at CLS. In the expanded data storage, and bidirectional next stage of the project, commencing communication with the satellite, which in June 2016, five bluefin tuna and five results in improved data transfer rates. basking sharks will be tagged to vali- date the new system. “In mid-2016, we The latest version of AnSem’s ARTIC has hope to start commercial production of 250 mW transmitting power, sufficient to be able to reach the satellite without Photo: AnSem an external power amplifier. It contains sensors for pressure (depth), tempera- ture, light and tilt, the latter to allow 3D mapping.

Photo: Star Oddi “Bidirectional communications are key here,” says Stefan Gogaert, CEO of Marine animal tag with silicon coating. Initially the new tag will be used to track AnSem. “Without it, the tag keeps con- migrating marine animals, as this is the tinuously uploading data, which takes biggest challenge from a technology point of view, but in the future it could be used a lot of power. With the bidirectional for terrestrial wildlife and birds as well. communications supported by Argos AnSem’s ARTIC ASIC for Argos 3/4. 3/4 and implemented in this ARTES tor company AnSem; it is now being 5.1 project, we introduce a handshake the ARTIC chips,” says Gogaert. integrated into a new animal tagging sequence so that the tag knows that the system by the Icelandic company Star data have been received by the satellite. “There are competing satellite monitor- Oddi. This radically improves battery life.” ing systems in use, but the advantage of

A New Alliance was born

and technologies between the cluster During 3 years, DSP Valley has been our cluster members, including mul- members, by giving improved visibility building the foundations for a strong tinational companies as well as local on the potential of micro/nano elec- European inter-cluster cooperation in start-ups, spin-offs and SMEs, based tronics as the key enabling technol- the semiconductor domain. Together on an inter-cluster cooperation model. ogy for lots of applications in various with the clusters of Silicon Saxony in markets, by encouraging and support- Dresden (DE), Minalogic in Grenoble This strategy is ready now. We have been developing a Joint Action Plan, ing SMEs to participate in European Preface (FR) and High Tech NL in Eindhoven projects and by giving them access to (NL), later also joined by ME2C in completed with an Internationalization public and private funding, and last but Villach (AT) and Business Cluster Plan and a Financial Plan. According to not least, by exploring and promoting Semiconductors in Nijmegen (NL), we this Joint Action Plan, we will create international market opportunities. have been building a strategy on how value for our members by promoting to strengthen the competitiveness of transnational transfer of knowledge

2 TECHNOLOGY FLASH

Argos 3/4 is low output power requirements and small size,” says Michel Philips AmbiLux UHD TV debuts Ambilight Guigue, Data Collection and Missions Manager at CLS. “We can provide solar projection for the ultimate immersive satellite tracking solutions as light as 2 viewing experience – TP Vision or 3 g with output power of just 200 mW. Argos uses a basic satellite com- whether via a streaming service such munication protocol which makes the as Spotify, USB or a music channel. system very robust in harsh conditions. Consumers can choose from a variety of Other systems require larger modems colorful pre-sets or simply select the ran- that need at least 2 W output power TP Vision launches the new Philips domizing party mode. Integration with and very good conditions, such as you AmbiLux TV that will take the immersive the popular Philips Hue Smart Lighting find on land. For birds and fish, Argos viewing experience to a superb new takes Ambilight even further by provid- is the only option.” pinnacle with 4k Ultra HD and introduc- ing a whole room experience for total ing Ambilight projection technology, 360° immersion. “The monitoring of migrating marine the most significant development yet animals is essential for understand- for the unique Ambilight system. The ing the impact of global changes R&D for this 65inch Philips AmbiLux and increasing human activities on model, including the Ambilight pro- the marine eco-system,” says Peter jection technology, was done by TP de Maagt, Head of the Antenna Vision’s Innovation Site Europe in Ghent and Submillimetre Wave Section at and will reach the shelves during the ESA. “This ARTES-supported project fourth quarter. should make an important contribu- tion towards that aim, and eventually The classic Philips Ambilight system uses improve our knowledge of many differ- rows of LEDs mounted on the rear of ent kinds of wildlife.” the set to create a colored halo of light on the wall behind the TV. The colors Despite adding the rear-mounted pro- “This activity shows how ARTES can precisely match the on-screen content jectors and powerful processing, the both benefit society and push techno- to create the impression of a larger AmbiLux has been beautifully engi- logical advancement at the same time,” image and to provide a more enjoy- neered to maintain a razor-slim, elegant de Maagt says. able viewing experience. The revolu- form. European design and authentic, n tionary Ambilight projection technology premium materials ensure a high qual- now frees the actual images from the constraints of the set by using nine tiny pico-projectors, each precisely posi- tioned on the rear of the AmbiLux TV. Intelligent overlap technology allows a seamless projection of the onscreen image, motion and color on to the rear wall surrounding the set. Precision technology ensures that the Ambilight pro- Now we are ready for action! jection system can project images with Strongly believing in the success of superior clarity, vivid color and supreme inter-cluster cooperation, and continu- contrast to create an immersive experi- ing on some successes ence that truly breaks the boundaries of we have already TV viewing. unlocked for the ity finish with the ultra-narrow bezel, cluster members Further developments in Ambilight tech- achieving a seamless connection to during the strat- nology take the system beyond just films the Ambilight halo, and the polished egy preparation and TV and can enhance the enjoyment chrome Bladewire stand creating a light, phase, we have of music too. The new Ambilight Music floating appearance. The sophisticated unanimously decided t o Mode provides a colored halo of light design allows the AmbiLux to effort- to continue that can follow and react to the dynam- lessly enhance even the most stylish of ics of any music played through the TV, interiors. n continuation on page 5 3 newsletter 6

• SAMTEC connectors with all neces- DAB-Embedded brings new sary signals (all GPIOs and peripheral I/Os) from AM5728: platform for medical applications. • HDMI output (up to 1920 x 1080); • Parallel RGB (24-bit) at up to 1920 x 1200; • 8x audio (including 6x I2S); • 3x CPI camera; • USB 3.0 host/client; DAB-Embedded company presents its We combine all required components • USB 2.0 host/client; new product : DAB-MED-AM5 system- on a single PCB, for instance: • SATA 2.0; on-module, which is based on the new • AM5728 processor: • 2x CAN; AM5728 processor from TI. • 2x Cortex-A15 CPU cores @ 1.5GHz; • 2x MMC/SD/SDIO; • 2x C66x DSP cores @ 700MHz; • 4x SPI/SSP; This is dualcore ARM Cortex-A15 @ • 2x Imagination Power VR SGX544 • 5x I2C; 1.5GHz with a rich peripheral set like 3D GPU cores @ 533MHz; • 8x UART; video input ports, 3x LCD & HDMI out- • Vivante GC3230 2D BTBLT accelerator; • 2x PCIe Gen 2; puts, additional Dual DSP C66x with • 2x Cortex-M4 microcontroller cores • GPIO, PWM, JTAG, keyboard, IVA HD Video coprocessor. This SoC @ 167MHz; McASP. has enhanced the graphical subsystem: • PRU-ICSS programmable subsys- • Power supply +5V. 3D accelerator – dualcore SGX544, 2D tems (4x cores) accelerator – GC320. • Memory: The system-on-module provides soft- • DDR3 with ECC (up to 2GB); ware support based on Linux 4.1.6, Additionally the SoC has IPU (Image • 4GB to 32GB eMMC flash; Windows Embedded Compact 2013, in Processing Unit) blocks based on ARM • Up to 16MB QSPI NOR flash; the future - Windows 10 IoT. Cortex-M4 cores and a specialized ICSS • Networking — 2x gigabit Ethernet DAB-Embedded additionally provides: unit for real-time control and industrial controllers (1x PHY); • software packages (for example pro- communication. • Power management system (based jects for building DSP applications on TPS659037); (C66x-based, GCC-examples, CCS- A number of well-known interfaces like • Onboard 1Gbit Ethernet PHY; examples), ARM Cortex-A15 appli- SPI/UART/I2C/CAN, USB 2.0/USB 3.0, • WiFi + Bluetooth module cations, PRU-ICSS examples, and Gigabit Ethernet, SATA and PCIe gives (2.4GHz/5GHz dualband WiFi, Cortex-M4 examples); you access to external devices or your Bluetooth 4.1 + BLE); • software support for fast hardware sensors. • All necessary clock generators and software integration; (including SATA and PCIe);

Macnica Americas and intoPIX bring a new FPGA reference design for UHD4K Live production over IP, using RTP transport and TICO lite compression The new design running on an Altera FPGA achieves low latency, visually lossless UHD4K transport over 10GbEthernet network infrastructures

over IP in studio infrastructure, using an Altera FPGA development kit using TICO lightweight compression over RTP an Altera HDMI 2.0 IP core with UHD at the SMPTE 2015 Annual Technical 4K 60 frames per second input in 4:2:2, Conference and Exhibition, Hollywood, intoPIX TICO IP cores doing the encoding, California. The demonstration featured and Macnica Americas IP cores doing

About Macnica Americas Macnica Americas, a leading supplier of Macnica Americas is a design services and IP provider with expertise in video video over IP solutions, and intoPIX, a transport solutions. Macnica’s IP portfolio includes solutions for Broadcast leading provider of compression tech- Video and Pro AV (specifically SMPTE 2022-1/2/5/6/7 IP) as well as high speed nologies, have demonstrated a new networking and embedded applications. FPGA solution designed to carry UHD4K

4 TECHNOLOGY FLASH

continuation from page 1

our cooperation for the deployment of the action plan! Even more, we have decided to widen the inter-cluster cooperation to additional cluster partners: NMI from the UK, MIDAS from Ireland, SCS from France, GAIA from Spain, Mi-cluster from Greece and Preface Distretto Green and High Tech Monza Brianza from Italy.

This is our new Silicon Europe Alliance: an inter-cluster cooperation alliance with the 12 leading European semiconductor and micro/nano electronics clusters, now ready for deploying a strong action plan for strengthening the competitiveness of our cluster members. I am looking forward to creating a lot of successes at the benefit of our European semiconductor industry! Looking forward to helping also your organization in strengthening your competitiveness!

Best regards, Peter Simkens

Managing Director • trainings for software integration for Besides, DAB-Embedded can provide DSP Valley DSP C66x, ARM Cortex-A15 cores video processing libraries (based on cor- Chairman Silicon and AMP integration; relation filters or neural network) for noise Europe Alliance • base board design services. reduction on images, complex object rec- ognition in video stream and more. n

the mapping over RTP and transport pies the same bandwidth as a 1080p ecosystem,” said Gael Rouvroy, intoPIX over 10GbE. A very low latency can be stream. We value our partnership with C.T.O. achieved with a minimum of 9 pixel lines IntoPIX to bring flexible IP transport n in total and a compression up to 4:1. solutions to Broadcast customers,” said Marc Levy, Macnica Americas, CTO. About intoPIX “Altera’s close collaboration with our intoPIX is a leading image com- partners, intoPIX and Macnica, enables “Macnica Americas is the first provid- pression technology provider to our customers to transport true 4K60 er of a full reference design solution audiovisual equipment manufac- video over 10GbE as well as show the based on TICO lightweight compres- turers. We are passionate about seamless translation to Altera’s HDMI sion with RTP mapping to carry UHD- offering people a higher quality 2.0 IP. This is another significant step in 4K over 10GbE IP suitable for new image experience and have devel- making IP networks in a video workflow IP-based studio infrastructures. intoPIX oped FPGA and ASIC IP-cores as a reality,” said Umar Mughal, Altera, and Macnica Americas have already suc- well as software tools that enable Director Broadcast Business Unit. cessfully worked together to bring a VSF leading-edge TICO Lightweight TR01 JPEG2000 over TS and ST2022-1/2 compression, JPEG 2000 compres- “IntoPIX’s TICO Codec is the perfect fit design. With this new reference design, sion, security, video over IP and for RTP transport solutions. The video we are together again accelerating the hardware enforcement. quality is truly visually lossless, and occu- market migration towards IP-based

5 newsletter 6

Caeleste: Supplier of beyond state of the Art Custom CMOS Image sensors

IP Portfolio, related to low noise and guarantee a flawless delivery of pack- high dynamic range sensors, to photon aged and tested imagers in production. counting, to X-ray pixel design, to time gating pixels, TDI and finally to proton Besides the realization of custom spe- Caeleste was created in December and Single Event hardened pixels. cific projects, we run also internal R&D 2006, by a few people around the for- projects to test new image sensor con- mer CTO of Fillfactory/Cypress. After an Since 2015 Caeleste is also a member of cepts in the selected foundries in order organic growth start, Caeleste is now DSP Valley in the Smart imaging group to explore further the limits of the 22 persons large and fast growing with and a follower of the Smart health imaging technology. These R&D pro- a CAGR of 30-50%. It is specialized in activities. jects resulted in Beyond State of the Art the design and supply of custom specific Image Sensors with low noise and very CMOS Image Sensors (CIS). Caeleste is Caeleste is still a pure play custom high dynamic range; some highlights still 100% owned by its founders. design house. We do not have a stand- are explained more in detail: ard product portfolio and we do not Although the company is relatively have to prioritize internal developments • Caeleste has the world record in low young, the staff members have a track with respect to customer needs. In noise imaging: We have proven a record of over 150 years in image fact Caeleste has almost the largest noise limit of 0.34 e-rms; this implies sensor design and characterization in CIS design team in Europe, exclusively that under low flux conditions (e.g. companies as such KU Leuven (ESAT), devoted to customer specific CMOS in astronomy) each and every photon can be counted and that the background is completely black, provided that the dark current is low enough. • Caeleste has also designed a dual color X-ray imager, which allows a much better discrimination and diag- nosis of cancerous tissue than the conventional grey scale images (see figure). • Caeleste has also its own patents for 3D imaging, based on Time of Flight (ToF) operation. This structure allows the almost noise free accumulation of multiple laser pulses to enable accu- rate distance measurements at long distance or with weak laser sources. n

Breast carcinoma specimen: comparison of a conventional grey scale X-ray image (left) with a dual color image. Resolving the energy allows to discriminate between normal About Caeleste fat and blood rich tissue. Caeleste (°2006) is a supplier of custom designed image sen- imec, TU Delft, FillFactory, Cypress image sensors. Caeleste is collaborat- sors for the most demanding Semiconductor, ON Semiconductor, ing with the most renowned, open applications, active in Medical, Melexis, Xenics, Canberra. Its sensors foundries for CMOS image manufacture Space, Automotive, Scientific and are used in medical imaging, indus- and with ultra-clean assembly and test Instrumentation imaging, focus- trial vision, scientific cameras and houses. Due to these collaborations, ing on high-speed imaging, high instruments and also in space applica- Caeleste can design your image sensor dynamic range and single photon tions (for remote sensing and science and deliver prototype samples under the detection. experiments). Caeleste has a patented best possible conditions, but it can also

6 IN THE SPOTLIGHTS

Fuji Xerox Reduces Silicon Area by More than 50 Percent Using Synopsys ASIP Designer

Synopsys’ Application-Specific Instruction-Set Processor Tool Enabled Rapid Exploration and Optimization of Processor Architecture for Multi-Function Printer Application

Highlights: • Fuji Xerox reduced silicon area by to immediately profile the architecture development kit (SDK) containing an more than 50 percent using an appli- against our algorithms. Designing an instruction-set simulator (ISS), assembler, cation-specific instruction set pro- ASIP with an instruction set and func- linker, debugger and C compiler, and cessor (ASIP) developed with ASIP tional units tailored to our applica- also generated the synthesizable RTL Designer, compared to fixed hard- tion domain enabled us to significantly design. The immediate availability of ware reduce gate count, while achieving our the C compiler and the ISS, including its • ASIP Designer’s “compiler-in-the- required system performance of printing advanced profiling capabilities, enabled loop” technology enabled use of 70 pages per minute.” the unique “compiler-in-the-loop” meth- application code to optimize the pro- odology, allowing Fuji Xerox to rapidly cessor architecture for performance, While angularity correction is typically profile the performance and tune the power and area done mechanically, the need for quiet architecture for its specific image pro- • Automatic generation of software development kit and synthesizable RTL enabled Fuji Xerox to complete the entire design in less than 14 months

Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq:SNPS) has announced Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. used Synopsys’ ASIP Designer tool to design a high-performance application-specific instruction set processor (ASIP) for its full-color multifunction printer. With ASIP Designer, Fuji Xerox developed a specialized instruction-set custom processor that consumed less than 50 percent of the die area of a fixed hardware implementation while still meeting the performance requirements. In addition, unlike fixed hardware, an ASIP offers software programmability, providing the flexibility Fuji Xerox needed to meet operation in office automation equip- cessing algorithms written in C. the varied processing demands of its ment required Fuji Xerox to take the multifunction printer application. Using different approach of using advanced “By replacing fixed hardware with ASIPs, ASIP Designer, Fuji Xerox’s design team image processing algorithms to apply companies like Fuji Xerox can signifi- was able to complete its ASIP design the correction to the scanned image. To cantly reduce total system cost, while from concept to implementation in less implement this in a performance- and increasing the overall flexibility of the than14 months. area-efficient way, with the flexibility to design,” said John Koeter, vice president make modifications to the algorithm, Fuji of marketing for IP and prototyping at “Synopsys’ reputation as the premier Xerox chose to design a custom proces- Synopsys. “Fuji Xerox’s implementation provider of ASIP development tools was sor using Synopsys’ ASIP Designer tool. of an ASIP for image correction in their the key factor in our decision to use multi-function printer illustrates how ASIP Designer for our custom processor Synopsys’ ASIP Designer allowed Fuji Synopsys’ ASIP Designer tool enables development,” said Noriaki Tsuchiya, Xerox to use a high-level specification designers to rapidly explore and opti- manager of the Controller Development of the processor to quickly model mul- mize processor architectures to achieve Group at Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. “ASIP tiple processor architectures. Using this the best balance of programmability, Designer’s rapid architectural explora- single input specification, ASIP Designer performance and area, while accelerat- tion capability made it possible for us automatically configured the software ing the development of their SoC.” n 7 newsletter 6

PragmaDev - Find the best architecture

architecture will end up with lower per- For that matter three types of informa- formances than a mono-core while con- tion are required: suming much more energy. For example 1. A set of usual functional scenarios. if the flow of execution does not actu- Scenarios that are likely to be exe- Following Moore’s law, multi-core ally have enough parallelism, the waste cuted, on which performance opti- processors are now more and more of time to synchronize the cores is not mization is to be investigated. common in embedded systems. But to balanced by the gain of parallel process- 2. The possible architectures including get the best of the parallel processing ing. The same question occurs in any their characteristics such as the pro- power it is important to choose the right distributed processing system and not cessing throughput of each available allocation of resources. If not carefully only the performance is of interest, but resource. studied it might happen a multi-core also the energy efficiency. 3. Measures of the time spent to execute an action relatively to the processing throughput available.

The first two types of information are generally quite straight forward, but the estimate or the measurement of the corresponding execution time is definitely trickier to get. Experiments on real targets are usually required to get a proper estimate of performance.

As a technological provider we have always preferred very precise models of execution and in particular executable models. For testing we also use a standardized executable test case nota- Exploration of the different scenarios for the possible architecture. The results are displayed in a radar graph for easy reading. tion. So we found out that if we added

fully controlled environment, even if the Antmicro - Emul8: The Open Source physical hardware is not yet available. Embedded Systems Emulator The tool has been in development since 2010, and by making it open source, a broad audience of developers and companies can be reached and further tools, platforms and functionalities can be added on top of the already richly- DSP Valley Associate Member, Antmicro, The official launch took place at featured project. The possibilities today a company specializing in embedded Embedded Conference Scandinavia, include creating, testing and debugging systems innovation, new product devel- held in Stockholm over November 3rd- software based on various operating opment and assisting customers in the 4th, 2015. systems like Linux, FreeBSD, Android, adoption of new technologies, together Contiki, RIOT, FreeRTOS or eCos on with their partner Realtime Embedded With embedded systems becoming top of various platforms from ven- are happy to announce the much await- more complex and challenging in terms dors like Freescale, Texas Instruments, ed open source release of Emul8 - an of design, development and deploy- STMicroelectronics or Nvidia. embedded systems emulator that might ment, Emul8 comes in as an easy and just become a new favorite tool of the readily-available solution for iterative What exactly is Emul8? trade for professional developers in the development and continuous integra- Emul8, as the name suggests, is an industry. tion of devices or systems of devices in a emulator that targets various embedded

8 IN THE SPOTLIGHTS

Definition of a possible architecture. timing information to any instruction in From a technological point of view we our model, with a number of simula- use: tions driven by nominal test cases, we • An executable model designed with could deduce the performance for each SDL (Specification and Description architecture; and therefore find the Language Z.100 standard from ITU- Time spent for execution of an instruction. best one. That is what we have called T), enriched with estimated perfor- the Performance Analyzer. mance for any atomic instruction. • A set of functional test cases with TTCN-3 (Testing and Test Control About PragmaDev Notation Three Z.160 standard from PragmaDev provides a set of modeling and testing tools for the development of ITU-T). real time and embedded software: Real Time Developer Studio. RTDS provides • A set of possible allocations described three levels of modeling: informal, semi-formal, and fully formal. While infor- with UML Deployment Diagram mal modeling, the most common, is mainly used for documentation; the most (standard from OMG), with the advanced level of modeling allows simulation, prototyping, verification, full code throughput of the respective nodes. generation, debug on target, test generation, and test of the model. n

systems, typically based on ARM CPUs How is Emul8 useful? be analyzed and automated much easier and/or MCUs (there is also support for Running embedded software in a PC than many hardware-based setups. SPARC, PowerPC and x86). With Emul8 abstracts out the physicality of a real you can develop your system entirely in embedded system - since you are work- How do I get started? a virtual environment that runs within ing in a fully controlled environment, You can simply get in touch with us your PC. you can monitor and influence all the via our website: http://emul8.org/ or at elements in the system, something [email protected] n Emul8 is an Instruction Set Simulator that is difficult in typically constrained (ISS), meaning it offers functional simu- embedded device, where debug output lation of an embedded device or set of is scarce and the real state of the system devices at the instruction level, and it is unknown and hard to trace. built for speed necessary to do iterative About Antmicro software development without getting Emul8 lets you create repeatable, script- Antmicro is an embedded tech- irritated. Typically, you can work with able, virtual devices or systems of devic- nology company providing SW/ your code in Emul8 more effectively es that can execute your real code for FPGA development services for the than you would on real hardware, with the purpose of development, testing emerging ecosystem of the Internet comparable execution times but without and debugging. If used in the right of Things. We are enablers of new the overhead of e.g. reprogramming the scenario, it can greatly improve your technologies and skilled integrators, device or rerunning to produce more and your team’s productivity, by letting helping customers create smart, debug output. you create identical and controllable innovative products. development environments which can

9 newsletter 6 IN THE SPOTLIGHTS

Fully automated human digestion simulator for unprecedented scientific testing – the T&M Solution

SHIME® — a bio-simulation unit by ProDigest, in lation’s PC-based interface is intuitive partnership with Test & Measurement Solutions to use and guarantees a very detailed overview of all relevant parameters. Apart from scrutinizing gastric and intes- food supplements, and one that rep- tinal processes, ProDigest also develops resents regular digestion; “We have also included an uninter- lab equipment to artificially fabricate the • To study both human and animal rupted power supply (UPS) system in the complete digestive system of humans digestive mechanisms, a variety of electronics set-up”, adds Koen Schoofs, and animals. The Ghent University spin- simulated body temperatures and Sales Manager at T&M Solutions. “That off has developed a unique, fully auto- digestive products are used; way, we avoid weeks of analyses going mated bio-simulation unit. To achieve • Every simulation cycle runs 24/7 over to waste in the event of a power fail- this, the company worked with Test & the course of about two months, Measurement Solutions (T&M Solutions) which means SHIME® needs to be — to be able to provide a fitting moni- able to operate automatically. toring solution. The T&M solution “SHIME® digestive systems need to be ‘fed’ three times a day”, explains Pieter Van den Abbeele, Senior Scientist at ProDigest. “Digestive enzymes therefore also have to be added on a regular basis. The contents should move from one reactor to another. Several probes ure. And to make SHIME® even more ought to closely measure and monitor reliable, the whole installation is based pH levels and redox reactions. And, if on fanless solid-state technology, using needed, pumps need to be automati- circuits and devices built entirely from cally controlled in order to adjust these solid materials.” chemical features.” Background and challenges Results How to measure the effect of food In short: the need for an automat- With the assistance of T&M Solutions, supplements on the bacterial flora of ed electronic and mechanical solution ProDigest now has seven reliable SHIME® the large intestine? For one, you would was beyond dispute. T&M Solutions simulators up and running, thereby need to collect regular in-vivo samples has developed custom electronics to offering high-quality services to its cli- without influencing the digestive pro- record and stabilize signals from the pH ents across the globe. This enables the cess: a daunting task – if not impossible probes and redox potential measure- – at least without the proper technol- ment equipment: ogy. That’s why ProDigest designed • A field-programmable gate array SHIME®, choosing T&M Solutions as its (FPGA) processes these signals, com- partner for the design and installation of municating about 100 inputs and out- its monitoring equipment. puts to a NationaI Instruments sbRIO controller. Short for ‘Simulator of the Human • This control device then ensures that Intestinal Microbial Ecosystem’, the unit the pumps are functioning correctly, lives up to its name: taking into account all relevant con- company to capitalize on the growing • Five glass reactors, placed on stir- trol curves. need for research on food supplements rers, simulate the functions of the • The SHIME® controller was pro- and their impact on the human digestive stomach, the small intestine and three grammed in a LabVIEW environment mechanism. To refine this research pro- areas of the large intestine; from A to Z, making it possible to cess even further, ProDigest and T&M • For comparative purposes, each unit communicate the measuring signals Solutions are already working on fine- consists of two such systems: one to the hardware via the NI drivers. tuning this one-of-a-kind bio-simulator. that mimics the digestion of specific • Embedded in Windows 7.0, the instal- n

10 EMBEDDED CORNER

In the EXTRA project, we propose to UGent HES group leads European project create a new and flexible exploration platform for developing reconfigurable on run-time reconfigurable computing architectures and tools with run-time reconfiguration built-in from the start. for three years, with a total budget of The idea is to enable the joint optimiza- almost 4 million euro and a planned 567 tion of architecture, tools, applications person months of work. and reconfiguration technology in order to prepare for the necessary power- The Computer Systems Lab HES team Prof. Dirk Stroobandt is the project coordi- efficient HPC hardware nodes of the (Hardware and Embedded Systems) nator of the EXTRA project, involving also future. This includes: of Ghent University coordinates the universities from the UK (Imperial College • Using novel reconfiguration EU-project “EXTRA: Exploiting eXascale London and University of Cambridge), approaches for processing, BRAMs, Technology with Reconfigurable Greece (Telecommunications Systems special blocks and interconnection. Architectures” within the European Institute), Italy (Politecnico di Milano), These reconfiguration approaches Horizon 2020 programme FETHPC the Netherlands (Universiteit van allow speeding up the reconfigu- (Future and Emerging Technologies Amsterdam) and Germany (Ruhr- ration process and having targeted Proactive programme Towards Exascale Universität Bochum), as well as compa- reconfiguration for specific reconfig- High Performance Computing). The pro- nies from Greece (Synelixis) and the UK urable functions. ject started September 1, 2015 and runs (Maxeler). continuation on page 12

UPCOMING EVENTS

SINS: Sound Interfacing though the SWARM: first public workshop

February 16, 2016 http://www.esat.kuleuven.be/sins/ KU Leuven - ESAT, Belgium

The KU Leuven research groups MICAS, Alzheimer monitoring, and 2.) acoustic The realized innovations of the differ- TELEMIC, AdvISe & DraMCo and the surveillance and home automation. ent partners are integrated into a joint iMinds-VUB group ETRO kindly invite acoustic localization and classification you for the first SINS public workshop. About the workshop: demonstrator with multiple collaborat- The workshop will host presentations ing acoustic sensor nodes. This will About the project: and demonstrations by the different allow the attendees to experience the SINS is a strategic basic research project, research groups participating in the impact of the different findings in a full supported by the IWT, aiming at the project on the achieved innovations up system set-up. development of high-performance wire- to now, including: the hardware and less distributed sensing solutions with a chip implementation of the (very low The workshop closes with presentations multi-year autonomous life-time, with a power) acoustic sensing node, the wire- by some members from the ‘Industrial focus on distributed acoustic monitoring. less subsystem, the embedded acoustic Advisory Committee’ which will tes- localization system, the efficient embed- tify on the potential of SINS technology Within SINS, the conflicting requirements ded sound classification with scalable in application domains such as Home of high performance and long lifetime computational workload and the acous- Automation and e-Health. are pursued by relying on a swarm of tic sound source separation. n collaborating low performance sensing nodes, which can quickly scale their performance according to the environmental conditions. This allows to achieve high-accuracy monitoring when required, while having very low average power consumption. The SINS concepts are demonstrated on acoustic activity monitoring and acoustic (location) tracking, and this in two use cases: 1.) AAL for

11 newsletter 6 CONTACT INFORMATION

continuation from page 11

• A reconfigurable coarse grain archi- requirements. This requires a com- and for finding the next-generation sys- tecture with as basic components pro- plete tool flow that targets this just- tem requirements (a virtual tool environ- cessing, memory, and interconnection in-time synthesis. We aim at reducing ment – such as VPR). We want to pro- units of different complexity. The basic the reconfiguration time so as to vide the European platform for run-time components can be those provided by make reconfiguration more useful. reconfiguration to maintain Europe’s current FPGAs but the system will also • Optimizations of applications with competitive edge and leadership in run- incorporate more complex compo- reconfiguration as an explicit design time reconfiguration and reconfigurable nents like basic CPUs, switches, caches concept. computing. that will also be instantiated and/or • The complete chain from device up to reconfigured on demand; those can be the application. The project also has an Industry Advisory built-in or implemented on reconfigur- Board (mainly looking at industrial appli- able fabric. As part of our project, we offer the cations of the reconfiguration concept) • Just-in-time synthesis methods for European research community a and a Research Advisory Board (mainly reconfiguration on the fly. The whole research platform with open source following up the platform research). system can be synthesized/reconfig- architecture descriptions and tools for People interested in being part of either ured based on immediate application continued research on reconfiguration Board can contact Prof. Dirk Stroobandt. n Contact Information AnSem - Tracking marine animals with SATCOMS • p. 1 Mr. Stefan Gogaert, CEO AnSem • Tel. +32 16 38 65 00 www.ansem.com • [email protected] All trademarks or registered mentioned in this newsletter are the intellectual property of their respective owners. Philips AmbiLux UHD TV debuts Ambilight projection for the ultimate immersive viewing experience – TP Vision • p. 2 Mr. Marc Storms, Dir. System Innovation Electrical TP Vision • Tel: +32 9 248 22 11 www.tpvision.com • [email protected] DAB-Embedded brings new platform for medical applications • p. 4 Mr. Art Staliarou, CTO DAB-Embedded • Tel. : +32 472 813 610 www.dab-embedded.com • [email protected] Macnica Americas and intoPIX bring a new FPGA reference design for UHD4K Live production over IP, using RTP transport and TICO lite compression • p. 4 Mrs. Katty Van Mele, Director Business Development intoPIX • Tel. +32 10 23 84 70 www.intopix.com • [email protected] Caeleste: Supplier of beyond state of the Art Custom CMOS Image sensors • p. 6 Mr. Jan Vermeiren, Business Development Manager Caeleste • Tel: +15 71 05 03 www.caeleste.com • [email protected] Fuji Xerox Reduces Silicon Area by More than 50 Percent Using Synopsys ASIP Designer • p. 7 Mr. Gert Goossens, Senior Director, ASIP Tools Synopsys • Tel.: +32 16 38 70 30 http://www.synopsys.com • [email protected] PragmaDev - Find the best architecture • p. 8 Mr. Emmanuel Gaudin, Founder & CEO Pragmadev • Tel. +33 1 42 74 15 38 www.pragmadev.com • [email protected] Antmicro - Emul8: The Open Source Embedded Systems Emulator • p. 8 Mr. Michael Gielda, Business Development Manager Antmicro antmicro • Tel.: +48 616 62 83 38 http://antmicro.com • [email protected] Fully automated human digestion simulator for unprecedented scientific testing – the T&M Solution • p. 10 Mrs. Liesbeth Boels, Communication Manager • Tel. : +32 11 35 25 48 www.tm-solutions.eu • [email protected] UGent HES group leads European project on run-time reconfigurable computing • p. 11 Prof. Dirk Stroobandt, Professor Ghent University, ELIS Department • Tel.: +32 9 264 34 01 http://hes.elis.ugent.be/dstrooba • [email protected]

12 This publication has been realized with the support of these organizations.