Extended Life ICs
Chip Family Demise Could Impact Factory Systems
Written by Wes Iversen, Managing Editor
Industrial end-users should ask questions of their controls and equipment vendors, says consultant, in the wake of Intel’s decision to discontinue popular x86 chips. Read More.
What's the latest and greatest news heard around the water cooler?
Innovasic Semiconductor (Albuquerque, N.M.), a provider in replacement integrated circuit (IC) and microcontroller solutions, announced that it is developing a roadmap to address Intel Corp.'s recent end of life notice (EOL) in the embedded MCU space. Read More.
Don't Fret Over IC Obsolescence, Prepare For It
By Paul Short
ICs are discontinued all the time. Last year, some 150,000 components were declared end of life (EOL). For some manufacturers, this isn't a problem. Their products are on to the next revision anyway. For more and more long-life systems manufacturers, though, obsolescence drains time and money. One study says a redesign could cost more than a half-million dollars. Fortunately, by following some common sense, you can protect your systems from obsolescence. Read More.
by Barbara Jorgensen
When Advanced Micro Devices stopped making its Am186 and Am188 chips, in early 2002, it left networking equipment maker Lantronix high and dry. Lantronix makes a family of serial ports that have used AMD's 186ES microcontroller since the late 1990s. "We still make a lot of legacy products that have been around 10 years or more, and once we spec something in, we pretty much leave it alone," says director of engineering Daryl Miller. "This was a big problem." Read More.
Industrial Networking
EtherNet/IP Industrial Network Tools Deserve a Look
Written by Jon Titus, for EDN Dev-Monkey
Early this summer [2010] I received an email announcement from Innovasic Semiconductor about the RapID "platform" for EtherNet/IP in industrial equipment. The communications use the company's fido1100 communications controller chip.Engineers and designers can download a complete RapID package of tools and documents from the Innovasic website for a free 180-day evaluation Read More.
Chip Family Demise Could Impact Factory Systems
Written by Wes Iversen, Managing Editor
Industrial end-users should ask questions of their controls and equipment vendors, says consultant, in the wake of Intel’s decision to discontinue popular x86 chips. Read More.
Back To The Future With The 68K
The venerable Motorola 68000 architecture takes a leap ahead with a unique real-time microcontroller architecture from Innovasic Semiconductor. Read More.
Fido Teaches Old Dog New Tricks
By William Wong
I was looking forward to checking out Innovasic’s $499 fido1100 EDK (evaluation development kit). The fido1100 instruction set is based on the CPU32+ that is compatible with the venerable Motorola 68000. The EDK includes the Eclipse IDE and C++ GNU toolchain (Sourcery G++ GNU) from Code Sourcery. The GNU tools for the 68000 have had plenty of time for refinement. Read More.
Neue 32-bit-Mikrocontrollerfamilie auf 68K-Basis bringt vorhersagbares Zeitverhalten in industrielle Echtzeit-Anwendungen. Read More.
Innovasic Mit Eignener 32-bit-MCU 
Das eigentlich als Lieferant für Ersatz-ICs bekannte, Fab-lose US-Halbleiterunternehmen Innovasic Semiconductor stellt nun erstmals einen eigenentwickelten Mikrocontroller für industrielle Anwendungen vor. Read More.
Rethinking SoC Architecture Around I/O, Real-Time Tasks, and Debugging
System-on-Chip (SoC) devices present great integration, but the search for a device often hinges on just one missing feature or performance attribute. A device that combines the benefits of I/O programmability, optimized real-time performance, and easier debugging has emerged from thinking about SoC architecture. Read More.