By Freescale Staff

More than 2,000 embedded enthusiasts joined us at the 2014 Freescale Technology Forum this week to explore technology innovations that are making our roads safer, our networks more productive, our homes more connected, our cities more efficient – our world smarter.

Everywhere we turned, partners, customers and engineers were building things together. The Hack-A-Day, sponsored by Make It Lab, brought together participants and mentors to finalize a design and make it Internet-of-Things-ready using the brand new Freescale FRDM-KL64F based on ARM-Cortex-M4. Many of our guests got the chance to program their own Kinetis Freedom Platform and take home the unique swag. We also had the opportunity to spend some quality time with the engineers of tomorrow, when local high school students from the Girl Scouts of Central Texas joined us to design robots that could throw a yoga ball 10 feet in the air. Simply walking around the Tech Lab hallways exposed us to hundreds of innovations that will make our lives more connected and fun. The Cadillac ELR car demo and SteadyServ® iKeg™, for example, were huge hits!

Just programmed my very own Kinetis Freedom Platform! #FTF2014 #legitengineernow @ FTF Technology Lab http://t.co/S1xhbaZWRq

— Christina Sheehan (@csheesays) April 9, 2014

Sensor fusion at FTF

Another technology we are excited about is sensor fusion. The combination of data derived from different sources resulting in better, more accurate, complete and dependable information. We’ve seen examples of it throughout the tech lab – the Xtrinsic sensor fusion for Kinetis MCUs that combines an accelerometer, magnetometer and a gyroscope with the Kinetis MCU analyzing the data. Ideal for a variety of applications such as smart phones, IoT machine monitoring and failure prediction applications. Automotive applications such as Advanced Drive Assistance Systems (ADAS) are also a great example of where sensor fusion plays a critical role in advancing safety and ultimately brining the self-driving car to reality.

In this video, Freescale's Mike Stanley discusses Sensor Fusion to Sensor Intelligence as the IoT continues to help shape the sensor market.

Intelligent battery sensor and i.MX 6 series expansion

To close the week, we announced the industry’s first general market AEC-Q100 qualified intelligent battery sensor designed to support both conventional and emerging battery chemistries for automotive and industrial applications.  In addition, Freescale announced the expansion of its i.MX 6 portfolio with the industry’s first applications processor to integrate an ARM Cortex-A9 processor and an ARM Cortex-M4 processor in a single chip design. Freescale’s i.MX 6 series of applications processors is growing quickly, particularly in the automotive space, where shipments grew more than 50 percent from 2012 to 2013.

Inventor Dean Kamen shares the FIRST story

Inspirational, motivational, forward-thinking problem solver -- that's Dean Kamen. "Understated brilliance" is how one attendee described his Friday keynote. In his captivating address, he shared amazing innovations, which make our world smarter, greener and safer, from prostetic arms to tech that cleans drinking water in remote communities. His roles as inventor and advocate are intertwined—his own passion for technology and its practical uses has driven his personal determination to spread the word about technology's virtues and by so doing to change our culture of how we engage students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Through it all, one theme was clear: You can help inspire generations of kids to STEM, and the FIRST organization makes it easy for all of us to participate. More on FIRST @ http://www.usfirst.org/.

Thanks to our Diamond sponsors
Our diamond partners and sponsors including Arrow Electronics, Oracle, Wind River, Avnet and Mentor Graphics were also showing off some of the coolest tech. And in partnership with Oracle and ARM, we demoed the Freescale Internet of Things Gateway, the foundation of the one box concept that will support the secure deployment of a vast array of IoT devices under a common standard.

If you didn’t get the change to join us at FTF this year, we hope you’ll consider it for the future! You can relive the 2014 experience by visiting our FTF web site where we have been posting daily highlights from the show floor. You can also check out coverage, photos, videos and more on our Facebook page, Twitter (our hashtag is #FTF2014), LinkedIn and Google+. Until next time!

Next year: We''re excited to share our hometown with the embedded community. FTF Americas 2015 will be in Austin!

@Freescale has to be one of the coolest companies to work for. #ftf2014 is one if the coolest events I've ever been to.

— Travis Long (@LongTrav) April 10, 2014

By Freescale Staff

Ninety minutes of design inspiration – that’s how one attendee described Freescale CEO Gregg Lowe’s keynote this morning to a packed crowd of more than 2,000 embedded design enthusiasts. And we couldn’t agree more. With so many compelling innovations on stage, from RF technology that cooks a fish in a block of ice without thawing the ice, an electric luxury car, a professional performance system for vocals, guitar and phase looping, to glasses that can help some of the 246 million visually impaired see, we’re hard pressed to pick the crowd pleaser.

Today with Oracle, we demonstrated the Freescale IoT gateway, the hardware platform that forms the foundation of the flexible one box concept. It will be equipped with multi-party software, and engineered to support the secure delivery of IoT services to end-users in a home, business or other locations.

Engaging in the Internet of Things (IoT), Freescale is featuring its embedded leadership and ability to touch all areas of the IoT – from microcontrollers, digital networking, secure data, connected cars, AirFast RF power solutions, RF lighting, defense, aerospace, land mobile and cellular infrastructure. And with the dramatic expansion of networking infrastructure, these devices are connecting to the Internet at a dramatic pace.

The landscape for software-defined networking

With 50 billion devices expected to be connected by 2020, there has been a surge in the volume of machine- and human-generated data as well as an increase in network endpoints. Many of these networks have also become virtualized in order to cope with new data traffic and volumes, giving rise to software-defined approaches to build the networks of tomorrow.

Two years ago, Freescale was the first to address these fast-moving dynamics by introducing the next generation of QorIQ platforms built on our Layerscape architecture. This week, we announced the new QorIQ L2 family of ARM-based network processors designed to support software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV). The new processors enable engineers to focus on innovating at the application level by abstracting tasks such as setup, initialization and teardown. The devices also support wireless access, enterprise routing, and data center processing applications.

In this video, Freescale’s Tareq Bustami discusses how software-defined networking is transforming the networking space. He also explains how software-aware solutions have become crucial by helping engineers fully and easily exploit architectural capabilities and join the “new network.”

Engineers and programmers agree that networking processors have traditionally been complex to program, often requiring the manual coding of software. Freescale’s new QorIQ LS2 is fully programmable and highly flexible, enhancing performance for smarter, more capable networks. Check out these demos from FTF:

Paving the way for advanced driver assistance systems

In the IoT, the evolution of the connected vehicle is a driving force. Cars are the ultimate smart mobile device with electronic solutions replacing mechanical systems to enhance the driving experience, improve safety and increase vehicle efficiency.

The average car now contains more than 60 MCUs and more than 10 million lines of code. By 2018, one in five cars on the road will be self-aware and able to share information on the mechanical health, their global position and surroundings. Network service operators see automobiles as their next big opportunity.

Today, we continue increase the intelligence inside the car with the introduction of the highest performance MCU in the industry that will enable the next generation of mid-range vehicles to include highly advanced graphics and display technology for in-car dashboards.

In this video, Freescale's Andrew Robertson, ADAS applications engineer demonstrates the latest Qorivva MPC577xK MCU and the MRD3000 multi-channel 77 GHz radar transceiver chipset that powers this radar-based safety systems to help drivers manage blind spots and to detect for side impacts. This long- and mid-range frontal radar is also used for adaptive cruise control.

Our FTF guests can visit our interactive technology lab to see many of these embedded solutions. But remember that if you are not here, you can still experience FTF virtually on our web site, which includes daily highlights, keynote speeches, photos, demos, and interviews from the show floor. Be sure to follow the FTF action on our Facebook page, through Twitter updates (our hashtag is #FTF2014), on LinkedIn and on Google+.

Embedded World Nuremberg welcomed 26,000 visitors this year. I was impressed by the number of companies and solutions that were displayed for industrial and multi-market. Even if we can understand historical reasons, what amazed me was all these small companies with innovative solutions for this fragmented market.

More and more offerings are adopting the best from the consumer market — intuitive user interface, high-definition media, sleek design, long-battery life time — while addressing industrial requirements, including ruggedness, stringent qualification, security, product longevity of 10 years.

For instance, if you look at Freescale’s proven partners showcase picture, you’ll see numerous demonstrations based on screen and user interface with OS such as Linux, WinCE, and Android. The large majority of these proven partners are the EBS (Embedded Board Solution providers) who provide ready-for-production standard and custom form factor board embedding application process, memory, and OS and their market is booming (> 29% CAGR for ARM® based board from IHS 2013).

Proven Partners showcase at Freescale’s booth during Embedded World

This year, I had the opportunity to speak at Embedded World Conference in line with my quest of how to tackle M2M and IoT challenges: “M2M and Embedded Processing: Advantages of Multi-core and Asymmetric Processing.” It’s a broad, exciting topic, but unfortunately could only be addressed superficially in a conference setting. Books or a dedicated conference would be more appropriate.

My view regarding solution for M2M is that “One size doesn’t fit all” and the perspectives I provided were that asymmetric (heterogeneous) processing will become mainstream and will address some of M2M challenges while enabling new applications.  Other advantages are: next level of energy efficiency improvement, enabling concurrent real-time and non real-time, strong security, smaller physical size and cost-effectiveness.

This exercise made me realize that too many developers are not aware about asymmetric processing architecture and their advantages. Even using multicore processing such as partitioning for security or effectively using GPU, DSP and multicore processors (ARM® or Power Architecture® technology based) seem not so obvious for software developer. Hence, be able to develop applications with concurrent real-time tasks and user interface or critical code security coexisting with a standard OS is today an invaluable asset. For energy efficiency purpose, big.LITTLE™ processing from ARM seems the solution to get heterogeneous processing widely adopted by the developer community.

Stephane Gervais-Ducouret is a Global Marketing, Partnership & Solutions Manager at Freescale.

It’s spring in Austin, which means wild temperature swings, a week-long relief from traffic and SXSW. It also means a great chance to spend time with marketing experts from a wide range industries. I wanted to share a conversation I had at one of these marketing gatherings when the discussion turned to IoT.

If you’re in our industry, you know what Freescale does. If you’re not at least a company that makes things with electronic content, you're less familiar with the kind of technology that Freescale develops. So as I talked with them, explaining what we do, I pulled out a very handy reference card that shows the size of our latest innovation: the world’s smallest 32-bit ARM based microcontrollers.

It’s a little hard to grasp until you see it. The smallest one will fit easily into the dimple of a golf ball. You literally have to hold the card up to the light to see it. For the group, it was a lightbulb moment. In the realm of IoT, making powerful processors this small will enable whole classes of new products.  We can put intelligence into areas that we didn’t think possible. This is the kind of innovation that keeps IoT moving forward.

One of the group said “this is like a windy spring day in Austin, it’s just like all the tree pollen”. Well, not exactly, but it does give a great analogy. Products like this can be scattered in huge volumes into a myriad of new intelligent products.

And this week, UBM reaffirmed our belief that this is a truly innovative product, by awarding Freescale the Ultimate Products – Processors category for the Kinetis KL02 CSP at the 2014 ACE awards in San Jose. What an accomplishment by the Freescale MCU team to be rewarded by your peers. This is also an acknowledgement that the KL02 CSP products are the kind of innovation that will enable groundbreaking products in medical, wearables and other growing segments.

It was a great evening for Freescale, and the other winners as well.

Now, how to create that "smart pollen" ...

I just spent two days at embedded world in Nuremberg. My overall impression? The show should be renamed “embedded world for the Internet of Things.” The pervasiveness of the IoT — from demo signs to hands-on sessions — was undeniable. I could not turn a corner without hearing IoT chatter or seeing IoT-this and IoT-that signs. Once seen by some as hype, the IoT has become reality as implementations are becoming more concrete. I saw countless makers and demonstrations of wearables, automotive systems, medical monitoring, and home appliances that are fueling the IoT market with new smart, connected solutions.

Aside from evidence of its growth, if you talk about the IoT with anyone, you’ll hear an endless number of technology challenges and debates. These are the top five that I heard the most:

• Processing performance versus power consumption
• Hardware and software scalability 
• Wireless connectivity support
• Very optimized and small form factors
• Security and data integrity

Plus more …

I can’t list them all. But, what I can share with you is what I shared with many people at embedded world when I was asked how Freescale could tackle these challenges.

Let’s take the node-level challenge, for instance. More and more nodes are being deployed in all kind of equipment that sometimes need to be up-and-running for a decade (yes, 10 years) with a small battery. How do you solve that challenge?

How do you manage the integration of an IoT node when the equipment does not support today’s advanced electronics?

When you consider very small and optimized mechanical designs, how can you make your equipment smarter and connected?

My answers to those questions (and more) were easy.

Kinetis mini MCUs for IoT

Our newest, the Kinetis KL03 mini MCU is a tiny ultra-small 1.6 x 2.0 mm² wafer-level CSP supports the IoT. It’s billed as the world’s smallest most energy efficient 32-bit MCU and it’s based on ARM’s ultra-low-power Cortex-M0+ architecture. (Read more about it here and here.)

When I showed a sample of the chip to someone who was building out an infrastructure solution for the food and retail industry, he told me he would put it “everywhere, yes everywhere. Even in our cup of coffee so it will ask for refill by itself.”  (Coffee on demand!)

With its small footprint and ultra low power performance, the Kinetis mini MCU can be used as an IoT node engine. However, to help solve the IoT challenges, we are not only working at the smallest IoT node level, we are trying to ease the IoT deployment and implementation at each stage of the network.

One box for all

Case in point: The “one box” platform with Oracle. I heard great feedback on this topic, from the partnership with Oracle to the complete IoT value chain enabled all the way through the gateway based on Freescale’s i.MX 6 series applications processor, reaching nodes supported by Kinetis MCUs, all the way secure through the Java™ platform.

This platform is open and based on available software and hardware to help engineers both accelerate their IoT designs and rollout the IoT service implementation in a secured way.

RIoT at embedded world

Fantastic energy and enthusiasm is the best way that I could describe some of the newer developers and smaller companies who were starting their journey into the world of the IoT. However, accessing and leveraging embedded technologies can be a long journey, and I heard a variety of questions from small companies, and even hobbyists.

How do we start affordable IoT application development on the leading edge technology? 

Who will provide me with software and hardware support?

How can I leverage good tips or existing solutions which could accelerate my development?

How can I quickly bring up and run a first system?

New innovators have many good questions that could easily turn into big development roadblocks, and that’s why we are engaged in a powerful partnership aimed at helping the developer community. In collaboration with Element 14, we launched the open source community board: RIoTboard.org. This open source, single board, platform is based on the ARM® Cortex®-A9 architecture. It’s designed to help speed development with the designer and hobbyist in mind.

RIoTBoard offers the successful and well recognized i.MX technology, with i.MX 6Solo processor based on ARM Cortex-A9 Core architecture, operating at speeds up to 1GHz – also Integrated debug circuit using the Kinetis K20 MCU and Freescale PMICs.

With this board, anyone who wants to develop and kick start an IoT project can access a low-cost tool, supported by Linux and Android Jelly Bean. Developers can also access the community support riotboard.org and available reference designs are also available.

Yes, embedded world 2014 is over but the IoT journey is starting NOW – and Freescale is in the center – investing and enabling all the technologies that hardware and software developers need for their next big IoT design. So now, what would you do with all the Freescale technology at your fingertips?

Sylvain Gardet is Freescale's EMEA embedded processor marketing manager.

Exactly one year ago, February 2013, Freescale announced the world’s smallest ARM Powered® MCU – the Kinetis KL02 MCU. The response from the market was tremendous (see here, here and here).

This 1.9 mm x 2.0 mm chip was poised to revolutionize the Internet of Things by enabling exciting possibilities for a new tier of ultra-small, smart, power-efficient devices. Design engineers were wowed by the performance and integration provided in an MCU that’s the size of a grain of rice, making the impossible seemingly possible.

As the Internet of Things continues to evolve, the demands for even ‘smaller’ design and more functionality become even more important.

Our engineering team took an already small MCU one step further: Why not add some additional functionality that customers want – but make the chip even smaller?

That’s exactly what we did with the recently announced Kinetis KL03 device, the next world’s smallest MCU. This chip is 15% smaller than its predecessor, but adds important functionality such as bootloader with ROM and ADC voltage reference.  This means that design engineers can more easily support factory programming and online system firmware upgrades and deliver improved analog performance with higher accuracy.  Plus, the Kinetis KL03 MCU enables even lower power (longer battery life) with new features like low power UART and low power wake up.

Smart product design, optimized ball layout

The Kinetis KL03 device is more than 35% smaller than competitive CSP solutions, and the Kinetis mini MCUs represent the best of the MCU industry showing just what electrical engineers can do with silicon.  Could things get smaller?  Definitely.  Smaller dies, new process technologies, finer pitch solder ball layouts. The possibilities are endless.  I am excited to see what the future holds.

The response from my first blog about the Kinetis mini MCUs was great, and hopefully you had some fun with the social media campaign that we talked about in my second blog.  A couple of comments that I saw stood out for me:

First was weight.  I previously focused the Kinetis mini MCU comparisons on size (primarily around area).  But there is a big benefit to weight as well. We did some measuring in the lab and found that 5000 Kinetis KL03 CSP samples weigh under 20 grams.  Especially when we talk about end-node IoT applications, we each have a vested interest in devices being as light as possible since many of these devices are expected to be carried on the person.  Monitors, tracking devices, communication products need to be small AND light weight.

Second was more photos. Many of you said you wanted to see more photos with product comparisons to better visualize just how small these Kinetis mini MCUs really are. With the release of the new Kinetis KL03 device, I thought this was a perfect time to share some new photos.

But one of my favorite comments that I received recently said “A picture may be worth a thousand words, but an actual part is worth ten thousand words.”  I couldn’t agree more.  Want to order a mechanical sample?  Email Minis@freescale.com.

Kathleen Jachimiak is a Freescale product manager for Kinetis mini MCUs.

On May 30, 2013 Freescale announced that we would be creating the Freescale Foundation, a nonprofit organization aimed at supporting science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education initiatives in grades K-12.  Since then, a lot has happened. The Freescale Foundation board was chosen and Freescale announced sponsorship of the Austin Marathon and Half Marathon with our fundraising proceeds going to the foundation, and we opened our doors for the first funding requests.

During our review process, numerous STEM education programs asked for our help, from large charities, school districts to small afterschool programs. In the first week alone, the Freescale Foundation was flooded with requests to support some incredible programs. This shows just how important organizations like the Freescale Foundation are. There are already numerous STEM education programs in our communities, but many are underfunded, understaffed and unsupported. In a world where technology is driving our success, we need to do more for students in these crucial fields. That is why the Freescale Foundation aims to work with educators, community leaders, policy-makers and nonprofits to help make the world a smarter place.

Last week, we were pleased to announce the Freescale Foundation’s first grant recipients. After a difficult decision-making process, the Freescale Foundation’s Board of Directors has carefully selected the applications that we believe will have the highest impact in inspiring young people and preparing them to pursue STEM careers. We also took special note of programs that reached out to students who might otherwise not have access to quality STEM education programs.

Please join me in congratulating:

• First Bytes, University of Texas at Austin, Department of Computer Science – Austin, Texas
  • First Bytes
• Future City Competition – Phoenix, Arizona
  • By designing a city of the future, 6^th through 8^th grade students who participate in the Future City Competition
• Girl Scouts of Central Texas – Austin, Texas
  • The Girl Scouts of Central Texas
• Invent Now Inc. – Nationwide, including Austin, Texas; Detroit, Michigan; Chandler, Arizona; and Boston, Massachusetts
  • Invent Now
• Skillpoint Alliance – Austin, Texas
  • Skillpoint Alliance
• United Way for Greater Austin – Austin, Texas
  • The United Way for Greater Austin

I believe these organizations have the power to inspire kids to take on the hard problems and help bring a brighter future. It is through programs like these that students will meet the teachers, mentors and friends who will inspire them to become scientists, doctors and engineers. Because of these programs, students will go on to fix problems, invent technologies and cure diseases. They will disprove bad ideas, prove better ones, create jobs, make the world safer and help unveil the scientific mysteries of our world. I am proud to be part of the Freescale Foundation, and we are honored to support these initiatives.

Rick Morales is Director of Freescale Community Engagement & Inclusion and Executive Director of the Freescale Foundation

After a few years of absence, it’s great to see the Austin Marathon returning to Freescale. We helped found the race back in 1991 and produced it until 2006. A lot has happened between now and then, but it’s also easy to see how much has stayed the same.

Let’s admit, the 90s were a strange time. People parted their hair down the middle, boy bands roamed the earth, and the internet made strange noises every time you went online. But as silly as it was, the world was changing rapidly. Technology was BOOMING, and nobody knew what would happen next. Remember the first cell phones and how quickly they shrunk into flip phones and then became smart phones?

As different as the world was, there is a lot happening in technology right now that reflects that time. In fact, it’s hard to think of something big in 1991 that doesn’t have a modern equivalent.

Don’t believe it? Take a look at a few big moments in 1991 and their current equivalents:

Tech got portable

Apple released their first laptop line. The PowerBook family, with an AIM alliance CPU designed in part by Motorola, dreamed that maybe one day technology could be something that moved with the customer, leaving the office and entering into daily life. In the early 90’s, we were awed by our ability to communicate with colleagues and customers around the world through our computers. Now we can email, text, and call, not just for business, but also for our social network, from a device that we can wear on our bodies. Freescale makes a range of controllers that are the brains behind wearable devices such as smart watches and activity trackers. The use of wearable devices for managing health and wellness is on an exponential growth curve right now, because the technology enables it. Through integration and smart architectures, we can now get to small enough form factors at lower power while improving the performance and capabilities, which in turn enhance the user’s experience. Freescale recently announced a jointly-developed wearable reference platform (WaRP) to prove this exact point. On a personal note, I’ve used a Garmin GPS fitness watch for the last 5 years to take me from barely being able to run 1 mile to running a full marathon. (See My Personal Marathon blog from Summer of 2013!)

The gaming industry grew more competitive

The Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo went head-to-head in one of the first major console wars. With a Motorola 68000 CPU in the Genesis, we were right there, pushing the dream that maybe entertainment could be an interactive experience. Today the Xbox One and the PS4 usher in the next chapter of console wars. Through technology advances, gaming systems can now  operate by gestures or voice commands, provide realistic experiences through advanced graphics, and allow us to play against friends, family and others around the world real-time. Gaming has truly grown from a niche market into a massive global industry.

The world became connected

1991 was also the year where the World Wide Web reached the public. This wild, impractical idea became a reality when CERN labs posted the first public webpage in history. After that, the world would never be the same. The World Wide Web has changed everything we do from the way we work to the way we connect with our friends and family. Today, experts foresee another revolution, where every object in the world is connected and communicating. It’s called the Internet of Things, and it’s kind of a big deal for Freescale, since we are leading the movement. If things go as planned, it’s going to make the changes we saw in the 1990s look tame. IoT has been discussed for many years, but the technology to turn this vision into a reality is now becoming available – the right connectivity at the right size and power with the right performance.

So, what comes next?

There is always something new, something on the tip of everyone’s tongue that requires a whole bunch of smart people  and the right technology to become a reality. That’s why the Austin Marathon is returning just in time. We’ll be leveraging our sponsorship to support the Freescale Foundation this year, which supports STEM education in grades K-12. With all the great things that have happened in these past years, just imagine what these kids could do with a little bit of support. My guess is by the time they’re done with us, we’ll look way sillier than 1991 does now. Personally, I’m excited about running the Austin Marathon for the first time with the newest Garmin Forerunner 620, powered by Freescale technology. I’ve been at Motorola/Freescale for 20 years, but never even thought about doing the marathon back in my younger years. I truly believe that technology  gave  me the motivation and tools to become a true runner!