Hynes Convention Center
Boston, USA
The Industry’s Leading Embedded Systems Event

If you are an engineer involved in designing and developing embedded systems, you must attend ESC Boston 2009. The conference is your chance to learn about design techniques and best practices from the leading experts in the industry.
Event Sessions

Each year, hundreds of ideas and topics are submitted during the ESC call for submission process. This year saw a record breaking number of submissions all geared towards the advancement of the embedded industry. After review with the ESC Advisory Board and Track Chairs, the top session proposals that address the most relevant issues facing engineers and the industry are selected. Here are the tracks you can review to customize your educational experience.”

Build Your Own Embedded System
Lots of conferences claim to offer hands-on sessions. At this year’s ESC Boston, we’re going to take that concept one step further- conference attendees can purchase their own embedded development kit, one that’s based on Intel’s Atom microprocessor. The kit is also loaded with a host of Microsoft tools, including the brand-new Windows Embedded Standard “Quebec” operating system. By taking the series of sessions over the course of two days, you tailor your kit to meet the needs of your application.

C and C++
C and C++ are the most widely used programming languages for developing embedded systems. The sessions in this track will show you how to use C and C++ more effectively. You’ll learn how the languages really work, how to avoid problem areas, and how to produce highly efficient — yet reliable and maintainable — code.

Commercial and Open Source Operating Systems
Commercial operating systems (OSs) is an area where designers often have more questions than answers. For example, how and when do you deploy a specific OS, how do you set task priorities, what are the different services offered, what’s the difference between an RTOS and a kernel, what are the different scheduling algorithms and when do you need a real-time OS. Sessions in this track will also explore RTOS alternatives, including Linux and other open source solutions as those are part of the embedded developer’s toolbox. Sessions in this track will help you determine if Linux and open source are right for you, and if so, how to put them to the best use possible.

Consumer Electronics
The digital living room is getting all the publicity today. But the consumer electronics field goes way beyond that buzz word. It takes advantage of all the latest wireless technologies, as well as the latest multimedia capabilities. It also includes the automotive infotainment applications. And don’t forget that security plays a big role in consumer electronics as well. Those are just some of the topics that’ll be covered in this track.

Debugging and Verification
Debugging and verification are vital steps in the design of an embedded system, yet they are often not given enough consideration. Inadequate strategies, like leaving test until the end of the project, can lead to cost overruns, delays and in many instances, to product failures. However, by incorporating the latest techniques and technologies, designers can make debug and verification a natural part of the design flow, reduce time to market and increase system reliability and overall profitability. Classes in this track present such alternatives as static-code analysis to find bugs earlier; test-driven development, which is an agile method that integrates test and coding; or stress testing to ensure that hardware and software operate properly under real-world conditions, not just in the lab. We’ll also look at issues that relate to different classes of tools that must be employed in the design process.

Design Team Management
There’s a process that should be followed for any design, one that takes you from square one to completion. Are you aware of that process? Do you understand how team members should be interacting with each other? Do you know how to choose the best team members? Even if you can positively answer these questions, you still must still deal with budgets, schedules, and upper management, among other things. This track will help you cope with all of these areas, and some others you probably never thought of. This track complements our technical sessions with the gritty and important issues of managing technical teams.

Designing for Power Efficiency
As demand continues to increase on the amount of power your system needs to stay competitive, a growing consciousness of end customers to the impact these systems have on power grids has quickly become an area of concern. As designers, techniques to reduce the power consumption of a system are not just being suggested but are becoming essential for success in climate of power efficiency. The topics offered in this track will help provide some of these necessary skills. From implementing battery technology on power-draining displays, to software strategies in OS development and the evolution of a smart grid system to solve the power dilemma from the back end, ESC Boston looks to give you the skills necessary to design in a power-conscious world.

Graphics, Displays and Lighting
The use of LEDs in embedded applications is growing at a rapid rate. If you use those LEDs wisely, you can maximize the brightness, increase life, and reduce cost. In addition, the displays and lighting segments in embedded systems are just beginning to embrace touch screens, and Adobe Flash, and the issue of power reduction never goes away. Classes in this track will look at all the opportunities available to designers with respect to these topics.

Multimedia and Signal Processing
Signal processing and multimedia functions are becoming ubiquitous. Nearly every embedded system incorporates voice, audio/video, or communications functions. The ubiquity of this technology means that designers need to know how to implement it. This track covers such areas as digital signal processors, algorithms, tools, and development techniques. Application areas in this track include consumer electronics, communications, medical, automotive, military and aerospace.

Improve Productivity at the HW/SW Interface
The term ESL has been defined as “Electronic System Level” and was traditionally driven mostly from a hardware development perspective. However, conceivably the “E” and “S” in ESL could also stand for “Embedded Software” given the type of product offerings attributed to this category today. Today, developers find in the ESL category various types of products. A first category of products is geared towards hardware developers and has the objective to improve productivity by raising the design entry level above the traditional RTL. A second category is focused on the interfaces between hardware and software and is geared towards users on both sides of the traditionally disparate groups of hardware and software developers. Yet a third category deals with the design level at which developers focus on product functionality itself, even before decisions are made—which portions are later implemented in hardware and which in software. This track will provide an overview of state of the art technologies to improve productivity at the hardware/software interface, raising the design entry level of abstraction beyond traditional development methods for hardware and software developers alike.

Industrial Automation
Industrial control and automation are common applications in the embedded industry. And moving forward, the amount of automation is growing significantly. For example, one session in this track will show how miles of control cables and PLCs can be eliminated. In another session, attendees will learn how to leverage Windows Embedded products to build robust real time distributed and connected solutions: from sensors to servers. Other topics that’ll be covered in this track include motion control, industrial sensors, process control, and wireless controlled automation, all as they apply to designing embedded systems.

Multi-core, Multi-threading and Virtualization
Multi-core and virtualization are two synergistic microprocessor technologies that are growing in popularity across a wide variety of embedded designs. This track will help developers become better trained in the potential impacts and benefits of these technologies in their projects. Topics include: multicore software development challenges and techniques, including how to effectively debug and achieve improved concurrency; taking advantage of hardware multithreading; and embedded applications of system virtualization / hypervisors.

Multimedia and Signal Processing
Signal processing and multimedia functions are becoming ubiquitous. Nearly every embedded system incorporates voice, audio/video, or communications functions. The ubiquity of this technology means that designers need to know how to implement it. This track covers such areas as digital signal processors, algorithms, tools, and development techniques. Application areas in this track include consumer electronics, communications, medical, automotive, military and aerospace.

Programmable Logic
One component that seems to sit on just about every high-end embedded board is a programmable logic device. Users claim that these parts are still too big, too expensive, and too complicated. Yet, they’re still omnipresent. This track will show users how to best take advantage of the technologies available to them, and in some cases take much more advantage of the programmable part than designers thought would be possible. Topics include Model-based programmable logic design and implementation, multi-core processor design within FPGAs, and FPGA DSP design.

Real-Time Development
Real-time systems have unique requirements that cannot be met when following traditional programming techniques. Instead, systematic design, analysis, and choice of methods are important if a system is to reliably meet all of its timing requirements. The ESC Real-Time Development track offers classes that address a range of issues that must be considered when building these systems. The sessions cover topics including creating and documenting an embedded system architecture; making decisions as to what tools to use; deciding whether or not to use a real-time operating system; multi-threading issues and solutions when using an RTOS; designing and implementing systems that don’t use an RTOS, using specialized hardware such as microcontrollers, DSPs, or multi-threading CPUs; real-time optimization techniques to improve performance and power consumption; and many more general and detailed tips for quickly building or troubleshooting a real-time system.

Security
We all know that security is important. But it is difficult to know exactly how to secure your product/application, and what level of security is required. This is not an area where many companies can afford to have their engineers get it wrong. The sessions in this track will look at how you ensure that your product is designed with the proper amount of security. Security of any operating system is also a primary concern. Engineers creating applications that specifically require advanced security such as medical, automotive, consumer, communications, military and aerospace, monitoring and control, and high-end gaming should pay particular attention.

Sensors (including MEMS)
While rumor has it we live in a digital world, that’s not the case. If anything, there is increasing awareness that the world truly is analog and that for us to adapt it to our digital overlay we are becoming ever-more reliant upon the prolific use of sensors. Everywhere—from pressure, temperature and humidity to vibration and motion in applications from industrial control to bridge integrity monitoring to the Wii controller using MEMS technology. Recognizing the nature of sensing and its associated design issues, this track will zero in on three critical topics: Effective sensing using wireless networks; the accurate measurement of sensor/transducer outputs; and MEMS – their theory, selection and design criteria.

Software Development
In this track, we present a number of classes that give practical, immediately-useful suggestions to help you get working code completed on time. In all cases, we show you the best practices required to get your code finished on time, hopefully done right the first time. For instance, what’s the best way to write and implement APIs and device drivers, or perform fault-tree analysis? If reliable code is a must, then attending these classes is a necessity.

System Integration and Test
Integrating the components required for an embedded system, both hardware and software, can be quite complex with unique approaches for every product. The sessions in this track cover challenging areas like: test infrastructure and architectures, test automation, test driven development, continuous integration, unit test, integration test, use case based testing, on-target and off-target software test, testable architectures, testability tradeoffs, test instrumentation, and test coverage. Presentations in this track will look at techniques and ideas to deal with these challenges facing today’s embedded systems.

System-Level Design Issues (Hardware and Software)
Connecting the hardware to the software in an embedded system was a simple task at one point. Unfortunately, that was a long time ago. The complexity of today’s system can be overwhelming. Sessions in this track will look at what’s required in that slice between the hardware and the software.

What Engineers and Developers need to know about IP
Intellectual Property (IP) is conceivably a corporation’s most important asset, but it’s often not treated as such. To maximize on the investment, corporations need to educate their employees on the ins-and-outs of IP. In this track, you’ll be exposed to a set of best practices and principles that need to be implemented as early in the process as possible. Be part of that process and learn how to build and support an effective IP strategy that starts during the product design phase and carries you through to the patent’s end of life.

Wired & Wireless Networking
Networking is becoming a standard component in a rapidly growing percentage of all embedded systems. A large majority of embedded systems are based on low-end microcontrollers. Implementing networking on these systems is a challenge. This is particularly true as wireless communication becomes nearly ubiquitous and wired backbones get faster. This track will examine networked communications and will provide developers the information they need to know to successfully implement networked embedded devices.

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