VDC Research attended the Embedded World 2018 conference in Nuremberg, Germany through three days during the week of February 26th packed full of face-to-face meetings with dozens of exhibitors. This year’s event was the 16th Embedded World conference and it continues to grow as the leading exhibition for global IoT and embedded technology providers. 1,021 companies from around the world exhibited throughout 6 massive halls and showcased to more than 32,200 embedded experts from 78 countries.

Best of Show

VDC awards the 2018 software “Embeddy” for the best software-related announcement at the 2018 Embedded World conference to Mentor Graphics for the Mentor Embedded IoT Framework (MEIF). MEIF is a cloud vendor-agnostic software framework to help embedded engineers develop, secure, and manage smart, cloud-ready devices for Industrie 4.0 (or IIoT) applications. It is designed to alleviate the cost and complexity of integrating embedded devices with cloud service back-ends while providing the flexibility and security needed in modern IIoT implementations.

MEIF supports any processor architecture, multiple operating systems, scales from resource constrained end-nodes through multicore application processors, and integrates with the leading cloud providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Eclipse IoT, and Siemens MindSphere. Security capabilities of MEIF enable secure connectivity, device monitoring and management, remote diagnostics, and software updates. Connected devices can use a GUI-based utility to validate and authenticate any downloaded software updates and security patches before installing

Honorable Mention
VDC also wants to provide an honorable mention to QA Systems for their upcoming release of Cantata version 8.0. This is major update of the Cantata unit and integration testing framework for C and C++ and, while not eligible for the Embeddy due to a release scheduled for May 2018, it warrants mention here. Cantata version 8.0 includes improvements to the user interface aimed at making the testing process more straightforward for less experienced users. The release also automates test maintenance, custom code injection, and makes it easier to test across multiple embedded environments. To VDC, the most compelling added capability is the Code Change Analysis. This new feature can help ease test maintenance when C/C++ code is changed after initial testing by identifying code changes that impact tests and providing detailed guidance on suitable test updates. QA Systems also shared other exciting news coming later this year, including establishing a US office, moving to a new HQ, and further expansion of their development team.

Walking the Floor
AdaCore announced the release of Version 18.1 of their GNAT Pro, CodePeer, SPARK Pro, and QGen solutions in the weeks leading up to the conference. Updates to the GNAT Pro Ada development environment includes new tools, improved code efficiency, several new targets and a variety of compiler enhancements. The update of CodePeer focused on improving performance, providing easier analysis of non-GNAT code, reducing “false positives”, and integrating GNAT warnings.

Conversations with the Altia team confirm the company is focused on expanding the Altia Engineering Services business. The company sees a growing demand for these professional services from OEMs wanting to provide advanced GUIs that are beyond the capabilities of their internal teams to design. Altia also announced the availability of Altia Design 12.0 that eases the development and control of 3D content in a HMI within the constraints of small memory footprints.

Canonical, who has been making a dedicated push into the IoT/embedded market in recent years, highlighted its recent partnership with IoT gateway start-up Rigado, which features Ubuntu Core as its primary OS. Interestingly, we also learned in our briefing with Linux Foundation that Zephyr is used as the small-footprint OS on the radios within Rigado’s gateways.

Crank Software provided a number of demonstrations to demonstrate the latest updates of their GUI design tool, Storyboard Suite and highlighted upcoming features. Storyboard Suite 5.2, slated to be released soon, adds artboard import functionality that allows designers to make better use of Photoshop artboards. Storyboard Suite 5.2 will also allow designers to import UI designs from the popular Sketch program.

DiSTI highlighted GL Studio’s industry certifications that were developed through the company’s legacy of serving customers in the A&D industry. GL Studio has been pre-certified for ISO 26262 up to ASIL D, DO-178B/C up to level A and has been certified in life critical medical devices to 510-k and BSi standards. The company expects this pre-certification will be increasingly valuable as automotive OEMs design more vehicles with higher levels of automation.

Express Logic featured a number of recent announcements at embedded world, including its involvement in the RISC-V architecture and the certification of its symmetric multiprocessing OS for safety-critical process standard IEC 61508 and its derivatives. Most notable, however, was the initiation of EAL4+ certification for MCU targets given the focus of prior RTOS’s certification on MPUs.

GAIO TECHNOLOGY is a leading unit testing tool supplier to the Japanese automotive market with their CoverageMaster platform. The company was highlighting several tools, including MC-Verifier, a back-to-back test tool for model-based development environments. MC-Verifier is integrated with MATLAB/Simulink and can perform B2B testing with models, software, and target code.

GrammaTech was showcasing two new products, CodeSonar/Libraries and CodeSonar/X. The CodeSonar/Libraries plugin enables CodeSonar users to extend source code static analysis into libraries that are available only in binary form to help avoid undetected problems that can be caused when static analysis tools ignore calls into binary libraries. CodeSonar/X, which will be available later this year, adds the ability to combine static and dynamic violations to help engineers correlate and prioritize remediation plans.

Green Hills Software announced the release of its Compiler 2018.1 for creating 32-bit and 64-bit embedded C and C++ software applications. Highlights of the release include accelerated performance, full C++14 support, Spectre mitigations, and support for the highest functional safety levels. Green Hills also highlighted the availability of its INTEGRITY RTOS and supporting products and /services portfolio for the R-Car D3 automotive system-on-chip (SoC) for graphical instrument clusters from Renesas Electronics.

HCC Embedded announced the release of an embedded Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) framework and CryptoCore, a MISRA-compliant cryptography suite and manager. EAP helps developers design secure networks by ensuring devices that join a wireless network are authenticated. HCC’s Embedded Encryption Manage (EEM) administers all CryptoCore software libraries, providing a standard interface for any hardware or software encryption implementation

Among the announcements from LDRA Software was the addition of support for the AUTOSAR C++14 standard. The extended AUTOSAR support is included in the LDRA tools suite release 9.7.2 that is now available. Also announced was support for the SAE J3061 cybersecurity standard in the LDRA tool suite for Automotive. Based on ISO 26262, SAE J3061 provides a framework for designing security in from the ground up, an increasingly critical practice as automotive connectivity and autonomy continue to rise.

pure:systems a leading provider of software product line and variant management engineering tools and solutions was on site to promote recent product enhancements and share news of the growing interest in commercial variant management solutions. The company highlighted a number of updates in the recently released pure::variants version 4.0.11, including improved integration with IBM DOORS, DOORS NG, and Rhapsody.

Start-up, Prove & Run, demonstrated its recent industry progress at the show as well. Not only is the company making headway with the positioning of its secure RTOS, but it was also highlighted by Arm for its assistance in the creation of threat models for Arm’s Platform Security Architecture (PSA).

QNX (Blackberry) highlighted the recent announcement of their Jarvis code scanning product. Aimed at ensuring automotive suppliers produce high quality and secure code, this product is an interesting addition to QNX and Blackberry’s overall IoT security portfolio, especially given its cloud-based use model, which contrasts that of the traditional source code analysis tools in the industry.

Rightware was demonstrating capabilities of the Kanzi Connect UI software, a customizable connectivity solution that can link automotive electronics, consumer electronics, and the IoT through a single interface. Rightware was also showing the Kanzi UI software platform is designed to enable engineers and designers to work independently and concurrently in an Agile development environment. It is used for HMI design and engineering by multiple automotive OEMs including teams that developed Audi’s Virtual Cockpit.

Rogue Wave announced the release of Klocwork 2018, the latest update of their static analysis tool. Klocwork 2018 adds AUTOSAR to the list of industry standards covered by the platform and now also includes support for C++14 and 17. The company also announced the 2018 Klocwork release is the first on Rogue Wave’s new analysis engine that will enable a faster response to process standard updates and programming language revisions.

Synopsys had a full slate of activities at the conference. Beyond demonstrations of Coverity Static Analysis and software composition analysis capabilities from the recently acquired Black Duck, the company also ran several conference presentations focused on software security. Synopsys also hosted Elevate, an off-site event with local and international experts to discuss IoT and embedded security threats.

Vector Software announced the new VectorCAST 2018 test automation platform that provides new features for test artifact sharing and maintenance, real-time analytics, and improved test automation. Important features of the solution include collaboration and automation improvements, new test mapping and continuous integration 3rd party integrations, and component coverage for reducing target footprint.

Verifysoft Technologies highlighted Testwell CTC++, the company’s test coverage analyzer for C and C++. Testwell CTC++ for Java and C# modules extends the capabilities to the Testwell CTC++ platform to projects using Java and C#.

Wind River showcased its new fluid compute solution, Titanium Control, which offers an integrated solution set of Wind River’s assets for connected IoT networks, including its Titanium and Helix offerings, to help organizations better orchestrate IoT network compute burdens.

Other leading embedded systems vendors VDC met with at the 2018 Embedded World Conference in Nuremberg, Germany included Agosense, ANSYS (Esterel), Azul Systems, Cadence, eCosCentric, eSOL, ETAS/ESCRYPT, Froglogic, Lynx Software, National Instruments (Click here to see related post), Perforce, PRQA, RTI, Speedgoat, SYSGO, and others

TRADEMARK ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Many names of companies, associations, technologies, products, and product types, etc. mentioned in this bulletin comprise Trademarks, registered or non-registered, owned by various entities. These are too numerous to mention individually. VDC acknowledges that ownership of these Trademarks exists and requests that readers acknowledge this as well.

View the 2018 IoT & Embedded Technology Research Outline to learn more about our coverage.