1

System Design in the 21st

Century
Dr. James Truchard
Founder and CEO, National
Instruments

Thank You
Your graduates design our
products

NI LabVIEW Mathscript

NI myDAQ

NI ELVIS

NI CompactDAQ

NI USRP

NI PXI

NI CompactRIO

Your graduates will

design the hardware and software components
that go into system-level ecosystems,
including System on Chips (SoCs)
or
use them
Either way, they will have to understand

system-level design

System on Chips
All of ECE on a single chip
TI OMAP5430 SoC
Multi-core ARM Cortex processors
Two ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore
Two ARM Cortex-M4
processors
Multi-core POWERVR
SGX544-MPx graphics
accelerators
TI 2D BitBlt graphics
accelerator
IVA-HD hardware
accelerators
14mm x 14mm,
0.4mm pitch
PoP dual-channel
LPDDR2 memory

System on Chips
All of ECE on a single chip
Analog Devices 32-Bit Floating-Point SHARC
32/40-Bit IEEE Floating-Point Math
32-Bit Fixed-Point Multipliers with 64-Bit Product & 80-Bit Accumulation
Circular Buffer
Addressing
32 Address
Pointers
Six Nested Levels of
Zero-Overhead Looping
DMA Allows ZeroOverhead Background
Transfers at Full Clock
Rate Without Processor
Intervention

System on Chips
All of ECE on a single chip
Cypress PSoC 5
Configurable analog and digital
peripheral functions, memory and a
microcontroller
Integrated high-precision 20-bit
resolution analog
Programmable PLD-based
logic
32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 CPU up to
67 MHz

System on Chips
All of ECE on a single chip
Xilinx Zynq-7000
Dual core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCores
Accelerator coherency port (ACP)
interface
8-channel DMA
General interrupt controller (GIC)
Three watch dog timers (WDT)
Two triple timers/counters (TTC)
CoreSight debug and trace
support for Cortex-A9
Program trace macrocell (PTM) for
instruction and trace
Cross trigger interface (CTI)
Two 12-bit analog to digital
converters (XADC) with17 external
differential input channels

Silicon Ecosystems

Windows/Intel PC Ecosystem

10

IBM Ecosystem

11

Siemens Ecosystem

BATCH OS Control

PLC

Embedded Controller
Sensors and Transducers
Industrial monitors
12

Apple Ecosystem

13

Why Do Ecosystems Win?

1,000,000,000 Apps

14

National Instruments Ecosystem

Tes
t

Desktops and
PC-Based DAQ

Monitor

PXI and Modular

Instruments

Embedded

Control

RIO and Custom

Designs

Cyber Physical

Open Connectivity
with 3rd Party I/O

15

High-Performance Computing for Real

Time Supervisory Node
Visualization
(User
Interface)

Computing Nodes

FPGA

Multicore CPU

Sensors

Sensors

Actuators

Actuators
FPGA

Multicore CPU

Sensors

Sensors

Actuators

Actuators
GPGPU

GPGPU

Sensors

Sensors

Actuators

Actuators

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High-Performance Computing for Real

Time Supervisory Node
Visualization
(User Interface)
I/O
Computing Nodes
Sensors
Actuators

Sensors
Actuators

Sensors
Actuators

I/O
FPGA

Multicore CPU

VHDL

Parallel
Programming

FPGA

Multicore CPU

VHDL

Parallel
Programming

GPGPU

GPGPU

Parallel
Programmin
g

Parallel
Programming

17

Sensors
Actuators

Sensors
Actuators

Sensors
Actuators

worlds first real-time 3D optical

coherence tomography imaging
system
Dr. Kohji Ohbayashi, Kitasato University
320 ch
10 MHz/ch
24 FPGAs
Multicore
40 GPU Cores
700,000
512-point FFTs

18

Combining COTS With

Design
RIO Architecture

Host Platforms

Processor

FPGA

I/O Modules

(Linux, RealTime, Windows)

19

Academic Foundation to Strong

Ecosystems
UC Berkeley

The LabVIEW Dataflow Platform

Berkeley SPICE1 (1973)

EDA Design Tools (1980s)

Synopsys (1986)
Cadence (1988)

LabVIEW 1.0 (1986)

LabVIEW compiler (1990)
LabVIEW Multiprocessor/core (1997)
LabVIEW Real Time (1998)
LabVIEW FPGA (2003)

LabVIEW Control Design & Simulation (2004)

Synchronous Dataflow (1986)

Ptolemy I (1990)
Boolean Dataflow (1993)
Multidimensional SDF (1993)
Integer Dataflow (1994)
Bounded Dynamic Dataflow
(1995)
Ptolemy II (1996)
Hetereochronous dataflow (1997)
Giotto (2001)

LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT G (2006)

LabVIEW Mathscript (2007)
LabVIEW Statechart (2008)
LabVIEW Scan Mode (2008)

PRET (2009)

LEGO WeDo (2008)

20

Platform-Based Design for System on

Chips

A. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, UC Berkeley. Defining Platform Based Design. EEDesign, Feb 2002

21

Models of Computation
Dataflow

C / HDL Code

LabVIE
W

LabVIE
W
``

Deskto
p

Real-Time

Personal Computers

PXI Systems

Textual Math

Signal Flow

LabVIE
W

LabVIE
W

FPG
A

CompactRIO

Statechart

MPU/MCU

Single-Board RIO

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Custom Design

Heterogeneous Architectures

You need a high-level language to bring FPGA to

the masses, people who are not essentially
hardware programmers. We think LabVIEW is a
very good tool that enables the domain experts
to program FPGAs Ivo Bolsens, CTO, Xilinx
23

Graphical System Design

CERN Large
Hadron Collider

LEGO
MINDSTORMS
NXT

the most powerful

instrument on earth

the smartest, coolest

toy of the year

24

Graphical System Design

LEGO
MINDSTORMS
NXT
From K

to Rocket Science

25

The National Instruments

Vision
Graphical System Design
Measurement
Diagnostics
Data
Acquisition
Reconfigurable
Instruments

Real-time Measurements
Embedded Monitoring
Hardware-in-the-loop

To do for measurement
what the spreadsheet did
for financial analysis.

Embedded
Industrial Control (PAC)
Machine Control
Electronic Devices
Software-Defined Radio

To do for embedded what the PC

did for the desktop.

26

LEGO MINDSTORMS Ecosystem

PDAs
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NI myDAQ Ecosystem

mySolarTracker
Solar Tracker

myGrid
Smart Grid
myWing
Wind Tunnel/Air Foil System

myTurbine
Wind Turbine
myFarm
PV Drip Irrigation
myDyno
Dynamometer System

myHeli
Vertical Take-off & Landing System

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NI ELVIS Ecosystem

Circuits
Control

Biomed

Design

RF/Comm

Embedded

Measurements &
Instrumentation

Green

Digital
Electronics

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Circuit Application Explorer

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Application
Plugs in Here

.
.
.
.
.
.
..
.
.

with NI Multisim
SPICE Simulation Environment

Student designs
the
Circuit Here

30

Access to NI
ELVIS
I/O

An Ecosystem for Circuit Design

NI CompactDAQ & NI CompactRIO

Ecosystem

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An Ecosystem for Embedded

Design
from Theory to Deployment
PXI/NI
FlexRIO

PC RIO/R
Series

Multicore CompactRIO
CompactRIO
NI Single-Board RIO

RF System Design Ecosystem

RF/microwave circuit design

Electromagnetic simulation
Link budget analysis

System simulation
Real-time control
FPGA prototype

33

NI USRP
Software Defined Radio
Ecosystem
Single Software Framework
with Design to Test Flow

Extensive
Analysis
Libraries

High-performance
FPGA-based
Architecture
NI Universal Software
Radio Peripheral
Up to 5.5 GHz

Compatible with
standard models of
computation

GCC

34

High-Performance
Heterogeneous
Multiprocessing Ecosystem
I/O up to 26.5 GHz
M
u
l
t
i
c
o
r
e
P
High-Performance r
o
FPGA Based Instrumentation
c
e
s

35

High-Performance Instruments Powered by

NI

Analog Front End Supplied by

RF Instruments Designed with

36

FIRST Adoption of the NI Ecosystem

FIRST LEGO League

FIRST Tech Challenge

147,000 students

11,000 students

FIRST Robotics

45,000 students

37

ECE Curriculum

1 Year

2-3 YEAR

Science/Math

Signal and
Systems
Analog Design

Programming
Digital Design
Intro to Engineering

4 YEAR
Advanced Analog Communication
Advanced Digital Embedded
Senior Design

Control

38

National Instruments Education

Ecosystem

NI LabVIEW Mathscript

NI myDAQ

NI ELVIS

NI CompactDAQ

NI USRP

NI PXI

NI CompactRIO

39

NI Customers Impacting the Energy

Ecosystem
Tokamak Measurement Systems
Energy Storage Device Characterization

Privately Funded Fusion

Microgrid Energy Management

Smart Homes
Inertial Confinement Fusion
Wind Turbine Control
Algae-Based Biofuels

Kite Energy Generation

Hydrogen Generation

Smart Grid Control

Solar Thermal

Cold Fusion (LENR)

Ocean Wave Energy Generation

Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Design

Measuring Mercury Emissions

Demand Response for the Grid

Creating Bioethanol From Sugarcane

Testing Battery Management Systems

Fuel Cell Research

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Calling All Engineers

The Engineering Grand Challenges

Cancer
Detection

Hadron
Collider

IV Drift
Pump

Advanced
Purification

CO2
Storage

Distance
Learning

Spectral
Monitoring

Infant Brain
Scans

Tokamak Plasma
Control

Hapti
cs

Olympic Stadium
Safety

Cheap Solar
Panels

Material
Monitoring

Costa Rica Rain

Forest

41

To Get Started with the Ecosystem

Free at National Instruments Booth #301

42

Do
Engineerin
g

44