embedded world 2023: Arm and ecosystem leaders empower developers for a future built on Arm
March 10, 2023
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As society advances, so do its challenges. And as we look to solve them, our world is being totally immersed in smart edge systems.
As technologies designed for IoT and embedded applications penetrate every application and corner of the globe, our need for data intelligence and desire to influence environments whenever and wherever we are is accelerating the adoption of smart systems. In turn, these smart systems are reshaping industry value chains.
For example, the growing amount of electronic content in modern cars is enabling software-defined vehicle architectures that allow automotive suppliers and their customers to update driver safety, infotainment, and other system functionality as if vehicles were smartphones. Elsewhere, the Matter standard is a collaboration between Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung, and other tech giants that promotes interoperability between their smart home devices, platforms, and ecosystems to accelerate the deployment of value-generating applications, services, and “Things” into the market.
These macro-trends put rapid, innovative software development at the center of transforming nearly every industry that relies on edge processing and connected intelligence. Arm is focused on empowering developers through frameworks and tools that streamline the innovation experience.
The result of these efforts will be on display at embedded world 2023 from Arm and partners like GitHub, SOAFEE, Eurotech, Qeexo, Himax Technologies, KernKonzept, and countless others.
Cloud-Native Access to Virtual Edge Hardware
The most obvious way to fast-track developer innovation is by giving developers a head start. Arm Virtual Hardware, which comprises of virtual models of Arm processors, development kits, and systems, allows software engineers to get to work before silicon is even available.
In addition to laying the seeds of hardware-software co-design inside engineering organizations, Arm Virtual Hardware (AVH) can also kickstart agile workflows by shifting-left their entire development process. Now, a partnership with GitHub is extending those capabilities to cloud-native embedded and IoT system developers by making AVH available as part of GitHub Actions (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Available as a native GitHub action, Arm Virtual Hardware (AVH) streamlines the implementation of continuous integration and delivery pipelines that span from pre-silicon to post deployment. (Source: EDN)
GitHub Actions is a CI/CD platform many cloud-native developers are already familiar with that supports workflow, build, and test automation across the entire development lifecycle. Add in AVH support, and virtual models of Arm hardware can be instantiated directly in the GitHub Actions environment so software teams can literally finish their work on a project before ever laying hands on target silicon.
Arm and GitHub will host a demo of Arm Virtual Hardware and other Arm tools available in GitHub Actions at embedded world in Hall 4, Stand 504. The demo starts by comparing traditional workflows to cloud-native ones, then continues to cover the basics of cloud-based CI/CD using GitHub Actions and AVH.
Work has also begun on exploring the integration of Arm Virtual Hardware into the core CI flows of the Matter CI/CD infrastructure, which would unlock the innovation and time-to-market advantages of AVH for millions of smart home developers worldwide.
Arm Automotive: From Cloud to Car
Those are just some examples of how AVH and the cloud can be paired to put edge software development into overdrive. Another embedded world demonstration focuses on the Scalable Open Architecture for Embedded Edge (SOAFEE) project, which promotes a cloud-native development and deployment framework for creating mixed-criticality automotive applications on a foundation of open-source technology.
At Arm’s embedded world booth, a SOAFEE-enabled system powered by a 32-core Arm Neoverse N1 CPU will show how reference workloads can be developed, tested, and verified in the cloud before being deployed to vehicles at the edge (Figure 2).
Figure 2. The SOAFEE project promotes cloud-native development and deployment of mixed-criticality automotive applications. (Source: SOAFEE)
The SOAFEE stack bakes-in standards like Arm SystemReady and PSA Certified to deliver off-the-shelf boot and platform security so developers don’t have to. It’s container-centric architecture is also ideal for implementing functionally safe, software-defined systems on embedded processors equipped with hardware virtualization technology.
KernKonzept will showcase how this hardware virtualization can foster automotive ECU consolidation and the move to zonal controllers by blending workload safety, determinism, and performance on a heterogeneous multicore SoC. The target processor, which contains an Arm Cortex-A CPU for application processing and Cortex-R for real-time tasks, will be partitioned by the company’s L4Re Hypervisor to enable a high-performance automotive safety system.
Ideal Compute for Every Use Case
Many of these building blocks can and are being applied beyond the smart home and automotive markets to abstract the details of low-level hardware and firmware so developers can focus on differentiation and time to market.
For example, at embedded world Arm partner Qeexo will present how AVH, Keil MDK, and AutoML enhance the development and emulation of noise detection machine learning models. Meanwhile, Eurotech will be exhibiting a PSA Certified Level 1- and Arm SystemReady IR-certified ReliaGATE 10-14 industrial gateway. And Himax Technologies will show how Arm Cortex-M55 and Arm Ethos-U55 processors combine in its WiseEye human presence detection for notebook PCs to always-on, ultra-low-power ML-enabled smart sensing.
All this can be found at Arm’s embedded world 2023 booth in Hall 4, Stand 504, but that’s just the beginning. The Developer Breakfast Meetup on Wednesday, March 15th from 9:30am in the Nuremberg Messe Lissabon room, a free SOAFEE reception taking place at SUSE’s headquarters the night before the trade show opens, and more than 10 conference sessions from Arm and partner thought leaders will reveal how a world of smart systems everywhere is closer than you think.
In fact, it’s already here.
Visit Arm’s event page for more information on its partner ecosystem activities at embedded world 2023.
