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Application Development Tools

All companies working with embedded systems are faced with increasing demands, not only to develop more complex applications and to use faster and more powerful processors, but also to get products out faster than ever before.

The market for these systems is a time-base market where it is all-important to get a product to the market faster than competitors.

CoraData's new tools and services can reduce development time by as much as fifty percent. These tools are described in detail below.

Application Development Environment

Tools are available so that custom applications can be developed quickly. A system is in place to facilitate all the steps through from initial specification to final product. A PC simulator enables the presentation of a virtual product via e-mail to a customer. The software runs on any PC and provides a virtual front panel, which is a visual representation of the embedded control computer. The embedded screens may be navigated by using the PC mouse to click on the virtual keypad. This represents button presses on the actual product.

One of the most difficult and crucial stages in any new development is the initial specification. While core functionality must be sound, the development of a GUI (Graphical User Interface) is a very important part of product development as this is sometimes all the end user sees.

Final product acceptance in the market place can be very dependent on the clarity and user-friendliness of the GUI.

Our development environment allows the early delivery of a fully functional prototype built on PC GUI that simulates the embedded interface. This process aids the initial specification and builds customer confidence at each stage in the development process.

The graphic screens are built using our software, which generates code suitable for direct embedding in the final product. Similarly, as functionality is built behind the GUI on the PC, this code is also suitable for embedding. In other words, the bulk of product build is performed on a PC platform. This adds flexibility and speed to the development process, which translates into lower costs.

Software Details

Development can proceed right through to fully functional code driving all the system sub modules. This is possible on this system as the I/O is not proprietary but is based on a low cost LAN. All slave units on any assembled system can then be driven from both the Embedded product or a PC serial port. This allows full code build and functional testing using a PC only.

Typically, CoraData builds the first application for a customer. After this, it is possible for the customer to make simple changes and on going modifications required by emerging market requirements. In other words, the OEMs in-house engineers can perform do the bulk of any maintenance or upgrade tasks. This has the following advantages :

1. The in-house engineers are closest to the application and best placed to perform the tasks.
2. The OEM has the security of not being tied to expensive out-sourced support costs.
3. Frees the CoraData engineers for new product development.