Embedded Dreams

Dual-Core Processors Make "Perfect" Solutions Practical

By Jim Kobylecky

Every designer dreams of a perfect solution, in which the technology precisely mirrors the user1s needs. Getting there, however, can be a nightmare. Every design is a balancing act in an imperfect world, but embedded designers live in a world a bit more imperfect than most.

Often they have to wedge power, size, environmental, and reliability factors into very tight boxes. They can't just grab what are literally the hottest processors or video boards to reach their performance goals. Bigger power supplies and extra fans aren't options for a sealed system in a rugged environment. And when it comes to tolerating hiccups or failures, what may annoy a game player can mean an expensive loss to a business, a pileup at a traffic signal, or a life-threatening lapse in security and medical applications.

Embedded designers fantasize about the products they could build if they could reliably push performance, while keeping or even lowering power demands. Now Intel dual-core technology is making those dreams come true.

Handheld Dual-Core
Mobile network operators and content service providers, for example, see new markets in real-time multimedia applications like audio and video streaming, video telephony, and mobile TV. But to make that dream practical, media server developers need a fantasy of their own - real-time transcoding engines that can breeze through the compute intensive processing of many multimedia streams while reducing product costs. It's a flight of fancy that need to stay within present size, power, and thermal budgets to work.

The big problem when processing multiple a/v streams from a newly released movie, for example, to many different devices - all with different video capabilities - is that the media server must convert the audio and video formats and the bit rates for each receiving device and keep in step even as they stop or start. And it needs to do it in real-time to create a satisfactory viewing experience. Can Intel dual-core technology provide high enough performance while sipping low power?

Tests by embedded system maker Kontron and VoiceAge Networks, a solution provider for media content adaptation markets, showed that a Dual-Core Intel Xeon processor-based platform simply outruns the competition, even when held back by a minimum hardware configuration of 1 GB of memory compared with 2 GB and 4 GB of memory for the competition. For example, the Dual-Core Intel Xeon processor-based platform processed 43 concurrent streams, a 30 percent increase in performance over a single-core, dual Intel Xeon processor-based platform or an AMD Dual Core Opteron. (For more on their benchmark tests, consult their white paper on the Kontron website http://us.kontron.com/downloads/ )

The newly launched Kontron AT8020 AdvancedTCA node boards, for example, use Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors to achieve high performance while maintaining a power envelope requirement of 200W (See Figure 1). If extrapolated onto a Kontron AdvancedTCA processing node and integrated in a 14-slot AdvancedTCA system, this suggests up to 516 concurrent streams or channels per system, creating a highly dense processing system within a 12U footprint.

The performance of Kontron's Intel dual-core technology products even matches or exceeds that of conventional DSP (Digital Signal Processing) modules, underlining the cost and flexibility advantage of their dual-core-based media server platforms.

Dual-Core on the Sales Floor
High-level retailers face a different challenge. Consumers need complex product information communicated clearly and quickly to buying decisions, ideally right on the sales floor. High employee turnover and training costs make that level of service hard to achieve. The dream solution? An interactive, in store TV network that offers the perfect information instantly.

Intel, CapGemini, and Micro Industries collaborated to develop just such a system, a Retail Media Network (RMN). An RMN lets manufacturers and retailers reach the consumer while they're in the store and in a buying mood. RMNs tailor the message to individual brands, specific store locations, or even to single operational events. They can change the content instantly in response to a consumer's actions, going far beyond the old "in-store TV" concept.

On the receiving end, however, it's a hard act to enable because of the computing demands of large, high definition touch-screens, network traffic, and low power consumption. A perfect prescription for Intel Core Duo processors, which Micro Industries put to work in their Touch&Go Messenger Computers with Touch&Go Remote Content Management Software.

These power-savvy units build on the capability of the RMN to deliver life-like video and realistic 3D images by combining the performance of the Intel Core Duo Processor with the visual impact of the 45 Liquid Crystal Displays. These high-definition, ultra-bright LCDs use a 1080p format and respond instantly to the touch of a customer's finger. To really impact the customer, the Messenger 45 computer must manage a variety of file formats, generally in 7 to 10 seconds segments, at an experience-satisfying frame rate of 30 fps.

Dual-core performance is critical to making this dream succeed. These computing tasks would significantly load an Intel Pentium M processor and limit the Messenger 45's capabilities. However, an Intel Core Duo processor running at the same clock frequency smoothly boosts the video content. In comparing Intel Core Duo processors with Intel Pentium M processors, the Messenger 45 achieved a 25% to 30% increase in throughput and a 20% to 25% decrease in power consumption.

In high performance applications, the Intel Core Duo Processor version of the Touch&Go Messenger 45 can deliver a 45% to 55% performance enhancement at the same power consumption The video codecs used for MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and WMV-HD all scale well to Intel dual-core. Tools like VTune verify that the processing load is shared equally by both cores, letting the systems run videos at higher bit rates than before and creating striking high definition presentations. Having two processor cores also allows the system to perform content updates in the background without affecting the videos playing for the customer.

To enhance the experience, the Intel Core Duo processor's lower power consumption lets the Messenger 45 use temperature controlled, high efficiency, low noise blowers and passive heat sinks on the motherboard, drives and power supply elements of the system. The Messenger 45 can mount directly to a wall and exhaust the heat silently and efficiently without distracting. With Intel dual-core technology at its heart, the Messenger 45 is ideal for any type of retail environment.

Dual-Core Security
Conventional surveillance systems primarily detect motion and record activity. In a threat-infested world, that's not enough. The dream solution is for intelligent, proactive surveillance that capably supplements human efforts. For example, they should be able to detect if an object goes missing (such as a piece of art in a museum), or recognize that a threatening object has stayed in one place for too long (such as a suitcase left on the tarmac at an airport).

The performance threshold for intelligent Digital Security Surveillance (DSS) platforms is very high. They must be able to process very high resolution, DVD-quality video in real-time over multiple channels. The video must be simultaneously captured, analyzed and stored for quick and easy retrieval. The computers should be networked for control and they should draw little power and generate less heat to survive in harsh environments without a fan.

Because such hostile environments have limited the use of higher performance components, most existing surveillance systems just don't have the performance and bandwidth to power these features. Now Intel dual-core technology is making that dream practical. Two platform providers, Advantech and Portwell, are garnering industry attention with their Intel dual-core solutions.

Portwell's PVR-1140
Portwell and Intel developed a DSS platform that can run advanced, computerized intelligence features from Huper Laboratories (aka huperLab). Portwell's PVR-1140 takes full advantage of the Intel Core Duo processor, Mobile Intel 945GM Express chipset, and other Intel technologies to enable the highest performance with the lowest possible power consumption. The PVR-1140 (See Figure 2) can be deployed fanless in very brutal situations. Nevertheless, thanks to its Intel roots, it can perform multi-threaded execution to sustain real-time transmission, analysis and storage of massive video data files.


Combined with huperLab's huperVision 4000 series DSS solutions, the PVR-1140 enables intelligent capabilities including Smart Detection (the ability to detect missing objects, or unwanted objects left behind, making virtual fence detection and secure zone detection possible), PTZ Camera Tracking & Direct PTZ Control (the capability for the camera to intelligently track a moving object or zoom in on a specific area of interest) and Intelligent Search (unique size filtering that permits zeroing in on key details of a particular object, and advanced motion search and missing/left object searches to allow zeroing in on specific video segments from a massive database).

The Portwell PVR-1140 platform enables the huperLab software to perform simultaneous capture and analysis of streaming real-time video. Since the intelligence features can't succeed without real-time performance, their success is assured by the high-performance/low-power Intel Core Duo processor.

Advantech's Digital Video Platform
Intel dual-core technology enabled Advantech to create a DVR system that provides high integration and essential smart functions for the high end surveillance. This platform delivers the extremely high computing performance demanded by digital video compression/decompression, digital video analysis, and object tracking. Intel system components guarantee the wide bus bandwidth necessary for digital video. It's a low power solution that gives the DVR the highest reliability, running 24/7, 365 a year.

Advantech's platform enables surveillance software companies to create the vision-based intelligent video surveillance and multi-channel/high resolution DVR applications that customers require. Features include the ability to perform PTZ Auto Tracking & Direct Control by real time vision analysis, Intelligent Search, Smart Detection, Flame Detection, and Flow Counting.

Advantage also recognized that these applications required higher performance than Intel Pentium processor- based M solutions offered, but lower power consumption than Intel Pentium 4 processor-based solutions could survive. Their dream solution is a rugged platform based on an Intel Core Duo processor and Mobile Intel 945GM Express chipsets. They enhanced power management capabilities by taking full advantage of multiple-threaded and multi-tasking applications and they achieved the high performance computing and system flexibility they were looking for.

No Sleep for Dreamers
Of course, the process can't end here. Every system that fulfills a wish just nudges developers to imagine harder and discover the next generation of dreams.