ARM Community: Embedded - ARM Community

Once upon a time a man named Tim Berners-Lee invented the World-Wide Web. Actually, what he suggested was the Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Just 22 years ago, he established the first link between a computer and a server via http. If you read the proposal, I think you’ll agree that perhaps he had only the vaguest clue what the Web would become, since “addition of graphics would be an optional extra”. Without the Web, the internet would be just a network. Without the internet, there would be no Web.

Based on his brilliant concept and the enabling technology of the Internet, the world passed through a kind of singularity. It was a technical singularity that so remade the world that it almost wiped out memory of what life was like beforehand. A colleague regales his 18-year-old twins with “When I was your age…” stories of pre-Web society and they—in all honesty—admit that they cannot conceive of day-to-day living without ubiquitous access to information at any time, and at any place. The change is that fundamental.

The times they are a changin’ – again. There’s another singularity coming. The Internet of Things will enable it.

Defining the Internet of Thing...

I’ve been in the embedded x86 business for many years. During this time, I came to like the openness and flexibility offered by embedded PC technology. Consequently I also like the latest ARM processors working in a more PC-like way. Not because of the PC-like functionality itself, this is nothing new. I like them because they deliver it in a very attractive ultra-low power envelope. This opens up a load of new windows for completely new applications. End customers of embedded hardware also like this new technology very much. They like the power savings and the lightweight system designs. They like endless ‘always on’ mobility. They like the long term availability of over 10 years. So they like the range of benefits that we were never able to deliver in this specific PC-like ultra-low power configuration before. Consequently we expect customers will definitely like to adopt this new technology very quickly. But how quick is quick and what is the most efficient way?

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