National Instruments has introduced an embedded System-on-module (SOM) development board with integrated Linux-based real-time operating system (RTOS).

Processing power in the 2” x 3” SOM comes from a Xilinx Zync-7020 all programmable SOC running a dual core ARM Cortex-A9 at 667 MHz. A built-in low power Artix-7 FPGA offers 160 single-ended I/Os and Its dedicated processor I/O include Gigabit Ethernet USB 2.0 host, USB 2.0 host/device, SDHC, RS232 and Tx/Rx. Power requirements of the SOM are typically 3 to 5 W.

The Ni SOM integrates a validated board support package (BSP) and device drivers together with the NI Linux real-time OS. The SOM board is supplied with a full suite of middleware for developing an embedded OS, custom software drivers and other common software components.

The LabVIEW FPGA graphical development platform eliminates the need for expertise in the design approach using a hardware description language. According to Jamie Smith, director of embedded systems marketing at NI, studies have shown that design teams using the LabVIEW RIO can be expected to solve complex embedded problems in half the time compared with traditional custom design approaches.