Meeting the Product Development Challenge

Problem

EBoxCreate is a product design company based in Tokyo, Japan, focussed on developing new product ideas.  Their design for an intelligent, distributed video analysis system had significant performance and custom interfacing requirements, including gigabit ethernet cameras and custom chip-to-chip DMA and PCI connectivity. In addition to these technical demanding requirements, EBox also required a flexible platform to leverage for future product development. 

Solution

The combination requirements high performance and customisable hardware, and the need for a flexible, sustainable platform quickly led EBoxCreate to choose Embedded Linux on an FPGA as their system platform.  This choice then naturally led them to PetaLogix, as recognised experts in this technology.

PetaLogix delivered an Embedded Linux platform on the EBox hardware board, and then started to develop and integrate the necessary hardware and software IP to create the video processing system.  This included interfacing with 3rd party and custom hardware IP, and creating innovative Linux device driver architectures to balance performance and customisation needs.

Operating in an agile, rapid prototyping fashion, the system architecture evolved through a series of functional prototypes, demonstrating core functionality at each step while progressing towards a final architecture that would meet the performance requirements.

Making the most of the Linux runtime, PetaLogix out-sourced the software application development to a contractor who completed their work on a standard desktop Linux system environment.   The application package was then integrated quickly and seamlessly back into the Embedded Linux platform.

Results

Less than 12 months after initial contact, PetaLogix delivered final FPGA and Linux system images, along with test scripts and tools to simplify the manufacturing and board flashing process.  Not only was the first product ready for manufacture and release, but EBoxCreate now also had a platform that was ready to support a range of innovative new product ideas.