ARM TechCon Theater, sponsored by STMicroelectronics:

WEDNESDAY, October 26

Session:          Linaro: A Year in Review
Speaker:         Jesse Barker
Time:              11:30 AM – 12:15 PM
Description:    As an engineering organization, Linaro has been established for a year and a half.  Its core mission is the one thing that has remained the same: making Linux development for ARM platforms easier and faster.  The organization has grown rapidly over that time, from an initial headcount of 20 to over 120 at present.  Linaro has built upon the momentum of crucial, early successes to expand the breadth of its coverage of engineering topics, and its overall impact on the upstream Linux community.  We will look at examples of past, current and future projects that illustrate this impact and the contributions that Linaro will continue to make into the next year. This talk is for anyone who is interested in the development of Linux on ARM.  We will discuss some high-level details of the development process, a few kernel subsystems as well as some user-space components.

Session:              Software Development on ARM Cortex-A9: Challenges and Solutions
Speaker:             Javier Orensanz
Time:                  12:30 PM – 1:15 PM
Description:       This paper covers how Development tools address new software development challenges posed by the latest ARM Cortex™ application processors. The challenges range from the difficulty of doing software-hardware co-debug and application optimization in multi-core scalar architectures, to compiling and debugging code for the NEON SIMD unit.

Session:          Real Time Embedded Linux: It's Easier (and Harder) Than You Think
Speaker:         Bill Gatliff
Time:              1:30 PM – 2:15 PM
Description:    Linux isn't a real-time kernel--- or is it?  In addition to the facts and myths that are all too often used to support either answer, the very question itself is so general as to be of no practical value.  Come hear discussion from a seasoned, embedded Linux expert on how to both approach and answer this important question for your own project.  Accuracy is important here, and what you learn will probably surprise you.

Session:          Embedded Android?  The next platform, or the next problem?
Moderator:      Chris Ciufo, Director of Content, UBM Electronics;
Panelists:        Bill Gatliff; Dave Kleidermacher, CTO, Green Hills Software; Stephen Olsen, Technical Marketing Engineer, Mentor Graphics
Time:               2:30 pm – 3:15 pm
Description:    Design teams are looking to Android to slash development effort. But the Android platform comes from a world where all smartphone and tablet hardware looks about the same, no deadlines are hard, and best-effort is just fine. Can Android really help in the embedded world of myriad hardware configurations, hard real-time requirements, and mission-critical tasks?

Session:          Teardown & Giveaway:  ViewSonic gTablet   
Moderator:      Patrick Mannion, Director of Content, EDN & Designlines
Time:               3:30 pm – 4:15 pm
Description:  The Android 2.2-based ViewSonic gTablet emerged last Fall, bringing with it a much-needed 10-inch screen to the rapidly evolving tablet space. While the gTablet simmered for some time without little fanfare, a solid technical foundation, coupled with smart firmware updates by ViewSonic and an eager ‘hacker’ ecosystem, has turned the gTablet into a strong performer in the Android arena and solid, low-cost option to the iPad. In this special teardown, EDN and EETimes Desginline editorial director Patrick Mannion will go ‘inside’ the gTablet to expose its hardware underpinnings and design choices, while also examining the pros and cons of the system itself and how it stacks up in the burgeoning Android market.

Session:          Ubuntu Server on ARM 
Moderator:      Mark Baker, Server Product Manager, Canonical
Time:               4:30 pm – 5:15 pm
Description:  With power and space representing considerable cost for companies deploying many servers, technologies that improve power efficiency and processing density are needed. Mark Baker, Ubuntu Server Product Manager at Canonical will discuss how Ubuntu is working with ARM to deliver market leading Linux platform Ubuntu to the next generation of servers powered by ARM processors.

THURSDAY, October 27

Session:           Teardown:  Exploring the technology behind “Intelligent Play”
Speaker:          Colin Holland, Editor of MCU Designline
Time:                1:30 pm – 2:15 pm
Description:    Looking to be one of the coolest technology toys to hit the market this year is the Sifteo cube, a motion-aware 1.5-inch blocks with full-color screens. It wirelessly connects with a personal computer during play to create unique interactions when shaken, tilted, rotated and neighbored next to one another.  Sifteo has also announced the availability of the Sifteo Creativity Kit™, which enables Sifteo users to customize an endless array of game play experiences for themselves and others using their cubes.

At the heart of the Sifteo cube is an 32-bit ARM CPU, 8MB flash memory and a 2.4 GHz wireless radio as well as Sifteo’s very own near field object sensing technology. A teardown at this year ARM TechCon conference will delve deeper into the technology behind the cubes which are planned to hit the streets in September.