From Markus Levy
President

EEMBC BenchPress
February 2015

 BenchPress

Topics

  • New EnergyMonitor Version Measures Continuous Energy
  • BrowsingBench Heats Up Laptop Battery-Life Testing
  • Ultra-Low Power Microcontroller Workshop at Embedded World
  • Altera Arria V SoC: First SoC FPGA to Receive Certified EEMBC CoreMark Results
  • Update on EEMBC Certified Results
  • EEMBC @ Linley Data Center Conference
  • EEMBC @ Wearables TechCon
  • EEMBC @ IoT and Multicore DevCons
  • On-Going Things

New EnergyMonitor Version Measures Continuous Energy

The original EnergyMonitor tool was designed to work exclusively in conjunction with EEMBC ULPBench™ to accurately and reliably measure the energy efficiency of microcontrollers targeted at ultra-low power (ULP) applications. The new version can work independently of ULPBench and is useful for anyone needing a low-cost tool for measuring energy consumption of any ultra-low power device (including microcontrollers, IoT sensors, battery-operated circuitry, etc.). The EnergyMonitor is cost is $75 USD + shipping; ULPBench is included free with the purchase of the EnergyMonitor.

BrowsingBench Heats Up Laptop Battery-Life Testing

Geoffrey Fowler, personal technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal, recently published an interesting series of articles focused on battery-life testing on laptops (including the Acer Aspire S7-393, Apple MacBook Air 13, DELL XPS13, and Lenovo Thinkpad X250). You can read the articles for yourself to see which laptop won the test, but allow me to point out that EEMBC BrowsingBench was a key test in the battery-life analysis.

Ultra-Low Power Microcontroller Workshop at Embedded World

On February 25th, EEMBC will direct a half-day workshop focused on measuring and analysis techniques for ultra-low power microcontrollers and applications. Many of the measurements will center around EEMBC’s EnergyMonitor and ULPBench. The workshop will take place at the Embedded World conference in Nuremberg, Germany. Participating companies include Analog Devices, Microchip, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments.

Update on EEMBC Certified Results

EEMBC has just published certified CoreMark results for the Altera Arria® V SoC FPGA. SoC FPGAs are a new device class which combines an ARM application processor with programmable logic into a single piece of silicon. The Arria V SoC is the first device of this category to receive certification. The Arria V SoC features a dual-core ARM® Cortex™-A9 processor running at 1.05 GHz. It received an out-of-the-box CoreMark score of 5654 or 5.38 CoreMarks/MHz. The Arria V SoC also contains 350K to 460K logic elements for implementing hardware accelerators, DSP or other functions, though these capabilities were not utilized in running CoreMark.

Imagination Technologies has recently published an EEMBC CoreMark result of 5.6 CoreMark/MHz for its MIPS P5600, setting a new certified score record for single-threaded CPU performance (measured in CoreMark/MHz). The P5600 is a member of the MIPS Warrior P-class processor family, sporting a superscalar, out-of-order design, 128-bit SIMD (integer and FP), widened data paths, and improved memory prefetching.

STMicroelectronics is one of the most prolific publishers of certified CoreMark results, using the benchmark to quote comparative performance figures for most all its microcontroller devices. Most recently, the company has published certified results for its STM32L053 and STM32L152, both running at 16MHz and 32MHz, to demonstrate the effectiveness of STMicroelectronics’ ART accelerator (and minimizing the requirement for increasing the number of wait states). The STM32L152 contains a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 core capable of 3.34 and 2.89 CoreMarks/MHz running at 16MHz and 32MHz, respectively. The STM32L053 contains the ARM Cortex-M0+ core, capable of 2.49 and 2.35 CoreMarks/MHz, running at 16MHz and 32MHz, respectively.

EEMBC @ Linley Data Center Conference

Cloud computing is exploding and the industry is grappling with an accelerating pace of technology innovation. Hyperscale data centers are breaking the traditional definitions of servers and networking while rapidly scaling performance. For help sorting all this out, mark your calendar for the Linley Data Center Conference coming to the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Santa Clara on February 25-26. In support of its Cloud and Big Data Server Benchmark working group, EEMBC will be exhibiting at the Linley Data Center Conference. Registration for *qualified attendees is free if registration forms are received by 5 PM February 19, 2015.

EEMBC @ Wearables TechCon

Wearables TechCon is coming to the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Santa Clara on March 9-11. Classes and tutorials will focus on embedded computing, hardware design, sensors, and physical technology, while tracks will focus on programming apps and mastering the SDKs of the next wave of computing devices. Use code WEARIT for a $200 conference discount off the 3-day pass.

EEMBC @ IoT and Multicore DevCons

EEMBC will be exhibiting at the upcoming IoT and Multicore DevCons, taking place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Santa Clara on May 6-7. Stay tuned for more details from EEMBC on what we will be demonstrating there. Registration for qualified attendees is free before February 27, 2015.

On Going

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