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National Instruments Prepares for 'Green Engineering' Era
Truchard says graphical programming software will serve as foundation for projects
Charles J. Murray, Senior Technical Editor -- Design News, August 5, 2008
National Instruments' (NI) founder Dr. James Truchard today demonstrated how advancements in the company's LabVIEW and CompactRIO software will impact green engineering projects around the world.
Truchard, keynote speaker at the NIWeek technical conference here in Austin, TX this week, repeatedly emphasized the concept of multi-core processing technology, saying the biggest and most important green projects would be enabled by massively parallel computing efforts. He added NI's advancements in its graphical programming software would help that green effort because NI software is increasingly being targeted at multi-core computing.
Truchard told approximately 2,700 engineers at the keynote NI's goal is "to do for test and measurement what the spreadsheet did for financial analysis." He added the company also wants "to do for the embedded world what the PC did for the desktop."
Truchard saved his most important message for the worldwide green effort, recommending ways "we can be more energy efficient" and "more environmentally sensitive."
Other speakers at the keynote echoed Truchard's message. Thirumalaichelvam Subramanium, founder and chief technical officer of Chiller Energy Management Systems, showed how his company used CompactRIO software to cut energy usage in its chillers by 30 percent, largely as a result of employing CompactRIO software. Truchard added large parallel processing efforts could also help enable complex simulations that might lead to the eventual development of a fusion Tokamak.
NI engineers at the keynote speech hammered home the message that the company's latest version of LabVIEW software, known as LabVIEW 8.6, makes it easier for engineers to develop applications designed for multi-core processors. LabVIEW 8.6 offers more features designed for multi-core, including an improved math engine and new algorithms. The new version also includes special accommodations for design with FPGAs and wireless technologies.
An Intel Corp. executive supported NI's multi-core position on stage. Jonathon Luse, director of marketing for Intel's embedded group, told the audience multi-core is inevitable and reminded them programming of such devices will not be easy. "Programming and creating software is a heck of a lot more difficult on multi-core than it is on single-core," he said. "But in the future, multi-core will be the way to go."
NI engineers at the keynote also told attendees the company has introduced a single-board version of its CompactRIO embedded systems software.
The keynote event served as the kickoff for NIWeek, an event that features 230 technical sessions, 100 show exhibitors and more than 2,700 attendees. The company said this year's number of registered attendees at the show has already exceeded last year's by 23 percent.
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