FIXED-POINT DESIGN

Capability: Simulink Fixed Point version six is used to design and simulate fixed-point systems and to generate codes. Engineers use the application to turn floating-point designs built in a number of applications into fixed-point designs. These designs are based on input data ranges and target hardware characteristics. The new version can be used with The MathWorks’ Real-Time Workshop Embedded Coder to generate bit-accurate production code from fixed-point models. This ensures that the implemented design performs exactly as it did during the simulation. Code can be generated for signals and parameters with word sizes from one to 128 bits.

Hardware: PC running Matlab on the Windows, MacIntosh, Linux, or Solaris operation systems.

Developer: The MathWorks, 3 Apple Hill Dr., Natick, MA 01760-2098; (508) 647-7000; fax (508) 647-7001; www.mathworks.com.

Cost: $1,000 to start.

Click here for more information.

MULTIPHYSICS MODELING

Capability: Comsol Multiphysics 3.5 is an upgrade to the developer’s engineering and scientific software environment for modeling and simulating a physics-based system. The upgrade provides new Parasolid file format support and includes a new bidirectional Autodesk Inventor interface. Also included are new solvers, coding, and usability enhancements, as well as new application modes, material models, and properties. Solver time has also been speeded up for time-dependent structural mechanics, electromagnetic, acoustic, and fluid-flow simulations. With this upgrade, memory use can be cut by as much as 50 percent for common dynamic multiphysics simulations. Larger problems can be run than in past versions because of a new out-of-core solver.

Hardware: PC running the Windows, Linux, Solaris, and Macintosh operating system.

Developer: Comsol, 8 New England Executive Park, Suite 310, Burlington, MA 01803; (781) 273-3322; fax (781) 273-6603; info@comsol.com; www.comsol.com.

Cost: $8,995 to start.

Click here for more information.