[Updated Aug. 14] — Wind River has announced another design win for its Linux distribution targeting consumer electronics. AMX, which sells high-end industrial and home automation systems used in the White House's War Room and elsewhere, will switch its “Modero” touchpanels to Platform for Consumer Devices, Linux… Edition (PCD-LE).

(Click for larger view of AMX touchscreen)

AMX's systems start at several thousand dollars for a basic system, not including programming, according to Rick Gelling, director of firmware programming. Gelling notes that AMX supplies A/V control systems used in the White House's War Room (Click for photo of Rumsfeld using one). Gelling adds, “We are also in the homes of a who's who of celebrities.”

Other markets include high-end hotels and condos, where a single touchpanel can be used to control lighting, audio/video equipment, on-demand pay-per-view movie purchases, and so on. However, the company still makes most of its money in industrial automation, where its equipment provides a central, networked point of control for devices with serial interfaces, including HVAC, elevators, and manufacturing equipment.

AMX controller unit

The AMX systems comprise a touchpanel that runs Linux, along with a controller device (such as that pictured at right) that runs VxWorks. The controller can also run any of about 20,000 available software modules designed to control a wide range of devices. Gelling commented, “More and more things are going to Ethernet, but we support all kinds of serial devices, RFID devices, RF, Zigbee, and lots more.”

AMX offers about two dozen different touchpanels, ranging in size from five inches to 17 inches. Currently, the panels all run AMX's home-grown Linux implementation.

AMX offers about two dozen different touchpanels, all running Linux
(Click to enlarge)
Gelling said he expects switching the touchpanels to PCD-LE to save the company $2 million. Part of that figure reportedly comes from projected productivity gains resulting from putting both VxWorks and Linux engineers on the same development tools platform. Another expected advantage is through faster time-to-market, based on average rates for employing engineers full-time. “We used to spend three months on the BSP [board support package]. With PCD-LE, we were up and running in a couple of weeks,” Geller said.

PCD-LE's support for a wide range of embedded processors could also help give AMX a better choice of processors, Gelling's comments suggested. Currently, the Modero touchpanels are based on RMI (formerly AMD) Alchemy Au1100 and Au1550 processors. However, the company would like to produce some panels with better multimedia capabilities, so that users in hotels could switch their pay-per-view content from the TV to the panel itself, and watch in the bathroom or by the pool.

AMX opted to use Wind River's (formerly RTI's) ScopeTools for hardware bringup, along with the “On-Chip Debugging Edition” of Wind River's Workbench tools. Wind River claims the OCD version provides “improved overall efficiency” for development teams.

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