Originally published by John Keller for Military and Aerospace Electronics Magazine

THE MIL & AERO BLOG, October 13, 2015 - Military displays are taking a leap forward, and offers to overlay maps, video, imagery, and other important real-time information for command posts and ship bridges on displays as large as dinner tables, or even entire walls.

Leveraging the Traditional for the Design of the Future

Originally Published in the October Issue of RTC Magazine

At the core of successful surveillance is the ability to collect data without detection. This can be problematic once those being observed become privy to the current, most innovative technologies used.  Thus, as this current era of innovation evolves, the difficulties involved in collecting, interpreting, and processing ever-increasing amounts of data, sometimes in intense mobile environments, places extreme pressure on mobile platform designers and engineers.  Current trends and future projections show that surveillance efforts continue to require greater consideration for systems technology in regards to size, weight and power (SWaP), as well as user experience, and high-security capabilities.  That said, as organizations like Border Patrol and other agencies that work to protect homeland security gear up for the inevitabilities of the future, the pressure to obtain surveillance technologies that overcome existing and forecasted roadblocks is now of an especially time sensitive importance.

POINT MUGU, CA, October 31, 2014 - U.S. Navy avionics experts needed rugged general-purpose processors for a rapidly deployable electronic warfare (EW) system for U.S. Marine Corps fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. They found their solution from General Micro Systems Inc. (GMS) in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.

The development of emerging technology is a race. Development takes time. The new generation of embedded components then needs more time before it’s widely accepted in the industry. Of course, the manufacturer is challenged to keep costs in check while this whole process rolls out.

A look at the industry today draws attention to Ivy Bridge, the third-generation Core processor from Intel^®. It’s the newest processor on the market. Owing to its highly attractive feature set, it’s also an ideal candidate for building sophisticated embedded applications. But such leaps in innovation increase the pressure on engineers to keep pace with their implementation.

Originally Published in the September Issue of Military Embedded Systems

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS, September 8, 2015 - There are lots of standards out there, such as VPX. But what actually makes a standard standard? I'll use VPX as my example. According to my definition of a standard, I should be able to remove a CPU board from the box and replace it with another CPU board, regardless of the manufacturer, and have it come up and running with fairly minimal effort.

Propelling GMS into the Future

It’s been a monumental year here at General Micro Systems and we have you all to thank for it. We have won numerous government and industrial contracts and have expanded our workforce to meet market demands and the needs of our growing customers.  To give you a better understanding of why 2014 has been so successful, we’d like to showcase some of our hottest, most popular products. Some of these have been wildly favored all year and others have just recently been transformed from concept to reality, but all of them are gaining a whole lot of steam and fast!

General Micro Systems, Inc. – Applied Technology Group, a global leader in the design and manufacture of ultra-rugged, high performance computing engines, has just released a series of rugged smart displays named “RuggedView™” and is set to move into the commercial broadcasting arena. GMS will be demonstrating their “RuggedView™” displays in Booth #C1363 during NAB, Las Vegas, April 7-10, 2014. Products in this series include an array of rugged displays ranging from 10” to 65, are available in Standard Definition (SD), High Definition (HD), and Ultra-High Definition (UHD) and offer a host of customization options.

In this issue of GMS Tech we will take an introductory look at the VMEbus and its metamorphosis over the past 30+ years. In 1981 the VMEbus architecture was created. The new design combined the VERSAbus electrical specification, which was based on microprocessor technology, with the rugged and modular Eurocard packaging system. Both were proven, off-the-shelf technologies. The resulting combination was successful because it was durable and could be easily adapted to a variety of applications. The original planners introduced the VMEbus specification into the public domain. This meant that suppliers had to conform to the same technical standard. They also had to compete directly on the basis of price, performance, quality and time-to-market. The adoption of VMEbus as a public domain standard made it easier to accept by competitors.