National Instruments has extended its LabVIEW 8.5 graphical system design platform to new embedded targets with the release of a module for ADI Blackfin processors 2.5 and the LabVIEW microprocessor software development kit 2.5.

The latest version of the LabVIEW Embedded Module for Blackfin Processors adds support for the ADSP-BF54X family of processors, which provide on-chip peripheral interfaces for several user interface elements such as a keypad, scroll wheel and touch panel display.

It also includes a drag-and-drop interface to for accessing Blackfin peripherals, which should simplify I/O design. The module adds new drivers for digital I/O, counters and timers, interrupts and a real-time clock.

With the LabVIEW Microprocessor SDK, engineers can develop and deploy LabVIEW code to any 32-bit embedded processor. Using the latest version of the software package, they can target the Freescale ColdFire processor with the uClinux embedded operating system in addition to the previously supported processor architectures of ARM7, TI c6000, PowerPC, x86 and XScale.

It also adds a background TCP/IP debugging capability that makes it easy for engineers to debug their applications while maintaining real-time performance.