ALT Software announces Embedded OpenGL graphics driver support for Green Hills INTEGRITY-178B’s Time-variant Unified Multiprocessing (tuMP) functions for multicore processor scheduling.
April 10, 2012, Toronto, Canada. ALT Software has added support for Green Hills Software’s latest version of the INTEGRITY-178B RTOS for multicore processors in its market leading DO-178B certifiable OpenGL driver architecture.
Multicore processors are becoming increasingly popular in aerospace and defense computing architectures as they enable embedded systems to scale performance and functionality without sacrificing the reliability required by safety critical avionics applications. Embedded real-time use case scenarios include improving safety by running an application redundantly on separate cores, improving performance by running multi-threaded applications across multiple cores, and improving the reliability of safety critical applications by running safety critical and non-safety critical applications on separate cores.
Supported system configurations include Freescale’s QorIQ family of multicore processors found in innovative single board computers such as the X-ES XPedite5470, in combination with graphics cards designed specifically for harsh environments, such as the GXPMC-5 product line from Lockheed Martin. ALT’s DO-178B certifiable drivers can be customized to support a variety of leading embedded graphics processors from manufacturers such as AMD, Fujitsu, Intel and Imagination Technologies.
“ALT has been a long time trusted and proven provider of graphics solutions to Green Hills INTEGRITY-178B customers,” said Pat Rodenbeck, Vice-President of Safety and Security Critical Products at Green Hills Software. “We are very pleased that they have chosen to support the newest and most advanced release of our INTEGRITY-178B RTOS, which now incorporates advanced partition scheduler technology for multicore processors referred to as Time-variant Unified Multiprocessing(tuMP). Green Hills looks forward to continuing our proven partnership with ALT Software and recommending ALT’s high reliability embedded graphics drivers to our safety and security critical multicore customers.”
“Multicore processing is offering many new possibilities in the field of embedded computing, and ALT Software is working diligently with RTOS partners like Green Hills to unlock that potential,” said Robert Atkinson, Vice-President of Sales and Marketing at ALT Software. “Embedded graphics drivers that have not been specifically architected to manage multicore processing can impact system stability when multiple commands are sent simultaneously to the GPU or when multiple iterations of the driver are running on separate cores and simultaneously delivering commands to the GPU. ALT Software’s latest graphics driver updates will ensure system stability and optimal performance at all times by supporting all popular methods of time and space partitioning.”
The Green Hills INTEGRITY-178B RTOS and ALT Software’s OpenGL graphics drivers are currently deployed worldwide in the avionics display systems of a variety of modern military and commercial aircraft. They are DO-178B certifiable up to Design Assurance Level A for safety critical systems.
