LynuxWorks Introduces LynxOS-SE RTOS, Offering Open Applications Support With the Safety of Time and Space Partitioning

September 26, 2006; 02:59 AM
BOSTON, MA -- EMBEDDED SYSTEMS CONFERENCE -- As the need for open, high-performance systems expands in the military/aerospace and embedded technology markets, LynuxWorks, Inc., a world leader in the embedded software market, continues to respond with innovative solutions. Today at the Embedded Systems Conference, LynuxWorks unveiled its most recent innovation, LynxOS-SE®, the first and only time-space partitioned, hard real-time operating system (RTOS) offering POSIX® and Linux® application support for performance and safety-critical environments such as those found in the military and aerospace industries.

The new product, built upon LynuxWorks' established LynxOS-178® -- the first and only operating system to receive FAA reusable software component (RSC) acceptance for safety-critical software -- is based on open standards and is designed to specifically fulfill the stringent needs of multithreaded and multi-process applications in secure systems.

In addition to satisfying customers' performance needs, LynxOS-SE also reaffirms LynuxWorks' longstanding support of open standards. The product offers a powerful combination of POSIX and ARINC 653-1 compliance, highly desired in today's military and avionics applications. Additionally, LynxOS-SE provides a new Linux Application Binary Interface (ABI) which allows Linux applications to run unmodified along with native POSIX and ARINC applications within brick-wall partitions. This enables customers to take advantage of the many Linux third-party COTS applications, many of which have been tested by LynuxWorks in this environment, and run them in a time-space partitioned, hard real-time environment.

"Performance and reliability are critical in the embedded space today, and LynuxWorks has recognized that once again with the creation of LynxOS-SE," said Gurjot Singh, CEO and president, LynuxWorks. "We've also continued our support for open standards for the most demanding environments. With these capabilities built in, LynxOS-SE is ideal for military and aerospace applications. But it also can be applied in any environment in which safety and reliability are critical concerns."

To ensure system reliability, LynxOS-SE employs virtual machines (brick-wall partitions), which make it impossible for system events in one partition to interfere with events in another. Each partition runs as a virtual machine with dedicated resources. System partitioning also allows real-time applications to be securely executed concurrently in different partitions on the same processor, according to the needs of an individual project.

LynxOS-SE provides unmatched POSIX compliance to the latest POSIX standards IEEE 1003.1-2003 & IEEE 1003.13-2003 (PSE53 profile). These POSIX interfaces provide advanced real-time and other capabilities in the areas of process creation (spawn), scheduling (sporadic server), time management (clocks), wide characters and dynamic linking. These POSIX capabilities allow the migration of legacy POSIX applications as well as the creation of new, portable POSIX applications for execution in the LynxOS-SE environment.

LynxOS-SE also provides advanced networking capabilities with a state-of-the-art TCP/IP network stack supporting IPv4, IPSec, Quality of Service (QoS) features and several hundred RFCs. The QoS features in the network stack help extend the real-time capabilities to network traffic between different nodes as well as provide the ability for middleware (such as Data Distribution Service from RTI) and applications to create differentiated services across multiple networks. LynxOS-SE also provides expanded language support, allowing for the development and execution of C, C++, Ada and Java applications inside isolated time-space partitions. It also provides extended graphics capabilities with X-windows, Lestif and Mesa (OpenGL-compatible) support to allow the creation of 2-D and 3-D graphics applications.

Availability

LynxOS-SE will be generally available in October 2006. It is already being used by key customers whose requirements have been immediately met.

About LynuxWorks

LynuxWorks is a world leader in the embedded software market, providing operating systems, software development products and consulting services for the world's most successful communications, aerospace/defense, and consumer products companies. Established in 1988, the company is a technology leader in the real-time operating systems (RTOS) industry. LynuxWorks' headquarters are located in San Jose, California.

LynuxWorks is a trademark and LynxOS and BlueCat are registered trademarks of LynuxWorks, Inc. Other brand or product names are registered trademarks or trademarks of the respective holders. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.