Phoenix, AZ. November 14, 2016. DDC-I, a leading supplier of software and professional services for mission- and safety-critical applications, today announced the release of its industry leading SafeMC™ Technology for Deos safety critical real-time operating system on multicore processors. SafeMC enables developers of safety-critical systems utilizing multicore processors to achieve best in class multiprocessor performance without compromising safety-critical task response and guaranteed execution times.
“The worst-case response and guaranteed execution time requirements of safety-critical applications make it very difficult for developers to take advantage of the performance potential of today’s multicore processors unless the underlying operating system has multicore specific enabling technology,” said Greg Rose, vice president of marketing and product management at DDC-I. “SafeMC gives users the configurability they need to bound the non-deterministic nature of multicore processors. It also allows developers to boost system performance by providing advanced partitioning and scheduling facilities that reduce resource contention and deliver increased multicore CPU utilization without compromising worst-case response.”
Today’s high-performance multicore CPUs are designed to optimize average-case execution times, which maximizes overall system throughput. However, these optimizations often come at the expense of worst-case execution time. In a multicore system, contention for shared resources such as L2 cache and the memory subsystem increases not only worst-case execution time, but also the spread between average and worst-case execution. Unfortunately, safety-critical developers must budget for worst-case outcomes, even though those outcomes may be rare. The net result is tremendous underutilization of CPU performance, as the CPU time budgeted for worst-case scenarios generally goes to waste. DDC-I’s SafeMC Technology allows system developers to minimize the effects of the multicore processor hardware through its safe scheduling and advanced partitioning capabilities.
SafeMC technology enables developers to manage the execution of tasks and the configuration of multiprocessor hardware in a way that makes it easy to isolate detrimental sources of multicore contention and alleviate multicore bottlenecks. The result is enhanced determinism and increased CPU utilization for safety-critical applications spanning one or more cores.
SafeMC’s patented cache partitioning and memory pools facilitate a fine-grained layout of physical RAM that minimizes cache effects on safety critical task execution times. With memory pools, developers can allocate RAM to specific processes or groups of processes. This ensures that all RAM allocated to a given process uses the same collection of cache sets, and that those sets are independent of the cache sets used by other processes, thereby eliminating cache interference between processes on the same or multiple cores.
SafeMC’s multicore scheduling enables developers to minimize the non-deterministic interference that can occur between arbitrary sets of processes executing concurrently on multiple cores. It also allows system integrators to choose optimal scheduling algorithms (i.e., ARINC 653, POSIX, or Rate Monotonic Scheduling) in user specified time slices for groups of processes executing on multiple cores. Developers can allocate processes and process groups across one or more cores, and specify the associated scheduling algorithm and execution time window for each process and group, all to limit interference effects among tasks.
SafeMC also extends DDC-I’s patented slack scheduling technology to multiple cores. Slack scheduling takes advantage of the fact that the average thread execution time is typically much shorter than the worst-case execution time. For those threads where the actual execution time is less than worst-case budgeted time, Deos reclaims the unused time and makes it available to other slack-enabled threads, thereby boosting overall system performance.
“All of the advanced protection, partitioning, and scheduling capabilities that have made Deos a best-in-class safety-critical RTOS for single-processor applications are now available to designers of DO-178 certifiable multicore systems,” noted Greg Rose. “With DDC-I’s SafeMC technology, designers can now quickly configure multi-core systems running Deos to deliver maximum performance and resource utilization while reducing worst-case response times in a way that meets the most demanding safety critical requirements.”
Deos pricing starting at $23,070 for a 3 development seat subscription.
More on Deos
Deos is an embedded RTOS that has been used in hundreds of safety-critical avionics applications on commercial and military aircraft. Certified to DO-178B DAL A since 1998, the time and space partitioned RTOS features deterministic real-time response and employs patented “slack scheduling” to deliver higher CPU utilization than any other certifiable safety-critical COTS RTOS. Deos is built from the ground up for safety-critical applications, and is the only certifiable time and space partitioned COTS RTOS that has been created using RTCA DO-178B, Level A processes from the very first day of its product development. Deos also provides the easiest, lowest cost path of any COTS RTOS to DO-178B Level A certification, the highest level of safety criticality.
About DDC-I, Inc.
DDC-I, Inc. is a global supplier of real-time operating systems, software development tools, custom software development services, and legacy software system modernization solutions, with a primary focus on mission- and safety-critical applications. DDC-I’s customer base is an impressive “who’s who” in the commercial, military, aerospace, and safety-critical industries. DDC-I offers safety-critical real-time operating systems, compilers, integrated development environments and run-time systems for C, C++, Ada, and JOVIAL application development. For more information regarding DDC-I products, contact DDC-I at 4600 E. Shea Blvd, Phoenix, AZ 85028; phone (602) 275-7172; fax (602) 252-6054; e-mail sales@ddci.com or visit http://www.ddci.com/pr1607.
