SANTA BARBARA, CA — February 6, 2019 — Green Hills Software, the worldwide leader in high-assurance operating systems, today announced that it has achieved certification of conformance of itsINTEGRITY®-178 Time-Variant Unified Multi Processing (tuMP™) real-time operating system (RTOS) to the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE™) Technical Standard edition 3.0. The certification covers both the Safety Base profile and the Security profile. The INTEGRITY-178 tuMP RTOS is the first software component of any type to be certified conformant to edition 3.0, which underscores the commitment of Green Hills Software for certification to open standards.

Version 3.0 of the FACE Technical Standard represents a major improvement over the prior version 2.1.1 in that it addresses the use of multicore processors in safety-critical applications.  The technical standard now requires any Operating System Segment (OSS) that claims support for multicore partitions to meet ARINC-653 Part 1 Supplement 4, including the requirement for multicore operation as defined in Section 2: “Multiple processes within a partition scheduled to execute concurrently on different processor cores.” In ARINC-653, each application is called a partition and has its own memory space.

Asymmetric Multi-Processing (AMP), the simplest software architecture in a multicore-based system, is not sufficient to meet the requirements of Supplement 4. INTEGRITY-178 tuMP is the only certified FACE-compliant operating system to meet the requirements of ARINC-653 Supplement 4, and it does so with the availability of Bound Multi-Processing (BMP) in addition to AMP and Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP). By definition, BMP is an enhanced and restricted form of SMP that can statically bind an application’s ARINC-653 processes (i.e., tasks) to a specific set of cores, allowing the system architect to more tightly control the concurrent operation of multiple cores. INTEGRITY-178 tuMP allows the system developers to bind ARINC-653 processes within an application to a core using an API or using the system configuration file. In addition, INTEGRITY-178 tuMP meets the ARINC-653 Part 2 Supplement 3 requirements for SMP operation.

“The ability to execute an application across a user allocated core or group of cores in a bounded and time-partitioned manner is necessary for achieving maximum performance and minimum size, weight, and power for Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA),” said Dan O’Dowd, founder and chief executive officer of Green Hills Software. “Our INTEGRITY-178 tuMP multicore RTOS was designed specifically to provide full multiprocessing capability while still providing the mechanisms to ensure true modularity of the system and the deterministic operation needed to meet the highest design assurance level, DO-178C level A.”

INTEGRITY-178 tuMP supports all combinations of AMP, SMP, and BMP in a time-partitioned manner (i.e., Time-Variant Unified Multi-Processing) on a multicore processor. Meeting worst-case execution times (WCET) while multiple cores are executing concurrently can be very challenging no matter the choice of AMP, SMP, or BMP. Contention from multiple cores trying to access a given shared resource, such as memory or I/O, can create interference between cores. Certification authorities have emphasized their concerns about such interference by including objectives for interference identification, mitigation, and verification in the CAST-32A position paper. As a true multicore IMA operating system with a proven 8+ year service history, INTEGRITY-178 tuMP includes both a fully capable multicore scheduler and support for bandwidth allocation and management of shared processor resource access. The supported bandwidth management technique emulates a high-rate hardware-based approach to ensure continuous allocation enforcement. These capabilities greatly lower integration and certification risk, while also enabling the integrator to manage significant software retest costs that would occur when a software application changes or is added. Without operating system features and support for bandwidth management of the shared multicore resources, such software changes would require analysis and retest of all other potential concurrent applications. When considering the following: (a) development, integration and certification risks, (b) future application growth requirements, and (c) long-term system sustainment objectives, INTEGRITY-178 tuMP is the ideal multicore high-assurance RTOS solution.

About Green Hills Software
Founded in 1982, Green Hills Software is the worldwide leader in embedded safety and security. In 2008, the Green Hills INTEGRITY-178 RTOS was the first and only operating system to be certified by NIAP (National Information Assurance Partnership comprised of NSA & NIST) to EAL 6+, High Robustness, the highest level of security ever achieved for any software product. Our open architecture, integrated development solutions address deeply embedded, safety/security and high-reliability applications for the military/avionics, medical, industrial, automotive, networking, consumer and other markets that demand industry-certified solutions. Green Hills Software is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA, with European headquarters in the United Kingdom. Visit Green Hills Software at www.ghs.com.