Phoenix, AZ. November 17, 2008. DDC-I, a leading supplier of software and professional services for safety-critical applications, today announced the industry’s most robust, highest performance real-time operating system for the safety-critical market. Known as Deos (DDC-I Embedded Operating system), the memory-protected RTOS features deterministic real-time response, and time and space partitioning for guaranteed resource availability. Deos provides the easiest, lowest cost path of any COTS RTOS to DO-178B Level A certification, the highest level of safety criticality, and has been certified on more airframes than all other COTS RTOSes combined.
“Deos represents the culmination of hundreds of person-years of engineering investment, and provides the lowest risk, lowest cost and fastest path to FAA certification of any COTS RTOS,” said Bob Morris, president and CEO of DDC-I. “Deos has been certified to DO-178B Level A in dozens of programs at Honeywell, and is already flying on more commercial and military airframes than any other COTS RTOS.”
Deos™ (DDC-I Embedded Operating System) is a safe, fast, deterministic, real-time operating system optimized for safety-critical applications that place a premium on reliability, real-time performance, testability, and formal certifiability. Deos is the only certifiable time and space (T&S) partitioned RTOS built from the ground up for safety-critical applications.
Deos utilizes a processor’s memory management unit to build a firewall between the kernel and user tasks, thereby preventing errant or malicious code from corrupting other user tasks and the kernel. To guarantee CPU and memory access for critical tasks, Deos uses time and space partitioning. In the space domain, Deos enables programmers to assign each address space a fixed amount of physical memory, which prevents tasks from exhausting system memory and depriving other tasks. In the time domain, Deos allows programmers to assign each task a fixed percentage of CPU time, which prevents priority inversion and keeps tasks from hogging the CPU.
Deos employs rate monotonic (RMA) scheduling, the most efficient scheduling mechanism of any time- and space-partitioned COTS RTOS. To further enhance scheduling efficiency, Deos utilizes slack scheduling. This innovative, patented algorithm enhances performance by recycling worst-case time budgeted for time-critical tasks and reallocating it for “anytime” algorithms.
In a conventional RTOS, large amounts of CPU time have to be reserved to accommodate worst-case requirements for time-critical tasks, even if the tasks utilize only a fraction of that time in practice. Slack scheduling frees up this unused time and makes it available to non-critical “any time” tasks such as displays and GPS. This approach greatly reduces idle time, making it possible to achieve 100% CPU utilization. Deos also boosts performance by supporting ultra-fast, interrupt-driven threads, which enable it to respond in microseconds to external events.
Deos is delivered in a modular, executable binary format that streamlines the test and certification process. Unlike competitive RTOSes, which are delivered as source code, Deos does not have to be recompiled, relinked, and retested (including structural coverage) in order to certify the application. Deos also features an XML configuration tool that generates verifiable configuration profiles for each software module’s time and space quotas and budgets. This verifiable output eliminates the need to perform configuration checks by hand.
To further enhance the test process, Deos provides an Assembly Branch Coverage (ABC) tool that resolves source-to-object gaps left by traditional structural coverage tools. By working at the binary rather than the source code level, the ABC is able to verify all executable code, regardless of what compiler or compiler options the developer selects. Traditional source code tools cannot account for all compiler activity and require an additional round of manual checking once the application has been compiled.
Networking support for Deos includes a TCP/IP stack optimized for safety-critical applications. To maximize reliability, the stack runs in its own memory and time partition, separate from the kernel.
Development support for DEOS includes DDC-I’s Eclipse-based, mixed language OpenArbor IDE, which features C and C++ optimizing compilers, a color-coded source editor, project management support, automated build/make utilities, and a mixed-language, multi-window, symbolic debugger. The debugger recognizes C and C++ expressions and can view objects, expressions, call chains, execution traces, interspersed machine code, machine registers, and program stacks. The debugger is non intrusive, can debug at the source or machine level, and can be enabled without changing the generated code.
OpenArbor provides versatile run-time target options, including Deos, a bare run-time system certifiable to Level A of the DO-178B standard, and an enhanced bare run-time system for simulated and emulated environments.
Development seat pricing for Deos starts at $5,700/year.
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 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 real-time Java, C, C++, Ada, Fortran and JOVIAL application development. For more information regarding DDC-I products, contact DDC-I at 1825 E. Northern Ave., Suite #125, Phoenix, Arizona 85020; phone (602) 275-7172; fax (602) 252-6054; e-mail [email protected] or visit www.ddci.com.