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velOSity™ Real-Time Operating System
Rapidly develop high performance software for cost sensitive devices
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The velOSity™ real-time operating system (RTOS) is smal and fast making it a perfect fit for cost-sensitive, high-volume and resource-constrained embedded applications. Besides being integrated with the best-ofclass embedded software tools, velOSity offers developers a rich set of kernel services, device drivers, board support packages (BSPs), and middleware. The combination of all these features make velOSity the choice for many of today’s embedded development applications.
Small and fast
The velOSity RTOS is configured to run in flat
memory models, optimizing both its footprint and execution speed. It is perfect
for tightly constrained embedded system designs. Designed for speed, its ultra-fast
context switch time and fast kernel service call times also make it ideal for
systems where CPU resources are at a premium.
Proven technology
The velOSity RTOS is the kernel technology that
forms the foundation of the ultra-reliable INTEGRITY® RTOS.
Shipping for more than a decade as the core kernel of INTEGRITY, velOSity is
being deployed in a wide variety of demanding embedded systems, including telecommunications, industrial
control and automation, automotive, medical,
and aerospace.
True seamless scalability
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The INTEGRITY and the velOSity RTOS employ common application programming interfaces, including POSIX system interfaces and adaptation layers for VxWorks, pSOS and other legacy RTOSes. The two systems also share common services, device drivers, BSPs, middleware and network stack support, as well as common integration to the tools and debugging features of the MULTI® integrated development environment (IDE).
Software developed for the velOSity RTOS is 100% upwards compatible with the INTEGRITY RTOS. If an application requires virtual memory support (via the memory management unit found on certain microprocessors), INTEGRITY can be substituted for velOSity with minimal to no code changes. Should the system design call for partitioned application and device drivers, the existing design can be easily reconfigured to enable applications and device drivers to exist in their own protected virtual address partition.
Besides applications, any middleware, device drivers, or BSPs developed for velOSity will run in INTEGRITY, providing a true seamless migration path for future designs that would benefit from INTEGRITY’s additional reliability, safety, and security features.
Many embedded products are part of a family of devices, covering a range of capabilities and price points. At the low end of the family where minimal footprint, maximum execution speed and lowest cost are paramount, velOSityis ideal. At the high end where maximum reliability, safety and security are critical, INTEGRITY is the choice.
To support the entire family, a common application software base can be developed and maintained for a family of products that can run on low end to high end products unmodified, enabling your development teams to share and use a common application source base, common operating system API and common development toolset across the entire range of products. No other operating system can provide the same level or range of scalability.
Real-time response
Unlike other real-time operating systems that disable interrupts in every kernel service call, velOSity's state-of-the-art architecture guarantees the absolute minimum interrupt latency by never disabling interrupts in any service call.
Not only does velOSity provide the minimum response time, but the absolute worst case response time is extremely fast, statically known, and guaranteed. Other operating systems—including real-time operating systems— publish interrupt latency figures that are only the worst case numbers for a particular test environment. Because these other kernels disable interrupts in each and every kernel call, the actual worst case response time is really orders of magnitude larger than the published figures and not practical or possible to statically compute.
A complete solution
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Many real-time operating systems aimed at deeply embedded applications fail to provide a complete solution. Essentially, the kernel is provided as a library of services without any drivers, BSPs, networking software, middleware, and other important capabilities required to create a complete product and get to market quickly.
Green Hills Software provides a comprehensive suite of support and services for velOSity including:
- Extensive device driver support, including:
- Ethernet
- serial
- flash
- PCI
- I2C
- CAN
- IDE
- Over 100 board support packages
- File system support
- USB host stack and class drivers
- IPv4/IPv6 TCP/IP stacks
- Network applications
- Advanced communications protocols
- 2D and 3D graphics
- CORBA ORBs
- and more…
In addition, Green Hills Software provides consulting and engineering services to aid in porting, tuning, and integration with your custom requirements.
MULTI IDE
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With over 20 years of experience providing tools for the development and debugging of embedded systems, Green Hills Software’s MULTI integrated development environment (IDE) provides the most comprehensive suite of development tools tailored to providing complete control and visibility for velOSity-based applications.
Besides run-control debugging using a Green Hills Software hardware-assisted debugging device, run-mode debugging via a BSP's Ethernet or serial driver is available. Microprocessors controlling some types of embedded systems— such as printers—often cannot be completely halted to debug problems due to the mechanical or other critical parts under control of the operating system and applications. The MULTI IDE solves these problems with runmode debugging support that uses I/O interfaces for debugging without any need to stop the microprocessor.
When a BSP is not used or not yet developed, Green Hills Software hardware-assist debug devices—Green Hills Probe and SuperTrace™ Probe—can be used to download the kernel and application code to your target to provide kernel-aware debugging right out of the box.
Microprocessors controlling some types of embedded systems, such as printers, often can not be completely halted in order to debug problems due to the mechanical or other critical parts under control of the operating system and applications. MULTI’s run-mode debugging support solves these problems by using I/O interfaces for debugging without any need to stop the microprocessor.
When a board support package is not used or not yet developed, Green Hills Software hardware-assist debug devices, Green Hills probe, Slingshot, and SuperTrace Probe, can be used to get the kernel and application code downloaded to your target with kernel aware debugging out of the box.
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The MULTI suite of development tools for velOSity optionally includes the Resource Analyzer™ for monitoring application and system CPU and memory usage, the EventAnalyzer™ for understanding the complex behavior of the system, and the TimeMachine™ 4-D debugger which helps users find outrageously difficult bugs in minutes. Also available is the ISIM™ Target Environment simulator, providing an instruction-accurate host-based simulation environment for velOSity when hardware is not yet available or in limited supply.
Optimizing compilers for C, C++ Embedded C++ and MISRA C are available and support the velOSity operating system. These compilers generate the smallest footprint and fastest executing code in the industry.
Field debugging
Traditional debugging techniques are often unsuitable for fielded embedded systems where halting the processor or delaying even a single thread can interrupt service or bring down a system. With Green Hills Software’s field debugging capabilities—passive mode, and hardware-assisted trace—developers and field technicians can safely interact with in-use embedded systems with minimal intrusions.
In passive mode, the debugger only permits read operations. Any operations which could alter the state of the system (e.g. write to memory or halting a thread) are denied. Developers can only use the debugger to examine the state of any thread in the system while it continues to run. Write access can be configured via a password in velOSity itself to toggle into and out of passive mode.
Using the Green Hills SuperTrace Probe, execution trace data can be gathered from many types of microprocessors and uploaded from the fielded system. Collected data can be sent back to the device manufacturer for analysis with the TimeMachine 4-D debugger. TimeMachine can find a memory corruption in seconds by setting a watchpoint and running the debugger backwards in time to pinpoint when the critical memory location was last written. TimeMachine is velOSity kernel-aware, mining the trace data to present a historical view of all the kernel-level events such as interrupts, context-switches, and service calls.
Hardware-assisted trace, when used in conjunction with TimeMachine, is an ideal field debugging tool because the trace data is gathered without any instrumentation of the target code and without ever halting or slowing the microprocessor.