News & Press

Green Hills Software Unleashes the Royalty-Free velOSity Microkernel

Technology Proven in the INTEGRITY RTOS Now Available for Rapid Development of High Performance, Cost-Sensitive Devices

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA —March 29, 2004 - Green Hills Software, Inc., the market leader in royalty-free real-time operating systems (RTOS), today announced that the velOSity real-time microkernel, the foundation for the INTEGRITY RTOS, is now available independently. Shipping for over seven years as the INTEGRITY kernel, the velOSity microkernel is small, fast and royalty-free, making it ideal for resource-constrained applications such as consumer and mobile electronics, computer peripherals, office automation equipment, portable data terminals and automotive electronics. The velOSity microkernel requires as little as 3 KB of RAM and uses a state-of-the-art architecture that never disables interrupts in systems calls, guaranteeing the fastest possible interrupt response times across all microprocessors.

“With the release of the velOSity microkernel, Green Hills is uniquely positioned to satisfy the entire spectrum of 32- and 64-bit embedded applications, from the smallest, high-volume, resource-constrained consumer applications through the largest, most mission-critical avionics, defense and telecommunications systems,” said Dan O’Dowd, chief executive officer and founder of Green Hills Software. This provides large organizations with a single, fully interoperable embedded software development solution that satisfies their requirements across all projects.”

The velOSity microkernel enables exceptionally fast application development out of the box and is tightly integrated with the MULTI Integrated Development Environment (IDE), the industry’s market-leading development tool set and the Green Hills Optimizing C and C++ compilers. This combination provides a completely turnkey solution that allows developers to be instantly productive. The velOSitymicrokernel is so intuitive that developers can be up and running in minutes. Moreover, the velOSity microkernel runs on custom hardware without any porting or customization required. The velOSity microkernel is completely hardware independent and does not require a board support package (BSP) or any other board-specific code.

The velOSity microkernel inherits all of the INTEGRITY device drivers, BSPs and middleware. This allows velOSity developers to use a broad complement of runtime components, including file system support, USB, CAN, Bluetooth, IPv4, IPv6, SSL, Web server, CORBA and graphics. While a BSP is optional with the velOSity architecture, developers can take advantage of a rich library of more than 100 BSPs and device drivers available for the INTEGRITY RTOS without having to make any modifications.

Both the velOSity microkernel and the INTEGRITY RTOS also employ the same application programming interfaces, including POSIX system interfaces and adaptation layers for VxWorks, pSOS and other legacy RTOSes. Software developed for the velOSity microkernel is 100% upwards compatible with the INTEGRITY RTOS. This provides a seamless migration path for velOSity users that want to upgrade to the reliability and security features (memory protection, secure partitioning) offered by the INTEGRITY RTOS.

What Partners Are Saying About velOSity

"With Green Hills' velOSity microkernel now supporting ADI's Blackfin processor, we can offer developers a small, scalable and robust real-time kernel that seamlessly complements the advanced digital signal processing capabilities, powerful RISC-like functionality, low power and compact size of Blackfin," stated Gerald McGuire, general manager, Media Platforms and Services Group, Analog Devices, Inc. "This makes the velOSity-Blackfin combination especially attractive to developers of portable, media-rich applications such as terminal devices and PDAs and to designers of advanced automotive and industrial control applications."

"The introduction of velOSity offers developers a royalty-free RTOS for their applications that demand a small memory footprint and high performance on our popular PowerPC 405 and 440 processor families," said Tom Wilson manager, IBM PowerPC Marketing.

"As a leading provider of ARM standard- and customer-specific products, Atmel has been pleased to team with Green Hills over the years to provide high-quality solutions to our mutual customers," said Alfredo Vadillo, director for ASICs and ASSPs for Atmel Corporation. "Our customers already look to Green Hills products like MULTI and INTEGRITY to decrease their time-to-market when developing embedded products based on our popular AT91 family. The velOSity microkernel is a natural fit for our ARM7 and we look forward to seeing our customers deploy their royalty-free products based on velOSity."

"Interpeak is pleased to expand its current networking solution partnership with Green Hills to include seamless support for the velOSity microkernel," said Johan Fornaeus, president of Interpeak, AB. "The availability of velOSity to our shared customers provides a much needed royalty-free, high-performance networking and microkernel solution to target today's high-volume networked devices."

"With the strong success of real-time CORBA in embedded systems requiring seamless application connectivity, the velOSity microkernel will facilitate building even smaller, fast and predictable applications with ORBexpress," said Bill Beckwith, chief executive and technical officer of Objective Interface Systems.

"The availability of velOSity support with our Portable Embedded GUI, PEG, is a perfect combination for those high-volume, cost-sensitive applications that require a high-quality graphical user interface," says Ken Maxwell, president of Swell Software. "The velOSity microkernel with PEG makes the availability of a common solution from low- to high-end in an OEM's product family a reality."

"Having velOSity available for the Texas Instruments' OMAP59xx processor family expands the value that the Green Hills RTOS solutions provide to our mutual customers," said Gregory Mar, worldwide OMAP marketing manager, Texas Instruments. "The option of a seamless solution from low- to high-end products is important in reducing our OEM's time to deployment."

About Green Hills Software
Founded in 1982, Green Hills Software, Inc. is the technology leader for real-time operating systems and software development tools for 32- and 64-bit embedded systems. Our royalty-free velOSity microkernel, INTEGRITY RTOS, C/C++ compilers, MULTI and AdaMULTI Integrated Development Environments and TimeMachine debugger, offer a complete development solution that addresses both deeply embedded and high-reliability applications. Green Hills Software is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA, with European headquarters in the United Kingdom.

Green Hills Software, the Green Hills logo, MULTI, INTEGRITY, AdaMULTI, velOSity and TimeMachine are trademarks or registered trademarks of Green Hills Software, Inc. in the U.S. and/or internationally. All other trademarks and products are the property of their respective owners.

North American Sales Contact:
Green Hills Software, Inc.
30 West Sola Street,
Santa Barbara, CA 93101,
Tel: 805-965-6044
Fax: 805-965-6343
Website: www.ghs.com
Email: sales@ghs.com

International Sales Contact:
Green Hills Software Ltd.
Fleming Business Centre
Leigh Road
Eastleigh
Hampshire SO50 9PD
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel: +44 (0)2380 649660
Fax: +44 (0)2380 649661
Email: mktg-europe@ghs.com

Media Contacts:
Green Hills Software, Inc.
Lynn J. Robinson
(805) 965-6044
lynnr@ghs.com

Patterson & Associates
Barbara Stewart
(480) 488-6909
barbara@patterson.com