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Green Hills Software Creates Clear Path for Arm Cortex-A78AE Early Adopters in High-Performance Critical Embedded Systems

Collaboration with Arm enables next-generation software compute platform for complex and demanding safety-critical tasks such as automated driving and critical industrial systems

SANTA BARBARA, CA — October 19, 2021 —  Green Hills Software, the worldwide leader in embedded safety and security, today announced its working prototypes for the groundbreaking Arm® Cortex®-A78AE core, establishing a clear path for early adopters of the core for use in high-performance critical electronic systems. Leading the Green Hills offering is the INTEGRITY® real-time operating system (RTOS) and C/C++ development tools that provide the certified safe and secure software foundation for SoC manufacturers and end-customers to unleash the power of the revolutionary Cortex-A78AE core, which is designed for complex and mission-critical functions in automated driving and critical industrial systems.

The amount of software controlling critical systems is rising – from cars to utility grids to aircraft – and is being consolidated from smaller processors onto more centralized high-performance units. Today, Arm Cortex-A5x and Cortex-A7x-based SoCs with the INTEGRITY RTOS and virtualization are widely deployed in safety and security-critical systems. The next generation of these systems will incorporate the Cortex-A78AE core, and Green Hills is working with Arm and early adopters to best utilize the core’s impressive strengths. This combination supports systems that require even higher performance, more complex software, mixed criticality workloads, including open source software while simultaneously delivering high assurance for safety and security.

INTEGRITY and the Cortex-A78AE form the most powerful and capable combination between Arm and Green Hills to date.

• The Cortex-A78AE is Arm’s highest performance safety-capable CPU, offering the ability to run different, complex workloads for autonomous applications such as mobile robotics and driverless transportation. The core delivers a 30% performance uplift compared to its predecessor and supports features to achieve the relevant automotive and industrial functional safety standards, ISO 26262 and IEC 61508 for applications up to ASIL D/SIL 3. At the same time, it brings new Armv8-A architectural features focused on safety, security, and reliability including Split-Lock lock step, pointer authentication, enhanced virtualization, System Ready portability and planned software test libraries (STLs).
• The INTEGRITY trusted software foundation runs and protects millions of today’s critical systems found in cars, aircraft, trains, secure phones, and surgical devices. Its separation kernel technology is certified at the highest levels of safety and security standards including Automotive (ISO 26262 ASIL D), Industrial (IEC 61508 SIL 3), Railway (EN 50128 SIL 4) and airborne systems (DO-178C DAL A). The automotive cybersecurity ISO 21434 is also being adopted. INTEGRITY secure virtualization enables running multiple guest operating systems such as Linux in certified secure partitions. For development, the MULTI® debugger enables unified debugging and analysis across multiple cores on complex Cortex-A78AE-based SoCs and executes programs forward or backward in time.

“The future of autonomous machines requires a high-performance processor and the Arm Cortex-A78AE has been designed from the ground up for handling the most complex safety-critical applications,” said John Heinlein, VP of automotive partnerships, Automotive and IoT Line of Business, Arm. “Arm’s partnership with Green Hills Software to provide early availability to mature base software and development tools accelerates the journey to Arm-based automated driving and critical industrial systems.”

“Green Hills Software’s decades of cross-industry proven safety and security solutions when combined with Arm’s purpose-built high-performance Cortex-A78AE multicore safety SoC, deliver the ability to tame system design complexities possible with this next-generation safety SoC,” said Dan Mender, VP of business development, Green Hills Software. “We are pleased to continue the expansion of our strong strategic relationship with Arm and our support for the broadest range of Arm processors in the industry.

For a closer look at software safety and security for embedded systems on the Cortex-A78AE, attend "Developing and Deploying Cortex-A78AE-based Software in Critical Systems” at Arm DevSummit, presented by Joe Fabbre, Global Technology Director at Green Hills Software.

Availability
Prototypes of Green Hills products including INTEGRITY, MULTI and the Green Hills Probe, are available today on the Arm Neoverse N1 SDP board.

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, absolute 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 https://www.ghs.com.

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