Correct, Compact Software Takes Charge In Embedded Apps

Sept. 29, 2003

A pair of seemingly unrelated software announcements spells good news for embedded developers. The first is the OSEKturbo operating system (OS) from Motorola's Metrowerks. The second is a new version of Encirq's 3e database service development...

William G. Wong

OSEKturbo implements the OSEK/VDX OS standard. It doesn't address other OSEK/VDX components, such as COM (communications) and NM (network management). These services run on an OSEK OS, enabling the use of third-party modules to provide these services. OSEKturbo supports OIL (OSEK Implementation Language).

Motorola implements deterministic scheduling in OSEKturbo. This feature is critical to applications in automotive and process control where OSEK is typically found, although it's equally applicable to most embedded environments. Motorola is delivering a 32-bit version of OSEKturbo, with versions for 8- and 16-bit processors expected. OSEKturbo is integrated with Metrowerks' CodeWarrior development system.

With OSEK, you include what you use. A system requires the OS, but not the COM or NM components. The same is true for Encirq's 3e. This modular system generates C source code to implement a database system specified by the programmer using the Encirq\DB tool. It can create a full-featured database environment like that provided by many SQL database products. Yet it can also generate systems down to a bare-bones system. The amount of code generated is comparable to the power of the resulting database support. This is key for developers who are memory-constrained with average or minimal database requirements.

The generated database support can be treated as a black box, but Encirq developers aren't limited to this approach. The database support is C code that's folded into an application, which eases debugging and making enhancements. It also lets developers choose compiler optimizations based on their requirements.

Encirq's 3e costs $4995 per developer. Run-time licensing starts at $10,000. Contact Metrowerks for OSEKturbo licensing.

Encirq Corp.www.encirq.comMetrowerkswww.metrowerks.comOSEK/VDXwww.osek-vdx.com

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

You can send press releases for new products for possible coverage on the website. I am also interested in receiving contributed articles for publishing on our website. Use our template and send to me along with a signed release form.

Check out my blog, AltEmbedded on Electronic Design, as well as his latest articles on this site that are listed below.

You can visit my social media via these links:

I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence.