CoreAVI to support DDC-I’s safety-critical Deos RTOS

Date: 30/05/2022
High-rel def/aero grade system software expert DDC-I has teamed with safety critical graphics expert CoreAVI in offering integrated avionics RTOS/graphics platform for high-performance multicore SoCs equipped with on-board graphical processing units (GPUs) such as NXP i.MX 8 and 11th Generation Intel Core i7 (formerly Tiger Lake).

The solution combines DDC-I’s DO-178C, FACE-conformant Deos RTOS with CoreAVI’s Vulkan-based VkCore SC graphics and compute driver portfolio to speed up the development, certification and deployment of intense-computing and graphics-rich aero/avionics applications requiring data fusion, sense/detect, synthetic vision, graphics and other advanced control functionality.

“CPU designs with dedicated GPUs and array processors are giving way to low-power, inexpensive multicore SoCs with integrated GPUs like the Core i7 and i.MX8,” said Greg Rose, vice president of marketing and product management at DDC-I. “We’re excited to be working with CoreAVI to provide a safety-critical operating environment with integrated graphics support that accelerates the development, deployment and certification of safety-critical applications for these high-performance SoCs.”

“CoreAVI is pleased to support DDC-I’s safety-critical Deos RTOS with our safety certifiable Vulkan driver suite,” said Neil Stroud, VP of Marketing and Business Development at CoreAVI. “Avionics developers targeting emerging SoCs like the i.MX8 and Intel’s 11th Gen Core i7 now have a versatile, high-performance GPU acceleration platform to develop highly converged mission and avionics processing solutions with an accelerated, low risk path to flight safety certification.”

Vulkan is a new-generation graphics and compute API that provides high-efficiency, cross platform access to modern GPUs. CoreAVI’s new VkCore SC Vulkan-based graphics and compute driver portfolio, as well as its VkCoreGL SC1 OpenGL SC 1.0.1 and VkCoreGL SC2 OpenGL SC 2.0 application libraries, enable implementation of a full safe software stack on i.MX8 and Intel’s 11th Gen Core i7 application processors. Vulkan provides unprecedented access to GPU compute and graphics resources while employing advanced acceleration technology that promotes balanced CPU/GPU usage, thereby boosting performance by better distributing work across multiple cores. Drivers for avionics applications are available with DO-178C safety certification evidence to DAL A.

DDC-I says "DDC-Deos, first certified to DO-178 DAL A in 1998, provides FACE Conformant Safety Base and Safety Extended Profiles and features hard real-time response, time-space partitioning, slack scheduling and both ARINC-653 and POSIX interfaces. These capabilities enable Deos to scale well in the gamut of avionics applications, from highly deterministic deeply embedded FADECs (Full Authority Digital Engine Control) and flight controls to complex high-throughput displays and mission computers."

Deos SafeMC helps in utilizing full computing and graphic capabilities of multicore processors such as Core i7 and i.MX8 with no compromise on safety-critical task response and guaranteed execution time. By using bound multiprocessing (BMP) extension of the symmetric multiprocessing architecture (SMP), SafeMC utilizes techniques like safe scheduling, memory pools and cache partitioning to minimize cross-core contention and interference patterns that affect the performance, safety criticality and certifiability of multicore systems, as specified by the Certification Authorities Software Team (CAST) in its position paper “CAST-32A for Multicore Processors”.

Author: Srinivasa Reddy N
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