New embedded software platform certified to SIL 3

摘要

Green Hills Software (GHS) has launched what it calls the 'platform for Industrial Safety,' which is a software development and deployment solution for safety-critical industrial devices. The core of the platform is royalty-free 'Integrity-61508 Real-Time Operating System' (RTQS), which is in final stages of certification by TUV to IEC 61508 at Safety Integrity Level 3 (SIL 3). Full certification is expected by early 2006, says GHS. Dan Mender, Green Hills director of business development, differentiates the company's product from other approaches. 'In traditional solutions, critical and non-critical subsystems are usually totally separated, requiring separate resources to be expended for each, for example, power supplies. Green Hills' approach allows critical and non-critical elements to run on one microprocessor (MPU), with appropriate partitioning and boundaries between them fixed for reliability,' he said. Another differentiator for the safety platform is that users do not have to develop their own operating system and can avoid the time and cost of certification, explains Mr. Mender. 'It's an RTOS plus software, and software makes the platform unique.'