Aonix Ports Deterministic Virtual Machine to PikeOS

Combined solution improves portability of military and aerospace applications

San Diego, CA, September 2, 2008—Aonix®, the provider of the PERC product line for embedded and real-time Java developers, released PERC Ultra 5.1 cross development and target support on Sysgo’s PikeOS 2.2 real-time operating system. PERC Ultra support of the PikeOS POSIX PSE52 profile provides a solution for the increasing need for portability across multiple operating systems as industries such as military and aerospace, transportation, telecommunications, automotive and industrial automation, face the massive challenge of maintaining legacy systems. The deterministic behavior and real-time performance of Aonix’s PERC Ultra meets the stringent requirements of these applications and enables developers to apply Java’s portability to their modernizing efforts. 

Because of the POSIX interface, the PERC Ultra-PikeOS solution is particularly attractive for applications requiring scalability and portability. The POSIX PSE52 profile adds asynchronous IO and socket communications—features that Java programmers need to design effective Standard Edition Java™ embedded and real-time applications. 

Thanks to Eclipse plug-ins in both PERC Ultra and PikeOS, Aonix and Sysgo also provide maximum flexibility to developers. With the large-scale, complex applications common in safety-critical space, applications often involve diverse design, development and test tools. The Eclipse environment provides a common framework and development platform, reducing the learning curve and offering developers the widest variety of tools possible. 

 “PERC Ultra has extended the portability of the POSIX interface wonderfully for a number of joint customer applications,” noted Jacques Brygier, marketing vice president at Sysgo. “The speed and real-time behavior of PERC has enabled our customers to update legacy code and bring together multiple execution environments often based on more than one real-time operating system. And, thanks to our mutual support of Eclipse, customers are able to enjoy a large breadth of tool support and flexibility.”

“The need to reduce cost and ongoing maintenance of software has created a drive to modernize legacy code,” confirmed Gary Cato, Aonix director of marketing. “With PERC Ultra ported to PikeOS, application developers can introduce the Java benefits of portability and ease of maintenance throughout their code. We look forward to continuing our joint efforts as we extend our current offerings into the multipartitioned space.”

Efforts to integrate a multipartitioned solution are well underway. Chosen to participate in DIANA, an European Community project chartered to modernize the tools and execution environments used in hard real-time and safety-certifiable avionics systems, Aonix and Sysgo are already working toward extending the portable operating system interface to meet the ARINC-653 standard, a multipartition execution environment. The DIANA project will develop architecture, methodologies and concepts that reduce aircraft development and operating costs, enable faster upgrade and replacement of avionics applications, and reduce onboard weight through better use of computational resources. The DIANA project has chosen PERC Ultra, PERC Pico and PikeOS as essential components to the modular electronics platform under development.

About the PERC Family
PERC Ultra is a virtual machine and toolset expressly created for demanding embedded and real-time systems requiring J2SE™ support. PERC Ultra delivers the ease and efficiency of Java™ Standard Edition support without sacrificing integrity, performance, or real-time behavior. The currently available version, PERC Ultra 5.1 offers Ahead-of-Time (AOT) and Just-in-Time (JIT) compilation, remote debug support, deterministic garbage collection, standard graphics and extended commercial RTOS support.

PERC Pico, the first development environment geared toward the creation of resource constrained and deeply embedded hard real-time applications and components, is based on the emerging Java Specification Request (JSR-302) for development of hard real-time safety-critical code. PERC Pico allows Java developers to write low-level Java code such as device drivers and interrupt handlers, telecommunications control plane, and signal processing for multimedia. It offers a memory footprint measured in hundreds of kilobytes in comparison to the tens of megabytes required for other Java solutions as well as boasting performance, latency, and determinism comparable to C.

About PikeOS
PikeOS is a ground-breaking product providing an embedded systems platform where multiple virtual machines can run simultaneously in a secure environment. This secure virtualization technology allows multiple operating system APIs to run independently and concurrently on one machine so that an ARINC-653 application runs together with Linux. The PikeOS safe and secure virtualization RTOS platform provides the widest range of operational guest operating system or run-time environment “personalities” on the market.

The PikeOS microkernel architecture allows it to be used in cost-sensitive, resource-constrained devices as well as large, complex systems. PikeOS is certifiable to the DO-178B standard and is also MILS compliant.

Shipping and Availability
PERC Ultra 5.1 targeting Power Architectures on Sysgo’s PikeOS is immediately available. Future support for other PikeOS profiles are possible based on customer demand. PERC development tools are available at no charge in combination with a maintenance contract. Target execution and deployment license pricing starts at $25K based on projected volume. PERC Ultra is also available with special bundling discounts when licensed together with PERC Pico.

About SYSGO
SYSGO specializes in design, implementation and configuration of device software for the embedded market. In addition to PikeOS™, SYSGO’s real-time operating system and virtualization solution for safety-critical systems, and ELinOS™, SYSGO’s embedded Linux development environment, the company offers development of device drivers, board support packages and firmware. SYSGO also supports international customers with services for embedded Linux, real-time capabilities and certification for safety-critical applications. Target markets include Aerospace & Defense, Industrial Automation, Automotive, Consumer Electronics and Network Infrastructure. SYSGO customers include DaimlerChrysler, EADS Airbus, EADS Military Air Systems, Honeywell, Thales, Raytheon, Rheinmetall, Rockwell-Collins, Siemens and Rohde & Schwarz. Today, the company has six facilities in Europe, including Germany, France and UK and offers a global distribution and support network, especially in the US and Japan. For more information, visit www.sysgo.com.

About Aonix^®
Aonix offers mission- and safety-critical solutions primarily to the military and aerospace, telecommunications and transportation industries. Aonix delivers the leading highly reliable, real-time embedded virtual machine solution for running Java^™ programs deployed today and has the largest number of certified Ada applications at the highest level of criticality. Headquartered in San Diego, CA and Paris, France, Aonix operates sales offices throughout North America and Europe in addition to offering a network of international distributors. For more information, visit www.aonix.com.

Aonix and PERC are registered trademarks and trademarks of Aonix. Java^™ and all Java-based marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trade names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2008, Aonix, all rights reserved.