VME board-maker Pentek has ported the open source eCos embedded operating system to the Motorola G4 PowerPC processor, calling the solution ideal for data acquisition, software radio, storage, and recording applications. Initial support is for Pentek's Model 4205 I/O Processor VME board and ReadyFlow Board Support Package featuring pre-built eCos libraries and the GNU open-source development tools.

Click for larger view of Pentek's 4205 VME board

Pentek calls eCos a cost-effective alternative to commercial real-time operating systems, and also to Linux, which it says lacks inherent real-time performance.

“With eCos, developers can focus on delivering competitive, leading-edge technology instead of developing or maintaining a custom real-time operating system,” said Rodger Hosking, vice president of Pentek, Inc. “The Model 4205 delivers flexibility plus extensive high-performance I/O and eCos supports it with a low-cost, royalty-free embedded software development solution. Ideal for specialized single-slot, real-time I/O subsystems for data acquisition, software radio, storage and recording applications, the 4205/eCos combination scales smoothly to meet the needs of large, multi-channel systems.”

About eCos

Pentek says eCos is an open source real-time operating system for embedded applications that offers code footprints in the 10's to 100's of kilobytes. eCos can be customized to precise application requirements, without incurring runtime or development tool costs. eCos delivers excellent benchmarks for real-time operations including a task switching time of less than one microsecond on a 600 MHz G4 PowerPC, Pentek claims.

The standard tool chain for eCos development features GNU binary utilities, GCC C/C++ language compiler, GDB Debugger, eCos Configuration Tool, Cygwin (UNIX environment for Windows) and TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol). A complete TCP/IP stack is provided for network support.

eCos Debugger — click for larger view

The eCos Configuration Tool features a graphical interface for easy selection of specific modules, parametric control for many modules, and complete templates supporting specific hardware platforms. The GDB Debugger is supported with the Insight GUI to dramatically speed application development tasks, according to Pentek.

Pentek says full source code is available for all these tools, along with support through a worldwide user community, commercial developers, and consultants.

ReadyFlow Board Specific Support

Pentek says its ReadyFlow Board Support package is a collection of well-structured C-callable libraries delivered with source code and examples. For the Model 4205 G4 PowerPC I/O Processor, ReadyFlow includes all open source eCos tools described above, plus eCos libraries and components pre-built for 4205 hardware. Pentek offers tool suites for popular workstation environments including Linux, Solaris, and Windows NT, 2000, and XP.

High Performance, Flexible I/O Platform

Pentek says its Model 4205 comes with a 600 MHz Motorola MPC7455 G4 PowerPC, or optionally a 1 GHz MPC7457. Two 3-million gate Virtex-II FPGAs and Pentek's GateFlow FPGA Design Resources offer additional signal processing. The 4205 accommodates two Velocity Interface Mezzanine (VIM-2) modules, one VIM-4 module, or one VIM-2 and one PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC) module. I/O capabilities include built-in Ethernet, RS-232, VME64, dual RACE++ and a front-panel 1- or 2-Gigabit Fibre Channel interface. Future high-speed interfaces for the 4205 include Gigabit Ethernet, Serial FPDP and Rapid I/O. Any of these interfaces can be included without exceeding the one-slot configuration.

Pricing and Availability

ReadyFlow for the G4 PowerPC is $2,000 with immediate availability. The Model 4205 I/O Processor VME board with the MPC7455 PowerPC starts at $7,995 with availability eight weeks ARO.

 
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