Socorro, NM — (press release excerpt) — FSMLabs announced immediate availability of a full function OCHCI IEEE 1394 (Firewire) driver for the RTLinux/Pro Operating System. The driver supports asynchronous and isochronous modes and bus configuration and is available with FSMLabs Lnet networking package that also support Ethernet.

The zero copy variant of the UNIX standard socket interface allows application code to have full access to the packets and build application stacks without forcing packet copy. Asynchronous packet round trip (real-time thread to real-time thread and back) is 110 microseconds worst case.

The driver is currently being used by FSMLabs customers who employ 1394 as an instrument control bus, but real-time 1394 has applications in fields such as multimedia, robotics, and enterprise (where it can be used for fault tolerance). As an example, United Technologies uses the RTLinux 1394 support to bridge control systems and VME/shared memory systems, taking advantage of the high data movement rates of the 1394 bus to synchronize with shared memory on PCI control systems.

FSMLabs Network Architect, Justin Weaver said “the driver exposes the flexibility of 1394, which can provide both very low latency packet transmission and high data rates at the same time.”

Driver functions include . . .

• Asynchronous requests and responses
  
• Isochronous stream packets with ability to tune contexts to specific or multiple channels
  
• Asynchronous stream packets
  
• Up to 32 isochronous receive contexts and same number of transmit contexts
  
• Cycle master capability
  
• IRM capability and Bus Manager topology map control
  
• Up to 63 nodes per bus and up to 16 ports per node

RTLinux/Pro provides FSMLabs RTCore POSIX PS51 robust “hard” real-time kernel with a full embedded Linux development system. RTCore employs a patented dual kernel technique to run Linux or BSD Unix as applications. Hard real-time software runs at hardware speeds while the full power of an open-source UNIX is available to non-real-time components. RTLinux/Pro is used for everything from satellite controllers, telescopes, and jet engine test stands to routers and computer graphics. RTLinux/Pro runs on a wide range of platforms from high end clusters of multiprocessor P4s/Athlons to low power devices like the MPC860, Elan 520, and ARM7.

RTLinux Pro and the 1394 driver are sold under a commercial license both in binary and source.

 
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