[Updated Mar. 19, 2003] — The T-Engine Forum and MontaVista Software announced today that they are collaborating to combine TRON (“The Real-time Operating system Nucleus”) — the long-dominant Japanese embedded operating system — with embedded Linux, in an effort to create a standardized software architecture for embedded devices that takes advantage of open source software and the benefits of… Linux, while retaining a degree of compatibility with TRON.

What is T-Engine?

The T-Engine Forum, established in 2002, describes T-Engine as defining “an open, standardized development environment for embedded applications . . . aimed at constructing a ubiquitous, networked computing environment encompassing portable information devices (such as mobile phones, PDAs, and electronic books), home electronic appliances, and other networked devices.”

Specifically, T-Engine defines the configuration of a target system processor board, including external dimensions and how the board combines with various types of expansion boards. T-Engine boards based on SH, MR, ARM, and MIPS series processors, are currently said to be under development.

Additionally, the group envisions four types of T-Engine platforms, representing various subsets of size and functionality . . .

• Standard T-Engine — for portable information devices such as mobile phones and electronic books with comparatively advanced user interface features
• micro T-Engine (mT-Engine) — for home electronic appliances or instrumentation equiment with comparatively few user interface features
• nano T-Engine (nT-Engine) — for small devices such as lighting equipment, switches, sensors, etc.
• pT-Engine — a platform for one-touch computers with a wireless connection that can be attached to non-active things

In addition to defining target hardware board size and expansion, the project has also standardized an operating system environment based on a variant of TRON called T-Kernel (which supports 32-bit processors with MMUs), and has defined a security architecture (eTRON), plus certain middleware components.

The T-Engine standards promotion group currently claims more than 100 members worldwide including Fujitsu, Fuji Electric, Hitachi, Kyocera, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, MIPS, NEC, NTT, NTT DATA, NTT DoCoMo, RSA Security, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, Sony, Sharp, Toshiba, Yamaha, Yazaki, and Yokogawa Digital Computer Corp., the group said.

Combining T-Engine and Linux

“TRON has long been an embedded OS standard for the consumer electronics and automotive industries in Japan, and Linux is making increasing contributions in these same areas with its unique strengths,” said MontaVista founder and CEO Jim Ready. “Together in the T-Engine project, these two powerful OSes will provide device manufacturers with the best of both worlds, letting them build on their TRON expertise while leveraging the power of Open Source Linux.”

Dr. Ken Sakamura, professor at the University of Tokyo and chairman of the T-Engine Forum, said “we are pleased to collaborate with MontaVista Software [to simplify] complicated embedded development by using the real-time performance of T-Kernel, and adding the many other strengths of Linux, such as rich networking, openness, and standards-compliance.” Sakamura is well known throughout the world as the father of Japan's extremely successful TRON OS project.

What puts the “T” in “T-Linux”?

MontaVista said it is currently developing a specification for “T-Linux”, a T-Engine compatible version of its embedded Linux OS, after which it will develop and validate T-Linux as part of its participation in the forum.

But just what will T-Linux consist of?

One obvious possibility is for MontaVista to simply port its embedded Linux operating system to the many T-Engine processor boards that will be produced by various vendors in Japan. Doing this would be quite straightforward, although it is not currently the thrust of this initiative, Morgan said.

Another option might be to add support for TRON API functions within an embedded Linux environment by means of a software translation layer or linkable library, along the lines of pSOS and VxWorks API support currently offered by several embedded Linux vendors (including MontaVista). Presumably, this would ease the migration path for TRON/T-Engine users to T-Linux, perhaps even allowing TRON applications to run on T-Linux following a simple recompile. However, Morgan said this, too, is not currently the intent of the collaboration.

Rather, what is being looked at is a third possibility, strongly hinted in today's announcement, whereby the two OSes (T-Kernel and T-Linux) would be deployed simultaneously on the same CPU, similar to how RTLinux is used to add “hard real-time” capabilities to Linux.

From the announcement (emphasis added) . . .

The combination of T-Engine and MontaVista Linux enables developers to take advantage of both operating systems to develop next generation products in a broad range of applications, especially in the consumer electronics market. This combined solution will be especially attractive to the large base of TRON users already considering the move to Linux. These developers can use the valuable asset of legacy TRON application software as well as the rich middleware solutions, tools, and the wealth of applications available for Linux. This combined solution uses T-Kernel to service real-time events and MontaVista Linux to service ubiquitous applications needs, serving as the “T-Linux” element of T-Engine architecture.

Asked about this possibility, Morgan confirmed that the dual-kernel approach is indeed what is sought by the collaboration, although he emphasized that the specific method by which this will be accomplished remains to be determined. Certainly, this approach can provide a means to support both sets of APIs within a single system, and also offers the possibility of providing enhanced real-time performance.

One interesting hurdle along the path is likely to be finding a way to build a dual-kernel system that can add T-Kernel's real-time capabilities to Linux's rich set of sophisticated OS features without violating the RTLinux patent.

More info

Further information about T-Engine is available from the T-Engine Forum website. More details about TRON are available from the TRON assocation website. In particular, an excellent overview of TRON, including current and future development plans, is available here (PDF download).

 
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