Green Hills Software

Last updated

Green Hills Software Inc.
Company type Private
Industry Embedded system software tools
Founded1982;42 years ago (1982)
Founders
  • Dan O'Dowd
  • Carl Rosenberg
Headquarters,
United States
Key people
Dan O'Dowd, president
Products
Website www.ghs.com

Green Hills Software is a privately owned company that builds operating systems and programming tools for embedded systems. [1] [2] The firm was founded in 1982 by Dan O'Dowd and Carl Rosenberg. Its headquarters are in Santa Barbara, California. [3]

Contents

History

In the 1990s, Green Hills Software and Wind River Systems, both makers of embedded system software development tools, entered into a 99-year agreement to cooperatively support customers using products from both companies. The agreement was terminated after a lawsuit in 2005. After parting ways, Wind River publicly embraced Linux and open-source software while Green Hills initiated a public relations campaign decrying the use of open-source software in projects related to national security. [1]

In 2008, the Green Hills real-time operating system (RTOS) named Integrity-178 was the first system to be certified by the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP), composed of National Security Agency (NSA) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), to Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 6+. [4] [5]

In November 2008, it was announced that a commercialized version of Integrity 178-B would be offered to the private sector by Integrity Global Security, a subsidiary of Green Hills Software. [5] [ better source needed ]

On March 27, 2012, a contract was announced between Green Hills Software and Nintendo. This designates MULTI as the official integrated development environment and toolchain for Nintendo and its licensed developers to program the Wii U video game console. [6] [ non-primary source needed ]

On February 25, 2014, it was announced that the operating system Integrity had been chosen by Urban Aeronautics for their AirMule flying car unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), since renamed the Tactical Robotics Cormorant. [4] [ non-primary source needed ]

Selected products

Real-time operating systems

Integrity is a POSIX real-time operating system (RTOS). An Integrity variant, named Integrity-178B, was certified to Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 6+, High Robustness in November 2008. [7] Micro Velosity (stylized as µ-velOSity) is a real-time microkernel for resource-constrained devices. [8] [9]

Compilers

Green Hills produces compilers for the programming languages C, C++, Fortran, and Ada. They are cross-platform, for 32- and 64-bit microprocessors, including RISC-V, ARM, Blackfin, ColdFire, MIPS, PowerPC, SuperH, StarCore, x86, V850, and XScale. [10] [11] [ non-primary source needed ] [12]

Integrated development environments

MULTI is an integrated development environment (IDE) for the programming languages C, C++, Embedded C++ (EC++), and Ada, aimed at embedded engineers. [13] [ non-primary source needed ]

TimeMachine is a set of tools for optimizing and debugging C and C++ software. [14] [15] TimeMachine (introduced 2003) supports reverse debugging, [16] a feature that later also became available in the free GNU Debugger (GDB) 7.0 (2009). [17]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNU Debugger</span> Source-level debugger

The GNU Debugger (GDB) is a portable debugger that runs on many Unix-like systems and works for many programming languages, including Ada, Assembly, C, C++, D, Fortran, Haskell, Go, Objective-C, OpenCL C, Modula-2, Pascal, Rust, and partially others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Embedded system</span> Computer system with a dedicated function

An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is embedded as part of a complete device often including electrical or electronic hardware and mechanical parts. Because an embedded system typically controls physical operations of the machine that it is embedded within, it often has real-time computing constraints. Embedded systems control many devices in common use. In 2009, it was estimated that ninety-eight percent of all microprocessors manufactured were used in embedded systems.

pSOS is a real-time operating system (RTOS), created in about 1982 by Alfred Chao, and developed and marketed for the first part of its life by his company Software Components Group (SCG). In the 1980s, pSOS rapidly became the RTOS of choice for all embedded systems based on the Motorola 68000 series family architecture, because it was written in 68000 assembly language and was highly optimised from the start. It was also modularised, with early support for OS-aware debugging, plug-in device drivers, Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) stacks, language libraries, and disk subsystems. Later came source code level debugging, multiprocessing support, and further computer networking extensions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VxWorks</span> Real-time operating system

VxWorks is a real-time operating system developed as proprietary software by Wind River Systems, a subsidiary of Aptiv. First released in 1987, VxWorks is designed for use in embedded systems requiring real-time, deterministic performance and, in many cases, safety and security certification for industries such as aerospace, defense, medical devices, industrial equipment, robotics, energy, transportation, network infrastructure, automotive, and consumer electronics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MontaVista</span> Software company

MontaVista Software is a company that develops embedded Linux system software, development tools, and related software. Its products are made for other corporations developing embedded systems and end products using Linux, such as automotive electronics, telecommunications and communications equipment, mobile phones, and other electronic devices and infrastructure. MontaVista also supplies Linux-based solutions and software to products that are software-only, such as enterprise networking, virtual network functions in Network Functions Virtualization, and appliance software that is hosted on a cloud hosting environment.

Nucleus RTOS is a real-time operating system (RTOS) produced by the Embedded Software Division of Mentor Graphics, a Siemens Business, supporting 32- and 64-bit embedded system platforms. The operating system (OS) is designed for real-time embedded systems for medical, industrial, consumer, aerospace, and Internet of things (IoT) uses. Nucleus was released first in 1993. The latest version is 3.x, and includes features such as power management, process model, 64-bit support, safety certification, and support for heterogeneous computing multi-core system on a chip (SOCs) processors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blackfin</span> Family of 16-/32-bit microprocessors

The Blackfin is a family of 16-/32-bit microprocessors developed, manufactured and marketed by Analog Devices. The processors have built-in, fixed-point digital signal processor (DSP) functionality performed by 16-bit multiply–accumulates (MACs), accompanied on-chip by a microcontroller. It was designed for a unified low-power processor architecture that can run operating systems while simultaneously handling complex numeric tasks such as real-time H.264 video encoding.

Nios II is a 32-bit embedded processor architecture designed specifically for the Altera family of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) integrated circuits. Nios II incorporates many enhancements over the original Nios architecture, making it more suitable for a wider range of embedded computing applications, from digital signal processing (DSP) to system-control.

The MicroBlaze is a soft microprocessor core designed for Xilinx field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA). As a soft-core processor, MicroBlaze is implemented entirely in the general-purpose memory and logic fabric of Xilinx FPGAs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FreeRTOS</span> Real-time operating system

FreeRTOS is a real-time operating system kernel for embedded devices that has been ported to 35 microcontroller platforms. It is distributed under the MIT License.

V850 is a 32-bit RISC CPU architecture produced by Renesas Electronics for embedded microcontrollers. It was designed by NEC as a replacement for their earlier NEC V60 family, and was introduced shortly before NEC sold their designs to Renesas in the early 1990s. It has continued to be developed by Renesas as of 2018.

LatticeMico32 is a 32-bit microprocessor reduced instruction set computer (RISC) soft core from Lattice Semiconductor optimized for field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). It uses a Harvard architecture, which means the instruction and data buses are separate. Bus arbitration logic can be used to combine the two buses, if desired.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Segger Microcontroller Systems</span> Private company in the embedded systems industry

Segger Microcontroller, founded in 1992, is a private company involved in the embedded systems industry. It provides products used to develop and manufacture four categories of embedded systems: real-time operating systems (RTOS) and software libraries (middleware), debugging and trace probes, programming tools, and in-system programmers. The company is headquartered in Monheim am Rhein, Germany, with remote offices in Gardner, Massachusetts; Milpitas, California; and Shanghai, China.

LynxSecure is a least privilege real-time separation kernel hypervisor from Lynx Software Technologies designed for safety and security critical applications found in military, avionic, industrial, and automotive markets.

DDC-I, Inc. is a privately held company providing software development of real-time operating systems, software development tools, and software services for safety-critical embedded applications, headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. It was first created in 1985 as the Danish firm DDC International A/S, a commercial outgrowth of Dansk Datamatik Center, a Danish software research and development organization of the 1980s. The American subsidiary was created in 1986. For many years, the firm specialized in language compilers for the programming language Ada.

OVPsim is a multiprocessor platform emulator used to run unchanged production binaries of the target hardware. It has public APIs allowing users to create their own processor, peripheral and platform models. Various models are available as open source. OVPsim is a key component of the Open Virtual Platforms initiative (OVP), an organization created to promote the use of open virtual platforms for embedded software development. OVPsim requires OVP registration to download.

RISC-V is an open standard instruction set architecture (ISA) based on established reduced instruction set computer (RISC) principles. Unlike most other ISA designs, RISC-V is provided under royalty-free open-source licenses. Many companies are offering or have announced RISC-V hardware; open source operating systems with RISC-V support are available, and the instruction set is supported in several popular software toolchains.

References

  1. 1 2 "Green Hills Software". Hoover's Handbook of Private Companies 2007 (PDF). Hoover's. 2007. p. 222. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 1, 2020. Retrieved November 26, 2013.
  2. Plauger, P.J. (December 1997). "Embedded C++: An Overview" (PDF). Embedded Systems Programming. Retrieved November 26, 2013 via fceia.unr.edu.ar.
  3. Hoover's Handbook of Private Companies. Hoover's Business Press. January 1, 2007. ISBN   9781573111157.
  4. 1 2 Green Hills Software Integrity RTOS chosen by Urban Aeronautics for AirMule Unmanned Aerial System, Reuters, February 25, 2014, archived from the original on September 3, 2014
  5. 1 2 Racicot, Jonathan (November 19, 2008). "Integrity OS to be Released Commercially". Cyberwarfare Magazine.
  6. "Green Hills Software's MULTI Integrated Development Environment Selected by Nintendo for Wii U Development" (Press release). San Jose, CA: Green Hills Software. March 27, 2012. Retrieved June 27, 2014.
  7. "Validated Products List". National Information Assurance Partnership . Retrieved November 26, 2013.
  8. Wilson, Richard (July 22, 2015). "Green Hills secures its RTOS for IoT". Electronics Weekly. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
  9. Tångring, Jan (April 10, 2006). "Green Hills Releases New Operating System" (in Swedish). Elektroniktidningen. Retrieved November 26, 2013.
  10. "Green Hills Optimizing Compilers". Green Hills Software.
  11. "NSITEXE and Green Hills Software Partner on RISC-V Solutions". Green Hills Software.
  12. Wilson, Richard (August 18, 2016). "Green Hills certifies RTOS for avionics computers". Electronics Weekly. Retrieved July 17, 2023.
  13. "MULTI Integrated Development Environment" Green Hills Software.
  14. Lindahl, Michael (January 2005). "Using Trace to Debug Realtime Systems". Dr. Dobb's Journal . acumeninfo.com. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007.
  15. Krass, Peter (July 18, 2006). "Green Hills Expands TimeMachine Support Options". Device Software Optimization blog. Archived from the original on May 13, 2008.
  16. "TimeMachine enables debugging forward and backward in time". EE Times . November 6, 2003.
  17. Brobecker, Joel (October 8, 2009). "GDB 7.0 released". LWN.net. Eklektix. Retrieved December 2, 2013.