EnSilica and Pebble Bay collaborate to target automotive electronics design

Pebble Bay ports ERIKA Enterprise open source RTOS for automotive systems to EnSilica's eSi-RISC processor family

Wokingham and Cambridge, UK – 7th October 2010. EnSilica, a leading independent provider of front-end IC design services, and Pebble Bay, a leading embedded systems development consultancy, are collaborating to target the automotive electronics design market by porting ERIKA Enterprise, the free-of-charge, open source RTOS for automotive systems, to EnSilica’s family of highly configurable and low-power eSi-RISC soft processor cores. The port provides proof of the suitability of EnSilica’s eSi-RISC processors to embedded automotive systems applications and effectively demonstrates Pebble Bay’s embedded software development and consulting services credentials to potential customers in the automotive electronics market.

The ERIKA Enterprise RTOS is a free of charge, open-source implementation of the ISO 17356 API that has been specifically developed for use in automotive applications, providing a minimal 1-4KB Flash real-time kernel and implementing an open source version of the OSEK/VDX open architecture specification for automotive electronics systems. Supporting both single and multi-core embedded systems, ERIKA Enterprise implements the standard conformance classes BCC1, BCC2, ECC1, ECC2 defined by OSEK/VDX as well as other custom conformance classes called FP (Fixed Priority), EDF (Earliest Deadline First Scheduling), and FRSH (an implementation of resource reservation protocols). ERIKA Enterprise was developed by Evidence Srl and is made available under the GNU General Public Licence.

“The breadth and depth of our combined microprocessor and RTOS expertise is well-suited to the needs of the automotive electronics industry and we see this port of the ERIKA Enterprise RTOS to the eSi-RISC processor family as a means of further demonstrating the services we have to offer,” said Ian Willats, Managing Director of Pebble Bay Consulting.

eSi-RISC is a family of highly configurable and low-power soft processor cores ideally suited to the demands of the automotive electronics design industry. It scales across a wide range of applications and uniquely supports both 16 and 32-bit configurations and has been extensively silicon proven in a number of ASIC and FPGA technologies. It includes the eSi-1600 16-bit processor, eSi-3200 32-bit processor, eSi-3250 32 bit processor and eSi-3250sfp incorporating a single precision floating point unit. The processor cores also benefit from selectable Harvard/von Neumann memory and configurable cache options. The highly pipelined nature of their design gives customers a technology-independent solution that is ideal for both FPGA applications and ASIC technologies.

“With their low power, small footprint and configurability, our eSi-RISC processors are well-aligned to the demands of the automotive electronics industry,” said Ian Lankshear, Managing Director of EnSilica. “The opportunity for eSi-RISC in the automotive electronics market is potentially enormous and this collaboration with Pebble Bay, through the port of ERIKA Enterprise, will fundamentally improve our ability to target it.”

About EnSilica

EnSilica is an established company with many years experience providing high quality IC design services to customers undertaking FPGA and ASIC designs. EnSilica has an impressive record of success working across many market segments with particular expertise in multimedia and communications applications. Customers range from start-ups to blue-chip companies. EnSilica can provide the full range of front-end IC design services, from System Level Design, RTL coding and Verification through to either a FPGA device or the physical design interface (synthesis, STA, DFT) for ASIC designs. EnSilica also offers a portfolio of IP, including a highly configurable 16/32 bit embedded processor called eSi-RISC and the eSi-Comms range of communications IP. For further information about EnSilica, visit http://www.ensilica.com. eSi-RISC product information and downloads can be found at http://www.esi-risc.com.

About Pebble Bay

Pebble Bay is a an independent, specialist embedded software development and consultancy company, providing high-quality services to customers building microprocessor-based embedded systems across a wide range of industries including defence, industrial, consumer electronics and others. Pebble Bay has a strong technical focus on the hardware/software interface and any aspect of embedded software development that involves use of a real-time kernel or operating system. Pebble Bay’s aim is to be highly professional and easy to work with, using pragmatic project management techniques that have been honed over many years. This approach, with a track record of on-time and within-budget completion of projects, has resulted in a high level of repeat business from major customers. For further information about Pebble Bay, visit: http://www.pebblebay.com.

About ERIKA Enterprise

For further information about ERIKA Enterprise and Evidence Srl, visit: http://erika.tuxfamily.org and http://www.evidence.eu.com.