EnSilica and Micrium partner to port µC/OS-III RTOS to eSi-RISC processor cores

Wokingham, UK – 6^th June 2016. EnSilica, a leading independent provider of semiconductor solutions and IP, and Micrium, the premier real-time operating system (RTOS) provider for embedded systems and the Internet of Things (IoT), have partnered to successfully port Micrium’s µC/OS-III^® RTOS to EnSilica’s family of eSi-RISC processor cores. Micrium’s µC/OS-III is available on eSi-RISC with immediate effect. In addition, Micrium’s range of communication software, including its USB host/USB device and TCP/IP networking protocol stack, has been ported to EnSilica’s eSi-RISC.

“Recognized for its unparalleled reliability, performance and dependability, Micrium’s µC/OS-III RTOS is well-respected in the market and is a highly popular choice particularly for safety-critical and risk-averse applications,” said Ian Lankshear, CEO of EnSilica. “Our partnership with Micrium to port µC/OS-III to eSi-RISC, significantly strengthens and further broadens the overall eSi-RISC ecosystem, opening up a whole host of potential new opportunities for our customers while reducing time-to-market and the total cost of embedded development.”

“Our µC/OS-III RTOS is fast becoming ubiquitous in many application areas,” said Jean Labrosse, President and CEO of Micrium. “At the same time, EnSilica’s eSi-RISC family of embedded processor cores is also building an enviable reputation in the market due to it high performance, low power, extensive configurability and small footprint. The combination µC/OS-III and eSi-RISC is already bearing fruit with joint projects already underway.”

Micrium’s µC/OS-III is a pre-emptive and deterministic multi-tasking RTOS with optional round-robin scheduling. It is highly scalable, capable of supporting unlimited application tasks and kernel objects, and also highly portable, being delivered with complete source code and in-depth documentation. Furthermore, it is extremely resource efficient as the kernel's memory footprint can be scaled down to contain only the features required for the application, typically 6–24 KBytes of code space and 1 KByte of data space. Available extensions provide memory protection, greater application stability, safety, memory and time management, enabling cost-effective certification of complex systems. µC/OS-III is used extensively in safety-critical and risk-averse applications being pre-certified to avionics (DO-178B Level E up to Level A), industrial control (IEC 61508 Safety Integrity Level 1 up to Level 3) and medical (ISO 62304 Class A up to Class C [FDA 510(k)]) standards requirements.

EnSilica’s eSi-RISC is a family of highly configurable and low-power soft processor cores for embedded systems that scale across a wide range of applications and uniquely support both 16-bit and 32-bit configurations. The cores have been extensively silicon proven in a variety of ASIC technologies down to 28nm. The eSi-RISC family includes the eSi-1600 16-bit processor, eSi-3200 32-bit processor, eSi-3250 32-bit processor, eSi-3250sfp incorporating a single precision floating point processor, eSi-3260 32-bit processor with SIMD DSP extensions and eSi-32X0MP 32-bit scalable, asymmetric multicore processor. The processor cores also benefit from a configurable memory architecture and configurable cache options.

EnSilica is exhibiting at the 2016 Design Automation Conference from 5^th to 9^th June in Austin, Texas (Stand 1742) where the company will be available to discuss the eSi-RISC port for µC/OS-III.

About EnSilica

EnSilica was founded in 2001 and has a strong track record of success in delivering ASIC and FPGA based solutions to semiconductor companies and OEMs worldwide. The company is headquartered in the UK and has subsidiaries in India and the USA. The company is a specialist in low-power ASIC design and complex FPGA-based embedded systems. In addition to supplying IP and turnkey ASIC/FPGA development and supply, EnSilica also provides point services to companies with in-house ASIC design teams. These services include system engineering, analog and mixed signal design, and advanced verification using UVM, DFT and physical implementation. For further information about EnSilica, visit http://www.ensilica.com.

About Micrium

Micrium is a global RTOS leader for microprocessor, microcontroller and DSP-based devices. µC/OS is the leading commercial RTOS for embedded systems, and features a wide array of connectivity options. Micrium Spectrum is a pre-integrated end-to-end portfolio of embedded software, protocol stacks and cloud services to facilitate development of the IoT from device to the cloud. Micrium’s RTOS kernel and software components are recognized for unparalleled reliability, performance, dependability, impeccable source code and extensive documentation. They are ideally suited to all embedded vertical markets, with solutions certified to meet rigorous safety-critical standards for industries such as medical electronics, avionics and industrial control. For additional information about Micrium, visit: http://www.micrium.com.