Mentor Graphics Announces Nucleus RTOS for Wearable Devices

Integrated wearable solution designed to meet the power consumption, multicore, and IoT requirements for wearable devices

WILSONVILLE, Ore. -- April 30, 2015 -- The Mentor® Embedded Nucleus® real time operating system (RTOS) framework includes a complete range of features targeting next-generation wearable Internet of Things (IoT) devices for the medical, fitness, and security markets:

• Mentor Embedded Nucleus RTOS provides a comprehensive operating system and extensive protocol support for cloud connectivity designed for embedded developers working on wearable devices.
• Integrated multicore framework with inter-process communication (IPC) and remote process life cycle supports booting up and shutting down individual processors/cores based on the use-case to conserve power consumption.
• Built-in power management framework supports the low power features in processors including dynamic voltage frequency scaling (DVFS), low power and sleep modes, and central processor unit (CPU) idle mode.
• Process model for memory space partitioning to support device software upgrades and updates, device provisioning, and software downloads from a user application store.
• Support for WYSIWYG graphics development using the Qt® framework.

For more information, go to: www.mentor.com/embedded/wearables

Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ: MENT) today announced the Nucleus real time operating system (RTOS) targeting high-performance, next-generation applications for wearable embedded devices designed for medical, fitness, security, safety and other sectors. The introduction of new multicore system-on-chip (SoC) architectures targeting wearable devices with Internet of Things (IoT) features requires an operating system that has a framework tailored to meet new system requirements. The Nucleus RTOS framework for smart wearable devices connects to other smart devices, gateways, or directly to the cloud. Optimized for size, performance, and power efficiency in unicore or multicore SoCs, the Nucleus RTOS is the first embedded operating system to provide a power management and processor lifecycle framework to maximize wearable device battery life.

The Nucleus RTOS provides memory space partitioning in both high-performance microprocessor units (MPU) and resource-constrained microcontroller units (MCU) to support software updates and upgrades in deployed systems. The Nucleus RTOS includes a rich IPv4/v6 networking stack, M2M protocols, and security for IoT applications and cloud connectivity.

Multicore Framework for Inter-process Communication and Processor Life Cycle

Today’s wearable SoCs increasingly combine application-class and microcontroller-class cores onto a single device to consolidate heterogeneous operating environments within a single application. The Nucleus RTOS includes the embedded industry’s first complete heterogeneous multicore framework – a clean-room implementation of functionality of “virtIO”, “remoteproc”, and “rpmsg.” This framework enables developers to seamlessly integrate the Nucleus RTOS, Linux®, and bare metal-based applications onto a single SoC including inter-process communication (IPC), resource sharing, and processor life cycle control for wearable devices. Developers can control the boot-up and shut-down of individual cores on an SoC, allowing wearable and IoT applications to maximize compute performance or minimize power consumption based on the use-case.

The Nucleus RTOS also incorporates a wide range of standards-compliant networking and communication protocols designed for wearable devices with support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, and 6LoWPAN over 802.15.4 on an array of supported chipsets.

Nucleus Power Management Framework Extends Battery Life

Battery life is critical for connected devices and the new generation of wearable products places new demands on power consumption reduction due to shrinking hardware resources and increasing software complexity. Built from the ground up, the Nucleus power management framework manages the power state for each peripheral, set of peripherals, or the entire wearable system by using simple high-level application programming interface (API) calls. When changing power states, the power management framework allows coordinated control of processor modes, operating frequencies, and peripheral device operation.

Space Partitioning for Device Provisioning

The Nucleus process model is a lightweight approach that provides space partitioning to create protected memory regions that isolate and protect application, middleware and kernel subsystems. Space partitioning enhances reliability and provides the framework to load new applications using cloud services, or to partition large algorithms into smaller components using a just-in-time (JIT) methodology. For devices with limited memory resources, the Nucleus process model efficiently uses memory by loading and unloading software to limit the resident executing code to only the modules necessary at any given moment in time.

Qt Framework for Graphical User Interface Development

The Qt® framework for the Nucleus RTOS improves the user interface (UI) development workflow based on the tight integration of Mentor Embedded tools to provide an environment to create differentiating graphics optimized for the memory footprint requirements for wearable devices. Mentor Embedded tools include integrated software performance for Qt analysis to maximize performance and minimize graphics start-up.

Commentary

“We selected Mentor’s Nucleus RTOS for our wearable SoCs based on its process model for dynamic loading and superior power management capabilities,” stated Balaji Kanigicherla, founder, CTO and vice president of engineering, Ineda Systems. “The Nucleus RTOS meets all of our system requirements for feature-rich applications so our customers can develop advanced wearable devices with greater productivity, power-efficiency, and fast performance.”

“The Nucleus RTOS provides feature-rich capabilities targeted for wearable devices which allow embedded developers to focus on generating product differentiating features,” stated Scot Morrison, general manager of runtime solutions, Mentor Graphics Embedded Systems Division. “The built-in wireless connectivity, M2M / IoT middleware, multicore support, and power management framework makes the Nucleus RTOS is an ideal operating system platform for wearable devices.”

About Mentor Graphics

Mentor Graphics Corporation is a world leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products, consulting services and award-winning support for the world's most successful electronic, semiconductor and systems companies. Established in 1981, the company reported revenues in the last fiscal year in excess of $1.24 billion. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777.