Virtual Hardware for Optimization

Designers often dedicate a second computer to real-time tasks to balance the flexibility of Windows with the deterministic requirements of embedded applications. Unfortunately, a second control computer adds substantial cost of goods, manufacturing complexity, and system-to-system coordination headaches.

Using virtual machine technology designed specifically for embedded real-time systems, TenAsys helps you eliminate redundant computer and communication hardware by condensing two hardware platforms into one, allowing a single hardware platform to to host an RTOS alongside Microsoft Windows, each with dedicated CPU, memory, and I/O resources. Hosting both Windows and an RTOS on a single hardware platform reduces system costs and minimizes development efforts. More info

Applications are partitioned into deterministic and non-deterministic parts. The non-deterministic parts execute on the Windows OS and the deterministic parts execute on the real-time virtual machine. Working together, these two parts act as a single application, with the aid of a variety of shared objects (mailboxes, semaphores, mutexes, shared-memory, etc.). More info

Safety and reliability by design

The virtual machine approach to running an embedded RTOS alongside Windows is quite different from using a Windows device driver or a general-purpose hypervisor.

Real-time Windows solutions based on a device driver force real-time applications to operate within the Windows kernel, with unfettered access to the entire memory space, including the Windows kernel and other device drivers. This kernel-mode approach lacks address isolation and memory protection. Real-time applications can easily overwrite resources belonging to other processes in the system.

In addition, programming errors are very difficult to debug in Windows kernel-mode drivers. Achieving reliable operation using this method often requires extensive testing, with many errors not detected until the system has been deployed in the field. Creating a complex, multi-threaded, real-time application to run inside the Windows kernel is contrary to the notion of building reliable, safe, and dependable real-time applications. More info

General-purpose hypervisors are targeted at solving problems for corporate IT networks by maximizing the use of server resources and simplifying deployment and maintenance. A server VMM can't easily accommodate a variety of specialized hardware, instead it presents each guest OS with a standard "white box." Unfortunately, this doesn't work well for embedded applications, where predictable performance and the need to interact with unusual and special hardware are paramount.

TenAsys' virtual machine approach to real-time Windows maintains a distinct boundary between the real-time OS and applications and the Windows OS and applications. The result is improved reliability and robustness, as well as simplified programming and debugging. The real-time virtual machine is distinct from Windows with separate I/O resources and address isolation for protection between the real-time system and the Windows system.