Press Releases

Safety critical systems deployed on a multi-core processor have been so far using only a single core and made the other cores inactive. The complexity and the potential non-determinism introduced by such architectures were the main reasons that prevented, and still prevent in many cases, safety-critical developers to certify their multi-core based systems at the highest level. Operating system vendors in particular have long been trying to solve this problem in order that their customers may harness the performance of today’s dual-core and multi-core processors.

SYSGO was able to achieve the first EN 50128 SIL 4 certification of the market on a multi-core system (including SIL 4 certification for IOMMU) thanks to the solid foundation offered by the PikeOS core technology, designed from the ground up to be the first SSV (Safe & Secure Virtualization) RTOS of the market. SIL 4 is the highest possible safety level for the EN 50128 standard.

“With PikeOS, SYSGO was already the first company on the market to offer a certified hypervisor to the safety-critical application domains”, said Jacques Brygier, VP Marketing at SYSGO. “Making now PikeOS certified for a multi-core platform is just the confirmation of the cutting-edge nature of this product, designed to be both an RTOS and a hypervisor. It is also another evidence of the scalability and flexibility of this embedded virtualization solution that can address different industry sectors with the same core technology.”

The project, a railway application to be deployed in 2014, is using PikeOS 3.4 running on Kontron VX3035 board. The technique that allows this high level of certification cannot be disclosed at that point but the original and patented architecture of PikeOS was used without modification to provide the necessary determinism on this dual-core Intel® Core™ i7 processor.

"We are pleased to be part of this world premiere," said Robert Negre, Business Line Manager (RAIL) at Kontron. "Our collaboration with SYSGO has always been successful but having PikeOS being SIL 4 certified on our VX3035 board just reinforce the competitiveness of our combined offering for all safety-critical markets."

SYSGO is also involved in different activities related to the certification of multi-core based systems in other industry sectors such as avionics or automotive. The major achievement in the railway domain is an important milestone, as well as invaluable experience, for these areas where developments with key partners are currently in progress.

More information at www.sysgo.com/pikeos