Stutensee / Mainz - ELTEC Electronik AG and MSC Vertriebs GmbH have agreed to a close collaboration to support real-time Linux /OSADL for COM Express™ products. The powerful COM Express modules from MSC will be equipped with ELTEC’s real-time Linux extensions, which are mainly driven by the OSADL* (Open Source Automation Development Lab)-Consortium.

MSC Vertriebs GmbH offers comprehensive security functions for their modular COM Express platform based on the Intel® Core Duo and Intel® 82945GM from system start to execution of the application code, which can also be used with Linux. Any modification of the hardware, the BIOS, and the software is then immediately recognizable.

Lothar Kümmerlein, Managing Director of Boards & Systems at MSC confirms: “We have found a partner in OSADL specialists at ELTEC, with whom their technology can be used in our COM Express modules so that they can be protected against unauthorized access and modification of data and software even in the Linux world.”

Beside their system know-how, ELTEC has extensive expertise especially in the area of real-time Linux with their drivers and frameworks and contributes, among others, to the activities of the OSADL consortium, in which ELTEC is considerably involved as a founding member. In the current version of the Linux kernel, there are several new functions incorporated, such as real-time preempt patches or virtualization (i.e. several operating systems running on the same hardware) that improve the real-time characteristic of Linux. Precisely these innovations open further capabilities in the automation and machine industry, thereby allowing the user interface (such as Windows) and the real-time capable control (for example under Linux) to operate on the same hardware.

“Resulting from the collaboration between ELTEC and MSC, synergies arise for the development of new COM Express modules and the capability to provide complete system solutions”, stresses Dieter Gebert, chairman of the board at ELTEC AG.

MSC Vertriebs GmbH is the main sponsor of the Embedded Linux Conference. Further information is available at embedded-linux-konferenz.de.

* OSADL (Open Source Automation Development Lab)

OSADL is a collectively organized institution, which has set the goal to develop, qualify, and standardize a Linux-based operating system environment for the automation industry. In this way, it should be possible for its members to save on development capacity and to allow different operating systems to be brought together on a standardized Linux core - without pursuing proprietary interests. Important requirements for the automation industry are, beside a deterministic behavior, a considerably longer product lifetime and a significantly reduced failure rate.

Further demands for the operating system environment are, among others, software products with real-time characteristics, long-term stability of the programming interface (API), as well as high scalability. In addition, increasingly more complex machines and installations require a maximum on ability to integrate the deployed, often heterogeneous, control systems. Since December 2005, eleven well-known companies have committed themselves to the standardization and certification of real-time Linux, whereby, among others, ELTEC is one of the founding members. More information is available at: www.osadl.org