OSE 5.1 Real-Time Operating System Now Available from Enea; New Features Include Virtual Memory Support, Dynamic Program Loading for Persistent Media, IPV4/IPV6 Support, New and Upgraded Tools, and Improved OS Configuration and Build Support.

PARIS -- Enea Embedded Technology today announced version 5.1 of the OSE Real-Time Operating System. Available for the ARM, XScale, PPC and MIPS architectures, OSE 5.1 provides a host of significant memory management, networking, development, and ease-of-use upgrades.

OSE 5.1's enhanced virtual memory support leverages the memory protection and virtual memory translation facilities of hardware MMUs. Featuring full memory protection for dynamically loaded programs, OSE 5.1 reclaims memory without fragmentation when it unloads programs, and supports loading and unloading of drivers when new hardware is added or removed. To further enhance memory savings, OSE 5.1 utilizes a modular architecture to reduce static memory usage, and a dynamic software download mechanism to minimize buffer usage.

OSE 5.1 provides dynamic program management for persistent media such as flash memory, which enables programs to be loaded into flash, execute in place, and survive restarts. OSE 5.1 also provides multimedia flash support for real-time multithreaded applications such as streaming video.

Enhanced networking support

Enhanced networking support for OSE 5.1 includes a full-featured, high-performance TCP/IP router stack, called OSE IPNET. Optimized for telecom networking systems, the stack is available in both v4 and v4/v6 versions. OSE 5.1 is also available with OSE IPLITE, a lightweight TCP/IP stack (v4 and v4/v6 versions). Also available from Interpeak is a comprehensive suite of security protocols. Additional networking support includes a comprehensive suite of networking applications, including DHCP, DNS, FTP, TFTP, and Telnet.

Enhanced configuration, build, and usage features

OSE 5.1 includes a number of features that make it easier to configure, start up, and use. For example, each board that OSE 5.1 supports come with a software reference system that provides turnkey build facilities. This system, which includes a build and configuration framework, board specific drivers, a fully featured OSE sample system and sample application modules, enables designers to bring up a full OSE demonstration system in less than an hour without a debugger.

Enhanced soft environment

OSE 5.1's upgraded Soft Kernel Environment provides a complete OSE execution emulation environment that enables programmers to develop, prototype, and test their code without having access to the target hardware. It also provides full dynamic program loading on Microsoft Windows and Linux hosts.

New tools packaging

"OSE offers a number of important innovations in the areas of memory management, networking, development support, and ease of use," said Michael Christofferson, director of product marketing at Enea Embedded Technology. "Equally important to many of our customers, however, is the way that we are packaging the RTOS and tools. With OSE 5.1, we are placing the RTOS and tools in separate releases. This will enable our customers to upgrade the OSE tool chain independently from the RTOS, thereby increasing flexibility and making it easier to address bug fixes. We're also offering a new subscription-based pricing model to go along with our traditional fixed pricing model."

OSE 5.1 compiler support includes the GCC 3.4.2 compiler for ARM, XScale, PPC, MIPS, and Soft Environments, and the ARM RVCT compiler for ARM and Xscale targets. Both compilers provide enhanced support for C++. Debug support includes an OSE-aware Eclipse/GDB debugger.

More about OSE 5.1

OSE is a compact, pre-emptive, memory-protected RTOS optimized for high-availability and high-reliability applications such as wireless devices, telecom networking systems, medical equipment, automobiles, transportation equipment, and industrial automation. OSE enhances reliability and availability by building a firewall between the kernel and application processes, thereby preventing these processes from corrupting each other. OSE further enhances reliability by providing guaranteed resource availability (memory and CPU) for critical processes and automatic failure detection and supervision (health monitoring) for system processes and applications. To streamline and simplify distributed communications, OSE provides an application- and device-independent message-passing protocol that makes interprocess communications transparent to programs running on different CPUs.

Enea Embedded Technology also offers a complete migration guide for OSE 5.1.

More about Enea Embedded Technology

Enea Embedded Technology is a leading provider of real-time operating systems, development tools and services for fault-tolerant, high-availability and safety-critical applications. Enea's OSE real-time operating system is used in millions of products worldwide, including communications infrastructure, mobile phones, avionics systems, medical devices, automobiles, and industrial control systems. Enea Embedded Technology is a subsidiary of Enea AB (SAXESS:ENEA), based in Stockholm, Sweden. Employing about 500 people worldwide, Enea provides products, services, and training for a variety of real-time embedded applications. Customers include industry leaders such as Ericsson, Nokia, Boeing, Motorola, Alcatel, Volvo, TI, Agree Systems and Fujitsu. For more information on Enea Embedded Technology, please visit www.ose.com. For more information on Enea AB please visit www.enea.com.

Enea is listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange's Attract-40 list.

OSE is a registered trademark of Enea Embedded Technology. All other company or product names are the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.