October 27, 2008 — Express Logic and Virtutech announced Express Logic’s ThreadX RTOS on a simulated development platform created by Virtutech’s Simics. Using Virtutech’s full-system simulator, Express Logic was able to provide engineers and developers interested in developing for the ThreadX RTOS with the necessary architecture to create applications for the Renesas Technology SH-4A, a high-end CPU core, before the physical hardware is available.Simics is a high-performance full-system simulator that enables engineers to develop, debug, test and run their entire software application stack on a virtual representation of their target hardware.
This Virtual Software Development (VSD) platform improves the entire product development lifecycle, shortening time-to-market and time-to-profit and accelerating market introduction and customer adoption. Simics runs unmodified production-quality binaries and can be used with third-party software development tools.Express Logic chose Simics to help developers create applications for use in mixed OS environments. Often, development boards for new processors are not widely available, yet developers must still meet a tight schedule. Simics solves that problem by allowing developers to start their work well in advance of target hardware availability.
SIMICS on SH-4A with ThreadX is enabling a new set of models for Virtutech and further validates the market for VSD platforms. “Simics is a proven virtualized development platform for complex and data-intense applications that increasingly is being deployed by more heterogeneous applications requesting a high-performance RTOS, such as ThreadX,” said Michel Genard, vice president of marketing at Virtutech. “We are pleased to have enabled Express Logic to port their ThreadX RTOS in a record time before they had access to the real hardware.” “Renesas customers migrating to next-generation SH-4A microprocessors can begin software development today using the Virtutech Simics platform,” said Brian Davis, director of the MPU group of Renesas Technology America, Inc.
“Now developers have access to Express Logic’s ThreadX RTOS; it’s an ideal match for real-time applications involving the SH-4A.” “Virtutech’s Simics made porting ThreadX to the new processor architecture simple and convenient,” commented William E. Lamie, president of Express Logic. “Simics enables multiple engineers to work in parallel without requiring a system for each, thereby speeding our ability to get support to our customers.”
About Express Logic, Inc. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, with field offices in Redditch, UK, and Hanover and Munich, Germany, Express Logic offers the most advanced run-time solutions and development tools for deeply embedded applications, including its popular ThreadX RTOS, the high-performance NetX TCP/IP stack, the FileX embedded FAT-compatible file system, the USBX Host/Device USB protocol stack, the PEGX GUI development kit, the BenchX Eclipse-based IDE, and the TraceX real-time graphical event trace and analysis tool. All products from Express Logic include full source-code and have no run-time royalties.