RTLinux brings Enterprise Linux and low microsecond real-time to 10 watt single board computer

Socorro, NM - April 18, 2006 - FSMLabs, (www.fsmlabs.com) a core system software development company targeting mission-critical applications and Advantech, the leading ePlatform service provider today announced that FSMLabs will be qualifying Advantech embedded boards under RTLinux and that the two companies would work together to support joint customers. Both companies provide technology for productions systems in robotics, factory automation, infotainment, and telemetry applications.

The first qualified board is an Advantech fanless ?.5 Biscuit SBC?that uses 10Watts to run RTLinux hard real-time under the full load of sophisticated middleware like Java, databases, and web servers. Users can choose to run the industry standard Linux networking stack or FSMLabs? agile zero-copy real-time networking on the built in Ethernet.

RTLinux really brings out the capabilities of our boards, showing off their impressive speed/power ratios? said Jack Huang, vice president of Advantech. Our customers insist on reducing time to market, so getting the RTLinux complete control software solution already pre-qualified and tuned to our boards is a major advantage.?Cort Dougan, FSMLabs Director of Engineering agreed that time to market pressures mean that embedded and real-time applications developers are turning to application platforms that can eliminate costly low-value initial engineering efforts and Advantech gives our customers a huge range of high quality, cost effective hardware platforms that are well suited to RTLinux and RTCoreBSD

FSMLabs RTLinuxPro and RTCoreBSD let developers meet requirements for low-latency hard real-time responsiveness without sensitivity to application load for a wide range of CPU clock rates. For example, on the Advantech PCM-9386 the worst case context switch from real-time thread to real-time thread is 5.8 microseconds. Scheduling jitter is under 14 microseconds without heavy network load and goes up to to no more than 52 microseconds when both network and graphics load are added. These measurements are all computed while the Linux guest? operating system is fully loaded and the network is being stressed. By comparison, native Linux and BSD limit real-time performance, with response times for comparable operations measured in terms of milliseconds, not microseconds. The host/guest architecture enables developers of intelligent devices to build high-reliability systems and to support the ever-increasing software content on those devices.

Application developers can take advantage of the RTLinux and RTCoreBSD models to use standard Linux and BSD applications and services in conjunction with POSIX 1003.13 real-time code that runs in the RTCore environment. Increasingly, our customers need to make use of sophisticated middleware like Java or advanced network services like IP encryption,?said Jack Huang, vice president of Advantech., RTLinux allows them to make use of those services from Linux or BSD UNIX without fear that critical real-time functions will be delayed? Putting Advantech boards on our industry leading automated software build and test racks will give our customers additional assurance that there will not be costly surprises during development or in deployment?said Victor Yodaiken, CEO of FSMLabs.

About FSMLabs

FSMLabs provides hard real-time solutions designed for reliability and simplicity of operation, that targets mission-critical applications. FSMLabs was founded in 1998 and is privately held, with headquarters in New Mexico and sales and engineering staff in Alaska, Maryland, Texas, Canada, India, Russia, Korea, and Japan. FSMLabs products include RTLinux, RTCore BSD, Lnet real-time networking, PSDD protected memory real-time, VxIT legacy emulation, Carrier Grade Linux, RTCore Eclipse IDE, and ControlsKit XML/RPC interface builder.

About Advantech

Advantech, the leading ePlatform service provider, has been an innovator in the development and manufacturing of high-quality, high-performance ePlatform services and products since 1983. For over twenty years, Advantech has been refining what is possible in the ePlatform service market, offering comprehensive system integration hardware and software, customer-centric service, global logistics support, and an industry-leading front as well as back office e-business infrastructure.

RTLinux, RTCore, Lnet, PSDD, ControlsKit, and FSMLabs are registered trademarks of Finite State Machine Labs Inc. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. OSDL is a trademark of Open Source Development Labs, Inc. LSB is a trademark of the Free Standards Group.