TASKING and WITTENSTEIN high integrity systems Enable OS-Aware Timing Analysis Without Hardware-Based Trace

By combining TASKING’s embedded development tools with WITTENSTEIN high integrity systems (WHIS)’s SAFERTOS®, engineering teams gain a complete, OS-aware toolchain for debugging, testing, and certifying safety-critical applications to IEC 61508, ISO 26262, DO-178C and other industry standards.

Engineers developing safety-critical embedded systems like these can now ensure the precise timing that is so critical for these applications thanks to a new integration between TASKING’s complile, debug and test toolchain and WITTENSTIEN high integrity systems’s SAFERTOS. 
 
This announcement demonstrates a tighter integration between TASKING’s high-performance embedded
software development tools, and its unified toolchain, with WITTENSTEIN high integrity systems (WHIS)’s pre-certified safety real-time operating system SAFERTOS®. By using TASKING’s embedded software trace tool
(SWAT), developers can perform comprehensive OS-aware timing analysis without requiring dedicated on-chip hardware trace support.

In safety-critical embedded systems, precise timing is unquestionably critical. In a flight control system, for example, missing the response window by even a fraction of a millisecond can be the difference between a controlled maneuver and a loss of aircraft control. However, not every system on a chip (SoC) supports hardware-based trace and many either lack the required features or cannot expose trace pins due to design
constraints. Even when it is possible to remodel hardware trace compatible SoCs into existing designs, it is costly and time-consuming. The TASKING and WHIS integration bridges this hardware gap to provide access to crucial timing data as well as to enable engineers to leverage TASKING’s extensive range of debug and test tools to support and accelerate the development and verification of applications running on SAFERTOS.

“With this new level of integration, development teams designing safety-critical systems around SAFERTOS have access to the comprehensive debug, test, and verification capabilities of the TASKING unified toolchain,” said Janez Ulcakar, Director of Research & Development, TASKING. This can save precious development time, increase overall reliability, and have greater confidence delivering safer systems to customers.”

With SWAT, developers can now build runtime analysis into their development workflow from the start, without any additional hardware changes to board design. In addition, the development environment is OS-aware to deliver the essential features needed to create robust systems, including monitoring task states, stack usage, queue contents, and scheduling behavior.

Faster Certification

As a pre-certified safety RTOS, SAFERTOS delivers superior performance and pre-certified dependability while utilizing minimal resources. With deterministic event handling, SAFERTOS is designed for systems that need precision control or must respond quickly to safety events and place the system into a safe state within a defined time window. SAFERTOS is pre-certified across a wide range of standards such as IEC 61508 and ISO 26262, and includes design support packages that can save years of certification effort.

Applications using SAFERTOS often require compliance to strict safety constraints when debugging and tracing code. With TASKING and SAFERTOS integration, developers can:

• Capture real-time timing data on targets without hardware trace capabilities
• Observe the timing behavior of every state transition, context switch, and key
application event in real-time
• Monitor and analyze runtime CPU load and resource usage to gain in-depth
understanding of resource bottlenecks
• Assure safe and predictable application behavior using the full depth of real-time
profiling and timing analysis provided by the TASKING LDRA test suite
• Simplify workflows as development and verification teams can use the same debug
interface already present on a target
• Accelerate development and certification by providing necessary traceability and
verification evidence as well as minimizing the need for re-testing

“SAFERTOS and TASKING’s toolchain provide a natural fit for embedded software development,” said Emiliano Costagli, Product Manager at WITTENSTEIN high integrity systems. “The combination brings together a trusted RTOS and a comprehensive development environment, helping engineers work more efficiently, troubleshoot issues more effectively and focus on delivering high-quality embedded software.”

Learn more about how the TASKING unified toolchain and SAFERTOS are changing the way the world develops embedded software:

https://www.tasking.com/content/partner/wittenstein/
https://www.highintegritysystems.com/tools/tasking/

About TASKING

TASKING is a leading provider of embedded software development tools that compile,
debug and test. These tools enable embedded software engineers to develop reliable,
high-performance applications for a safer future. Founded in 1977, TASKING is committed
to expanding its portfolio to deliver a single-supplier, certifiable tool chain. As a trusted
partner focused on customer need, expertise and a commitment to sustainability,
TASKING and its integrated tool chain accelerates the software development lifecycle for
safety and security critical applications in industries such as automotive, aerospace and
defense, industrial, medical, robotics and others.

About WITTENSTEIN high integrity systems

WITTENSTEIN high integrity systems (WHIS) helps organisations develop safety-critical
embedded systems with confidence. Through SAFERTOS®, software assurance solutions
and certification support, WHIS provides the evidence, traceability and guidance needed to
support functional safety, cybersecurity and compliance activities. With more than 20 years
of experience across automotive, industrial automation, medical technology, aerospace
and rail, WHIS helps engineering teams reduce certification effort, improve audit readiness
and build confidence in the software foundations of safety-critical products.

Cockpit Photo Credit: Terrence Brown via Canva.com

Airplanes in Hangar Credit: Yaroslav Astakhov via Canva.com