Mentor Graphics Corporation announced the embedded systems industry’s broadest portfolio for industrial automation. In partnership with key industry vendors, Mentor Graphics now offers a solution differentiated from other marketplace products by its unique multi-platform approach and robust security architecture. Mentor Graphics new Mentor Embedded multi-platform solution enables embedded product developers to create more feature-rich, power-efficient, safe and secure systems. It encompasses a breadth of runtime platform options, customized development tools, system partitioning, power management, safety certification and system characterization tools, plus market-leading multicore support, making this the broadest solution in the industry.
The Mentor Embedded industrial automation solution includes:
- The Nucleus real-time operating system (RTOS) with advanced power management and optional IEC 61508 safety certification and Wurldtech Achilles communications certification
- The Mentor Embedded Linux platform with integrated industrial protocols, SELinux mandatory access control support, and Sourcery CodeBench Professional toolsuite
- Type-1 hypervisor technology for partitioning and separation
- Advanced Sourcery Analyzer tool for advanced debug and system characterization
- Qt graphics optimized for embedded automation controller user interface (UI) applications
- Customized open source toolchains to optimize hardware components, code footprint, and application performance
The Mentor Embedded solution provides developers with integrated and tested capabilities and features that enable equipment manufacturers to focus on strategic competitive differentiation across the spectrum of industrial devices (industrial controllers, process automation controllers, PLCs, data acquisition devices, and motor driver controllers, along with motion, vision, and SCADA systems). This enables convergence of the product features and capabilities necessary to increase profitability by minimizing footprint (floor space), reducing power usage (electricity costs), and decreasing downtime (security vulnerabilities).
“Our goal is to provide our process-driven customers with three of the most important things they need to secure their futures: operational integrity, which keeps their plants up and running; operational insight, which provides the knowledge and applications they need to run their plants safely and profitably; and future-proof technology, which provides the agility they need to respond quickly to changing conditions and new business opportunities,” said Andrew Kling, Director of Technology and Process at Schneider Electric. “As a trusted, valuable partner, Mentor helps us achieve this goal. With Nucleus RTOS, our unique Foxboro Evo process automation system helps customers reduce unplanned downtime and improves productivity and decision making for plant managers, engineers and operators alike. Mentor technology also facilitates our R&D processes, which helps us bring innovative new offerings to the market as quickly and efficiently as possible too. We look forward to continuing to work with them to deliver additional value for our customers.”
The solution offers support for advanced homogeneous and heterogeneous multicore System-on-Chip (SoC) architectures integrated with runtime operating platforms and tools to allow manufacturers to reuse existing IP (legacy applications) while taking advantage of leading-edge, power-efficient multicore devices. The key industrial automation partners include Icon Labs for critical security management components that enable end-to-end security, and Softing AG who provides a breadth of industrial connectivity options including OPC-UA, Ethernet/IP, and more.
“Securing critical infrastructure has been a top priority for many businesses and governments, and now with the rapid growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), the challenges will increase exponentially,” stated Alan Grau, founder and CEO of Icon Labs. “We have worked closely with Mentor Graphics to move past the legacy concept of securing the embedded device perimeter, to protecting the embedded device itself. This device protection, data protection, and advanced management and reporting capabilities provide the necessary level of protection from both external and internal threats.”
The Mentor Embedded industrial automation solution was developed to address the growing challenges of building, extending, and maintaining embedded hardware and software for a variety of industrial automation products. It provides a new way to integrate legacy applications, new technologies, comprehensive security architecture, and the latest multicore processors on the same industrial device.
“Mentor Graphics continually advances its market-leading embedded software technologies powered by Freescale devices such as i.MX applications processors and QorIQ multicore processors based on Layerscape architecture, to create a complete ecosystem to ease embedded systems development,” stated Alex Dopplinger, industrial business development manager, Freescale. “Mentor’s unique and comprehensive security framework helps manage the complexities of multicore heterogeneous systems needed for today’s secure industrial automation applications.”
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