Mentor Graphics Corporation has released a new integrated wearable solution that is designed to meet the power consumption, multi-core, and IoT requirements for wearable devices, using the company’s proprietary Mentor Embedded Nucleus real time operating system (RTOS) framework.
The framework includes a range of features targeting wearables for the medical, fitness, and security markets. The RTOS provides protocol support for cloud connectivity and an integrated multi-core framework with inter-process communication (IPC) that support booting up and shutting down individual processors or cores to conserve power consumption. To support the lower power consumption goals, it includes a built-in power management framework including dynamic voltage frequency scaling, low power and sleep modes and a CPU idle mode. Finally for software support, the system has a process model for memory space partitioning to support device software updates, device provisioning, and software downloads in addition to support for WYSIWYG graphics development.
Image via Wikimedia “The Nucleus RTOS provides feature-rich capabilities targeted for wearable devices which allow embedded developers to focus on generating product differentiating features,” said Scot Morrison, general manager of runtime solutions for the Embedded Systems Division, Mentor Graphics. “The built-in wireless connectivity, IoT middleware, multi-core support, and power management framework make the Nucleus RTOS is an ideal operating system platform for wearable devices.”
It connects to other smart devices, gateways, or directly to the cloud and the Nucleus RTOS is the first embedded OS to provide a power management and processor lifecycle framework to maximize wearable device battery life.
Today's wearables typically combine application-class and microcontroller-class cores onto a single device to consolidate heterogeneous operating environments within a single application. The Nucleus RTOS includes the industry's first complete heterogeneous multi-core framework. With support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, and 6LoWPAN over 802.15.4 on an array of supported chipsets, the solution is usable across almost any network, while still keeping power drains low.
“We selected Nucleus RTOS for our wearables based on its process model for dynamic loading and power management capabilities,” said Balaji Kanigicherla, founder, CTO and VP, engineering, Ineda Systems, one of MentorGraphics’ customers.
Innovation like this is going to help bring wearables out of the luxury and novelty column and turn them into necessary gear. And that’s good.
Edited by
Maurice Nagle
