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AS OF 7/20/2008 5:24PM EST
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Ada, C Supported in Hard Real-Time Java Kit
Scorpion delivers low-latency tool set for safety-critical work
By P. J. Connolly
July 1, 2007 —
Making Java applications meet the rigorous demands of hard real-time applications was considered something akin to cold fusion a few years ago. But DDC-I, a developer of compilers, integrated development environments and runtime systems for embedded application development, claims that the Eclipse-based tool set it released in mid-June delivers a level of latency two orders of magnitude lower than competing real-time Java solutions.
DDC-I’s history is in the aerospace and defense market, which has been a stronghold of Ada and classic C development, explained company president and CEO Bob Morris. “Ada is still out there, it’s still strong, but it’s not a growth market,” he noted. “What the defense guys and aerospace guys have realized for some time is that it’s really hard to find Ada engineers. It’s hard to find good C engineers. What the colleges are turning out are people who know C# and Java.” So, instead of bucking the tide, Morris said, “what they’re trying to do is move to Java.”
The company’s new Scorpion tools are based on the Real-Time Specification for Java (RTSJ), and allow developers to use Java with other languages, including Ada, C and Embedded C++. As a member of the Safety Critical Java Expert Group that is trimming the RTSJ for FAA-certified safety-critical applications, DDC-I also pledged its tools would support the group’s work on the JSR 302 specification.
The Scorpion tools include a builder that performs ahead-of-time Java file builds, compilers and debuggers for Ada, C, Embedded C++ and Java, and the ScorpionVM virtual machine, for real-time application execution. The company claims that its “smart linker” can reduce code size up to 80 percent by removing unwanted objects from closed systems, while its application profiler helps balance code speed with code bulk by determining the optimal mix of compiled and interpreted code.
Because garbage collection is so critical in hard real-time applications, Scorpion uses a deterministic, distributed collector, licensed from German real-time developer Aicas, which DDC-I claims reduces the overall complexity of managing garbage in memory.
Scorpion also offers what the company calls a unique ability to support existing Ada and C programs, with a wizard that maps Java native calls directly to the underlying code, with the intent of simplifying the migration of legacy programs to today’s RTSJ environments as well as future JSR 302 safety-critical environments.
The Scorpion compiler takes the form of an Eclipse plug-in that works with Wind River Workbench 2.6 and VxWorks 6.4; Scorpion also offers a runtime Java platform for the Wind River OS. At release, Scorpion was available for target systems with Pentium or PowerPC processors running VxWorks 6.4, but the company expected to announce other supported platforms later this year.
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