Company name: QNX Software Systems Ltd. Location: 4F, KB-6 Building 6-banchi, Sanbancho, Chiyoda, Tokyo 102-0075 Established: June 2000 Number of Employee: 6 (Dec. 2004) URL:http://www.qnx.co.jp Harashima Takeshi QNX Software Systems Ltd. Sales Manager

QNX Software Systems (hereafter abbreviated as QNX) is a real-time operating system (RTOS) vendor based in Ottawa, Canada. The company has been supplying the QNX RTOS, with its microkernel architecture, since 1980, mainly to the North American market. Its Japanese subsidiary, QNX Software Systems Kabushiki Kaisha, is the company's first base in the Asian region and was established in June 2000.

The headquarters organization has had a partnership relationship with Hitachi America Ltd. since 2001, and that relationship has continued with Renesas. In fact, it is being strengthened by a QNX support team at Renesas, whose activities include conducting regular meetings covering car information system (CIS) designs.

QNX delivers POSIX compliance, microkernel architecture, RTOS, and universal process model

According to Mr. Harashima, "For CIS applications and a myriad of others, the QNX Neutrino RTOS has many desirable features, including POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface for UNIX) compliance, a microkernel architecture, real-time OS, and universal process model." Currently, the Renesas SH7750, SH7751, and SH7760 processors are supported and QNX plans to add support for more processors on the Renesas technology roadmap.

POSIX, defined in the IEEE-1003.1 standard, is a UNIX system interface that increases the portability of application software. The microkernel architecture, the bedrock RTOS design concept QNX has maintained for 24 years, "keeps the core part of the operating system as small as possible and provides the many other OS services separately from the core. Thus, functions can easily be enhanced and OS can evolve continuously while the same architecture is retained," Mr. Harashima explained.

The universal process model dictates that each process run in a full memory management unit (MMU) environment. The memory for each process is protected and processes cannot interfere with each other. Accordingly, the RTOS is sufficiently robust that modules can be added or replaced while the system is running. There is no risk of the overall system crashing, even if a specific module hangs up.

Mr. Harashima believes the QNX Neutrino RTOS is suitable for CIS applications for future cars. "Currently, car navigation systems are installed as standalone systems. In the future, however, they are likely to be integrated into the central console of the vehicle. If our OS is used in various vehicle systems, individual systems can be merged more easily, taking advantage of existing resources. Although other OSs can be used in standalone systems, I believe that the QNX Neutrino RTOS is the only one that allows existing systems to be transferred without modification when separate systems are combined."

Future CIS systems with a CAN interface will exchange data actively with the ECU and other vehicle systems. "One advantage we offer is that other OSs that incorporate a MMU typically take a number of seconds to boot. By contrast, the QNX Neutrino RTOS supports CAN using a mini-driver that executes before the OS boots," Mr. Harashima said.

QNX Momentics Development Suite aids system development

The QNX Momentics Development Suite (figure 1) is a set of development tools developed at an early stage by Eclipse. "It is currently gaining popularity as an environment for the development of embedded applications," said Mr. Harashima, "because the suite provides many advantages, including a common user interface for all supported development hosts."

The IDE workbench is constructed from the Eclipse framework and runs on the OS. The various tools provided by QNX Momentics and other tools supplied by third-party vendors form a layer on top of this, where they can be used together in an integrated environment. Tools available from QNX include C/C++ and Java code developers, target data, system builder, source debugger, profiler, memory analysis tool, Photon application builder, code coverage tool, and system analysis tool.

The target system is connected to a PC via Ethernet, serial, JTAG, ROM monitor, or other means. Then debugging is performed via a target agent that runs as a single QNX Neutrino process. A number of different Renesas processors are currently supported, including those in the SuperH family. Reference boards for each supported processor are also available through the BSP (board support package). Operation can be tested on reference boards from a wide range of board vendors and other sources to select the product that best matches the development system.

Renesas' partnership with QNX gives CIS manufacturers and other system developers yet another way to explore and expand the vast application possibilities for our microprocessors.

Company name: Microsoft Corporation Headquarter: Odakyu Southern Tower 2-2-1, Yoyogi, Shibuya, Tokyo 151-8583 Established: 1986 Capital: 495.5 million yen Number of Employee: 1560 (Jul. 12, 2004) URL:http://www.microsoft.com/ Shimizu Takatoshi Microsoft Co.,Ltd. Senior Account Manager Automotive Business Unit Device Solutions Sales

The high development productivity that is a feature of Windows has been recognized as a big advantage for CIS and car navigation system development. The latest Windows Automotive v.4.2 includes communications drivers and multimedia middleware such as user-interface design tools and map-drawing functions that utilize high speed graphics. These ease application development projects, particularly those that require considerable reworking of screen designs.

Takatoshi Shimizu, who has been responsible for Windows Automotive v.4.2 in Japan since 2000, says that "once the use of high speed graphics for map drawing appeared, customers (manufacturers of car navigation systems) started to realize how much Windows Automotive v.4.2 could reduce development costs while maintaining real-time performance. Windows Automotive v.4.2 is well recognized as a general-purpose OS with the functions required for the next generation of car navigation systems. Five different car navigation products that use the OS were demonstrated at the 11th World Congress on ITS held in Aichi, Japan in October 2004."

AUITK tool makes screen design more efficient; design guidelines help engineers obtain best system speed

One reason for the increased development productivity of Windows Automotive v.4.2 is the Automotive User Interface Toolkit (AUITK), which enables the flexible design of user interfaces. It consists of an API and development tools for creating user interfaces and screen designs.

AUITK allows the user interface to be modified easily by changing the SKIN portion (figure 2). Even if the screen design in factory installed car navigation systems doesn't have much effect on system performance, it can be thought of as part of the car's interior design. Using AUITK, engineers readily can alter screen designs in major ways, tailoring them for each model of car.

For example, changes such as "making border lines one dot thicker" or "making the font one size larger" would previously have required program modification work, raising development costs. Using AUITK, though, the user interface design created on a PC can be reproduced easily on the target car navigation system, and it takes little work to make skin modifications without program code change. Also, functions such as animation, alpha blending, rotation, and slide-in are already provided, so screens can be presented in a diverse ways.

Maintaining real-time performance in the end product is an important issue for car navigation, and Microsoft provides basic design guidelines that lift baseline performance. Those design guidelines show how to manage the Windows Automotive v.4.2 thread list, for example, and provide many other insights.

"The fact that the Windows Automotive v.4.2 code itself has adequate real-time performance has been proven by published figures. For optimum performance, the customer's applications, middleware, and other software must run in harmony with Windows Automotive v.4.2. The overall thread priority order within the system has to be tuned with consideration for processing latency, so multiple threads can execute as fast as possible. Development can proceed very smoothly if users refer to the recommended values in the design guidelines when performing this tuning," Mr. Shimizu explained.

Microsoft and Renesas cooperate to enable better graphics performance

To support the increasing use of high speed map drawing, Microsoft has cooperated with Renesas to provide the GDI-Sub, sub-set interface of Windows GDI graphic library in PC. This interface has been tuned to enable applications to access the graphics processor directly for even smoother playback.

"Our aim is to be recognized by customers as the OS that is easiest to use and the one that provides the most development flexibility for the next generation of car navigation systems. We are currently working to include support for the SH7770 in the next version of Windows Automotive," Mr. Shimizu said.

A reference platform that runs the complete Windows Automotive v.4.2 module efficiently on a reference board is available now. A development platform for the SH7770 will be provided to support the emergence of a new generation of car navigation products.