Versatile Real-Time Executive
Encyclopedia
Versatile Real-Time Executive (VRTX) is a real-time operating system
nowadays developed and marketed by the company Mentor Graphics
. VRTX is suitable for both traditional board-based embedded systems and SoC
architectures.
The VRTX operating system began as a product of Hunter & Ready, a company founded by James Ready
and Colin Hunter in 1980 which later became Ready Systems. This firm later merged with Microtec Research in 1993 and went public in 1994. This firm was then acquired by Mentor Graphics
in 1995 and VRTX became a Mentor product.
VRTX comes in two flavors: VRTXmc (micro-controller) for small systems requiring minimal memory use and VRTXsa (scalable architecture) for full operating system features. Most companies developing software with VRTX use ARM
, MIPS
, PowerPC
or other RISC
microprocessor
s.
VRTX runs the Hubble Space Telescope
.
VRTX is used as a core for the Motorola
proprietary P2K (rus.) operating system, which runs on most company devices since the Motorola V60 and T280i, up to the Motorola RAZR2 V9x. It runs on several hardware platforms including LTE (Motorola V300, V500, V600, E398, RAZR V3 and others featuring the ARM7 processor), LTE2 (Motorola L7 and upcoming devices with 176x220 screen resolution), Rainbow POG (3G
phones featuring an MCORE processor from Motorola E1000 to RAZR V3x), Argon (all new 3G phones with 532 MHz ARM11
processor since Motorola RAZR maxx V6 and V3xx) and others.
Since the 1980s, VRTX has been a rival to the VxWorks
operating system, a Wind River Systems
Inc. product.
Real-time operating system
A real-time operating system is an operating system intended to serve real-time application requests.A key characteristic of a RTOS is the level of its consistency concerning the amount of time it takes to accept and complete an application's task; the variability is jitter...
nowadays developed and marketed by the company Mentor Graphics
Mentor Graphics
Mentor Graphics, Inc is a US-based multinational corporation dealing in electronic design automation for electrical engineering and electronics, as of 2004, ranked third in the EDA industry it helped create...
. VRTX is suitable for both traditional board-based embedded systems and SoC
System-on-a-chip
A system on a chip or system on chip is an integrated circuit that integrates all components of a computer or other electronic system into a single chip. It may contain digital, analog, mixed-signal, and often radio-frequency functions—all on a single chip substrate...
architectures.
The VRTX operating system began as a product of Hunter & Ready, a company founded by James Ready
James Ready
For the Ontarian dollar-beer, see James Ready James "Jim" Ready is a businessman and technologist. He is known within the Linux community for pioneering real-time embedded operating systems....
and Colin Hunter in 1980 which later became Ready Systems. This firm later merged with Microtec Research in 1993 and went public in 1994. This firm was then acquired by Mentor Graphics
Mentor Graphics
Mentor Graphics, Inc is a US-based multinational corporation dealing in electronic design automation for electrical engineering and electronics, as of 2004, ranked third in the EDA industry it helped create...
in 1995 and VRTX became a Mentor product.
VRTX comes in two flavors: VRTXmc (micro-controller) for small systems requiring minimal memory use and VRTXsa (scalable architecture) for full operating system features. Most companies developing software with VRTX use ARM
ARM architecture
ARM is a 32-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by ARM Holdings. It was named the Advanced RISC Machine, and before that, the Acorn RISC Machine. The ARM architecture is the most widely used 32-bit ISA in numbers produced...
, MIPS
MIPS architecture
MIPS is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . The early MIPS architectures were 32-bit, and later versions were 64-bit...
, PowerPC
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...
or other RISC
Reduced instruction set computer
Reduced instruction set computing, or RISC , is a CPU design strategy based on the insight that simplified instructions can provide higher performance if this simplicity enables much faster execution of each instruction. A computer based on this strategy is a reduced instruction set computer...
microprocessor
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
s.
VRTX runs the Hubble Space Telescope
Hubble Space Telescope
The Hubble Space Telescope is a space telescope that was carried into orbit by a Space Shuttle in 1990 and remains in operation. A 2.4 meter aperture telescope in low Earth orbit, Hubble's four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared...
.
VRTX is used as a core for the Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
proprietary P2K (rus.) operating system, which runs on most company devices since the Motorola V60 and T280i, up to the Motorola RAZR2 V9x. It runs on several hardware platforms including LTE (Motorola V300, V500, V600, E398, RAZR V3 and others featuring the ARM7 processor), LTE2 (Motorola L7 and upcoming devices with 176x220 screen resolution), Rainbow POG (3G
3G
3G or 3rd generation mobile telecommunications is a generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile telecommunication services fulfilling the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 specifications by the International Telecommunication Union...
phones featuring an MCORE processor from Motorola E1000 to RAZR V3x), Argon (all new 3G phones with 532 MHz ARM11
ARM11
ARM11 is an ARM architecture 32-bit RISC microprocessor family which introduced the ARMv6 architectural additions. These include SIMD media instructions, multiprocessor support and a new cache architecture...
processor since Motorola RAZR maxx V6 and V3xx) and others.
Since the 1980s, VRTX has been a rival to the VxWorks
VxWorks
VxWorks is a real-time operating system developed as proprietary software by Wind River Systems of Alameda, California, USA. First released in 1987, VxWorks is designed for use in embedded systems.- History :...
operating system, a Wind River Systems
Wind River Systems
Wind River Systems, Inc. is a company providing embedded systems, development tools for embedded systems, middleware, and other types of software. The company was founded in Berkeley, California in 1981 by Jerry Fiddler and David Wilner. On June 4, 2009, Wind River announced that Intel had bought...
Inc. product.
See also
- List of real-time operating systems
- List of telescope parts and construction
- XenomaiXenomaiXenomai is a real-time development framework cooperating with the Linux kernel, to provide a pervasive, interface-agnostic, hard real-time support to user space applications, seamlessly integrated into the Linux environment....
is a real-time development frameworkSoftware frameworkIn computer programming, a software framework is an abstraction in which software providing generic functionality can be selectively changed by user code, thus providing application specific software...
cooperating with the Linux kernelLinux kernelThe Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software....
. It could be used to port the VRTX based system to Linux although not all features are supported.