3ADEV — Embedded real-time software engineering

What is 3ADEV?

3ADEV is a software engineering consulting company which leverages on twenty years of experience in embedded and real-time software, notably in industrial automation, military vehicles, and mobile telephony.

3ADEV's services are based not only on its expertise in embedded software as such, but also on sound knowledge of all trades as well as tools involved in embedded project development and debug.

3ADEV handles all or part of your software needs, be it developing a single functionality or providing all deliverables from specification to validation.

3ADEV adapts to your existing development processes whatever they are or, if you prefer, can suggest and help you set up ones.

3ADEV can work according to specific standards required by your project.

Embedded Real-Time Software Services

Development of hardware or protocol drivers or of complete BSPs.

Porting of bootloaders, kernels, libraries, and full systems.

Integration of complete embedded software solutions.

Consulting on the choice of software components: COTS, in-house... based on the project context, especially confidentiality, time-to-market and product support life expectancy.

Prototyping of software on off-the-shelf evaluation or development boards.

Optimisation of software in size, performance or power drain.

Hard real-time development on micro-controllers, DSPs, or specialized processors.

Expert consulting on complex embedded real-time system software.

Open Source Software Services

Consulting on the constraints and benefits of Open Source, embedded (U-Boot, Linux...) as well as real-time (RTAI, Xenomai...)

Training on the use of Open Source projects and tools.

Assistance in interacting with embedded Open Source communities.

Achievement Examples

  1. The problem: on a 68HC912 microcontroller (8 bits, 64K address space with 8K RAM and 128K FLASH through 3 banks of 16K each) running two protocols and a strict real-time RST regulation closed loop, the RST process is over the size budget and the protocols disturb it.

The solution: re-engineer the RST loop, from fixed floating point to mixed 8 and 16 bits integer arithmetic, reducing size and loop iteration time; design of the protocols as state machines; use of an ad hoc sequencer to guarantee strict real time.

  1. The problem: on a CEVA 16xx core, boot time is over system-imposed latency constraint.

The solution: re-engineer critical runtime library routines to speed-optimize memory copying and clearing by use of the DSP structure, pipeline, and parallelism. Boot time reduction almost tenfold.

  1. The problem: provide a complete generic software solution for developing applications on a PowerPC based platform, including a graphical and tactile UI, a direct buttons-and-indicators interface, networking and local storage, maintainable for 30 years.

The solution: selection of Open Source for development environment, tools, bootloader, system and libraries, for their source code availability and absence of licencing risks. Porting and integration on the platform.

Technical Expertise

  • Domains: embedded / real-time / protocols / drivers / cryptography / ...
  • Processors: ARM (ARMv5+), PPC, MIPS, i386, AD, CEVA...
  • Micro-controllers: TI Sitara, MSP430, Microchips PIC, Atmel AVR / Atmega, Motorola HC12, Vybrid, Kinetis...
  • Developpement languages : C, C++; ARM/PPC/386 assembly language, specialized assembly languages ...
  • Developpement toolchains: GCC (i386/ARM, ELDK), LLVM, Metrowerks...
  • Embedded systems: Denx ELDK (Linux kernel+rootfs), RTXC, VxWorks, OpenWRT/X-WRT. MQX...
  • Other systems: Debian (x86 & ARM), Ubuntu, CentOS...
  • Scripting languages: Bash, Perl, Python...
  • Applications: Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, PHP, exim, dovecot...
  • Networking: Ethernet; DHCP ; IP, IPv6 ; TCP, UDP ; NFS, SNMP, SMTP...
  • Hardware protocols: RS-232, RS-422, I2C, SPI, USB...
  • Industrial protocols: MODBUS / JBUS ; FIP ; CAN...
  • Cryptography: AES, DES/3DES / MD5, SHA-1, SHA-2 / RSA, ECC, DH ; SSL/TLS ; IPSec...

Project and cross-project Expertise

  • Planning, reporting, resource management: MS Project / ProjectLibre...
  • Architecture / software design: UML (Tau), SA/RT (TeamWork)....
  • Unit testing: CUnit, Gcov...
  • Configuration management: CVS, SVN, Clearcase , Git / Gerrit...
  • Continuous integration: Jenkins...

3ADEV : other services

3ADEV can also provide other services besides embedded, real-time, or Free software. Whatever your need in software engineering is, ask 3ADEV !