Why choose eCosCentric?

Our custom engineering services deliver high-quality system software solutions, on-specification, on-time and on-budget. On-demand System Software expertise for your project We remove the complexities inherent in the development of the foundation layers of the software stack, enabling customers to focus on the more domain-specific aspects of their project. This helps to improve development efficiency, reduce project risk, and can free up time and resources to concentrate on product innovation and competitiveness.

eCosCentric are a tried and trusted development partner. Approaching 50% of our custom engineering engagements involve repeat customers. This was only achieved by consistently delivering on our promises, engendering confidence in our expertise and demonstrating excellent value.

Over the last decade eCosCentric have delivered customised system software solutions to well over a hundred companies worldwide. The end-result of many of these projects can be seen in our Product Showcase, and descriptions of some typical custom engineering project engagements can be found in the Example Engagements section.

The majority of engagements that we undertake are comissioned a fixed-specification, fixed-schedule and fixed-price basis. This approach brings certainty to your budget and dependability to your schedule. See the description in The Engagement Process section to understand the stages of a typical project engagement. When required, we can also provide engineering services on a time and materials (T&M) basis.

What can we do for you?

eCosCentric specialises in the development, delivery and support of the foundation layers of the embedded software stack. Our software technology focus is the eCos real-time operating system, for which we are the acknowledged global experts. Its configurable nature, flexible design, portability and functionality make it an excellent basis for delivery of project-specific system software solutions. Staffed by key members of the original eCos design and development team, we are intimately familiar with the internals of the RTOS. Our technical expertise, combined with a deep experience of embedded systems, enable us to adapt, extend and optimise the software to fit a customer's exact requirements.

The quality and reliability of any developed software are fundamental prerequisites to any delivery. We employ rigorous automated testing, release engineering and quality assurance procedures to help ensure the software will be fit for purpose. Given the custom nature of most target hardware and the breadth of software functionality encompassed in a given release, the ability to thoroughly exercise and test all software subsystems on the actual target hardware is a key requirement. A dependable partner for
delivery of reliable software Our automated test farm meets this need, typically running over twenty thousand tests per software release for a given target board. This all helps to minimise the potential for issues and provides a solid foundation for a customer's application development.

Once the software is delivered we remain an integral part of your software team - dispensing advice and, if required, software fixes to any issues that might subsequently arise. See the Support Services section for a further details.

System Software Technology Expertise

Our services are typically used to either develop a custom port for a customer's hardware from scratch, or add new features to a customer's existing release of eCos. In the case of a custom port, we deliver a complete eCosPro Developer's Kit release, incorporating the customer-specified runtime features and standard host-based development toolset, to provide everything needed for application development on your custom hardware.

There is a huge range of functionality that could potentially be incorporated into a custom release. The following lists some of the areas where you may have specific requirements that we can help you with. We would welcome the opportunity to start a conversation and discuss your specific needs in more detail.

• eCosPro RTOS Platform Porting

  Supplying a custom version of eCos specific to your custom hardware. The eCos hardware abstraction layer is ported to the target hardware, along with the specific set of additional features required for your project. Delivered as an eCosPro Developer's Kit complete with host based development environment. Fully tested. Fully supported.

• Bootloaders

  BootUp and RedBoot based customisable bootstrap firmware solutions. We can meet your specific bootstrap requirements incorporating features such as secure boot, in-field upgrades, on-board debug agents, POST, diagnostics, telnet access and more.

• Device Drivers

  Porting or creation of required device drivers ranging from simple I2C and on-chip flash, through to Ethernet and USB controllers, and beyond. We can call on a long history of device driver creation, for a multitude of peripherals, across many different architectures and MCUs. Our experience includes: RS232, RS485, NOR flash, NAND flash, Dataflash, serial flash, I2C bus and peripherals, SPI bus and peripherals, watchdog, RTC, graphics, ADC, DAC, CAN, MODBUS, Ethernet, WiFi, USB host and device controllers, SD/SDHC, MMC, CF, IDE, PCI and more.

• New Functionality

  This can range from enhancements to existing software packages, porting of packages, through to major new blocks of functionality in areas such as:

  • USB classes
  • Networking features
  • File systems
  • Security
  • Libraries
  • I/O Subsystems

  Our experience in the development of the eCos operating system and its various subsystems and libraries should provide you with the confidence in our capabilities. See the Example Engagements section for a description of custom features we have developed for clients.

• Optimization

  We can optimize any aspects of the system that you determine are critical to your application - size, speed, latency, throughput, etc.

• Development Environment & Tools

  All custom target ports are packaged as full eCosPro Developer's Kits. We can support your choice of Windows and/or Linux development hosts. The package will include:

  • Full sources of the eCosPro port to your target hardware platform, including the HAL, device drivers, packages and any eCosCentric middleware specified
  • Support for your selected target debug approach: JTAG, SWD, firmware-based debug agent, gdb stubs, etc.
  • Standard Eclipse based IDE with eCosPro plugin
  • Standard GNU gcc complier tool suite (compiler, assembler, linker, debugger)
  • Standard eCosPro RTOS configuration and debugging tools (configuration tools, mem allocator debugger, profiling and code coverage)
  • The same versions of the host tools shipped are used to build, download and execute the target software within the eCos test farm

  The host tool functionality can be extended as required to cover new functionality, new architectural support and other specific features.