Siemens Launches Enterprise-Class Embedded Linux Solution

Siemens PLM Software announced a new enterprise Mentor Embedded Linux (MEL) solution that provides electronics manufacturers with secure, scalable and configurable distributions for industrial, medical, aerospace and defense applications, the company reports. This new MEL technology is a configurable distribution that provides an operating system platform for embedded systems development.

The solution is a result of the integration of the recently acquired embedded systems design capabilities from Mentor Graphics. The solution is based on Debian, an enterprise class, open source Linux operating system. 

The new Siemens enterprise technology provides full features of an enterprise solution, and the customizability of an embedded operating system. Now commercially available, embedded developers can use this solution and mitigate the costs and risks of moving to Linux, the company notes.

The pre-built and fully-tested binary packages integrated in the Siemens enterprise MEL solution provide all general features and parameters in the software platform so users can install it and use it with ease, the company reports. The Siemens binary MEL solution also includes a stable kernel, a toolchain, both with broad community support. 

Embedded developers can stay up to date with available security patches and product updates, enabling enterprise-class standardization and maintenance. The new Linux solution enables support for secure field updates, and application isolation.

This solution is also multicore-enabled to consolidate multiple heterogeneous runtime environments using advanced processor architectures, leveraging the Mentor Embedded Multicore Framework. This helps enable embedded developers to build systems that integrate the Siemens binary Linux, and the Nucleus real-time operating system (RTOS) on system-on-chip (SoC) processors.

“Siemens is excited about the operating system that our Mentor colleagues have designed for us. It’s the first of its kind for the embedded market, providing the robustness and ease of use benefits of an enterprise operating system, with the footprint, security, real-time behavior, and development tools needed for embedded applications – a new compelling option for embedded developers,” says Steffen Peschmann, SIMATIC IPC product manager. 

The enterprise-class MEL is cloud-enabled, supporting cloud and IoT technologies such as XMPP, MQTT, AMQP, CoAP and RESTful API support. Development and analysis tools are included for configuration and optimization of the operating system (OS) so customers can analyze the state and operation of the embedded platform. The Sourcery Analyzer technology can generate time-series data for OS/platform diagnostics and device profiling.

Product Details and Availability

The binary solution based on Debian supports multiple hardware architectures and will ship in Q2. A MEL version based on the Yocto  Project is also available. 

More Info

Mentor

Siemens PLM Software

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.

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