Skip to main content
RVS 3.19 Launched
Rapita is proud to be an ISOLDE Partner
Rapita and SYSGO underline partnership
RVS 3.18 Launched
Introduction to Data Coupling and Control Coupling for DO-178C
Measuring response times and more with RapiTime
Why mitigating interference alone isn’t enough to verify timing performance for multicore DO-178C projects
There are how many sources of interference in a multicore system?
Data Coupling & Control Coupling
Verifying additional code for DO-178C
DO-178C Guidance: Introduction to RTCA DO-178 certification
MATLAB® Simulink® MCDC coverage and WCET analysis
Rapita Systems S.L.
Multicore experts based in Barcelona
- Platform analysis
- RapiDaemon interference generators
About Rapita Systems S.L.
Rapita Systems S.L. (RSS) delivers solutions to verify and certify the software timing behavior of multicore processors in safety-critical embedded settings. This groundbreaking technology was pioneered at the BSC-CNS and is now mature and available commercially to industry via Rapita's MACH178 solution.
RSS was formed when Maspa Technologies S.L. was acquired by Danlaw Inc., Rapita Systems' parent company. Read more here.
Solutions
As Rapita Systems' Hardware Centre of Excellence, RSS provides a range of services and tools to support multicore verification, including platform analysis, RapiDaemon interference generators and contention modeling. These solutions are used to identify and measure the impact that interference can have on multicore-hosted software applications.
The solutions provides by RSS form a cornerstone of the MACH178 and Multicore Timing solutions, which provide a pathway to certifying the next generation of multicore embedded avionics and automotive systems.
Case study: Airbus
Rapita Systems S.L., then operating as Maspa Technologies S.L., played a key role in Airbus’ successful certification of the first ever ‘fully-automatic air-to-air refueling (A3R) operation with a boom system’. Timing analysis and characterization services were provided to Airbus that were key to building a certification argument for this advanced multicore avionics system.
Platform analysis
The verification of increasingly complex multicore COTS SoCs is a common challenge for embedded time-critical systems, which requires a detailed understanding of the hardware platform being used. Understanding a platform in enough depth to support verification, especially for projects undergoing DO-178C or similar certification, requires specialist knowledge.
The Rapita Systems S.L. team are world-leading specialists in understanding multicore platforms, with decades of experience in computer architecture and performance analysis.
This gives them the expertise needed to distil platform information from extensive (often 1,000s of pages long) technical reference manuals into actionable insights that support key activities including the following:
- Critical Configuration Settings (CCS) Analysis
- Interference Channel (IC) Analysis
- Hardware Event Monitor Analysis and Validation
RapiDaemons for analyzing timing interference
Qualifiable interference generators are at the heart of multicore timing analysis solutions. Rapita Systems S.L. (RSS) builds on long-term expertise in the design and deployment of specialized interference generators for timing analysis and identification of performance bottlenecks. Rapita Systems interference generators, developed by RSS, are sold as "RapiDaemons".
RapiDaemons are simple, well-crafted pieces of code that operate at the lowest interface between hardware and software. They are designed and refined to stress specific interference channels through applying contention on shared hardware resources.
Contention on shared hardware resources is a common source of interference in multicore platforms, as when a resource arbitrates multiple simultaneous requests, this can cause timing delays. RapiDaemons are designed to generate specific activities on specific shared resources, triggering a predefined effect on a specific interference channel with minimal impact on other interference channels. This supports the application of various verification methodologies for multicore systems.
