The Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) project of the Linux Foundation has received an expansion as semiconductor manufacturer Renesas has joined as a Platinum member. Tokyo-headquartered Renesas is the first semiconductor supplier to participate in the open source project working to develop a base layer of industrial-grade software.
The CIP project was launched in April 2016 to design base layer for open source civil infrastructure software. By its new joining, Renesas is planning to expand the months-long developments by reducing development and maintenance for system developers. The company also boosts reliability and responsiveness for industrial devices.
Renesas is in development to build an embedded platform for industrial application incorporation using RZ/G series of microcontrollers of 1.5GHz ARM processors, 3D graphics and HD video supported configuration. The industry grade Linux operating system of the CIP project will power this future project. The semiconductor maker is already contributing to open source developments through Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) project.
“Contributing to the development of shared technology is critical to Renesas Electronics, in addition to our work with Yocto Project and Automotive Grade Linux. We are one of the most active contributors to Linux itself,” said Ichiro Tomioka, vice president and head of the ICT and office business division, Renesas Electronics.
With the increasing need of networking capabilities and multimedia functionalities in industrial devices, Renesas has a good opportunity for innovation.
Organisations are using IoT and the industry 4.0 models for their applications. However, Linux has been a backbone of wide array of software for implementation of most of these functions. System developers are also moving to Linux for the development of applications with CIP project.
All this gives space for solution providers like Renesas to participate in the open source developments to grow their market presence.
The life cycle of devices in civil infrastructure industry is an important aspect. System developers are likely to use an open source software base layer for high performance, reliability, security and support. Furthermore, Renesas is in plans to enable this highly reliable hardware and software for system developers.
