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Zephyr v3.7 with Intel® i226 Ethernet Driver On Intel® Processor N-series

By Blog

Zephyr RTOS is a highly versatile, open-source real-time operating system designed for embedded devices, supporting a wide range of hardware architectures, including Intel® x86. Its modular design allows developers to customize the RTOS to meet specific application needs, making it an excellent choice for RTOS in MCS workload consolidation on Intel® platforms. Zephyr’s support for preemptive multitasking and real-time scheduling to ensure critical tasks are prioritized and executed with minimal latency, which is crucial for time-sensitive applications.

ACRN hypervisor is a type-1 bare metal open-source hypervisor, supports multi-VM configurations, and with Zephyr’s efficient memory management and small footprint, it is ideal as a single-core Real-Time Virtual Machine (RTVM) on multi-core CPUs. This setup allows ACRN to manage combination of both general purpose VMs and Zephyr RTVM, each running its own instances, leveraging multi-core architecture for better performance and isolation. This is especially beneficial for industrial mixed critical workloads consolidation requiring reliability, real-time performance, and resource isolation. Zephyr’s support for industrial automation includes precise timing, secure boot, and over-the-air updates, ensuring reliable operation in demanding environments. Its scalability and cross-architecture support make it suitable for various industrial IoT applications, from factory automation to smart grids.

Zephyr v3.7 as RTVM on ACRN forIntel® Processor N-series now includes a reference implementation Ethernet driver for Intel® i226 Ethernet controller, enabling low-latency jitter and cycle-time communication for time-sensitive applications. This is especially important for various motion control use cases such as stationary robotic interpolation tasks, enhancing smooth and accurate movements. The low-latency capabilities of the Intel® i226, combined with Zephyr’s real-time performance, make it ideal for consolidating workloads through type-1 hypervisor such as ACRN for use cases like industrial robotics control, HMI, and automation systems on a single multi-core CPU platform. This integration enhances the efficiency and reliability of industrial or robotic operations, allowing for more responsive and precise control in complex environments.

Intel® 12th Gen Core™ CPU Commercial Platform Now Available for ACRN™ v3.x!

By Blog, In The News

We are delighted to announce that the first Intel® 12th Gen Core™ CPU (formerly known as Alder Lake) systems from ASRock Industrial are now supported by ACRN and available to the open source community.

12th Gen Intel® Core™ desktop processors are the first Intel® Core™ processors to feature performance hybrid architecture for industrial embedded use. It combines two new core microarchitectures, Performance-cores (P-cores) and Efficient-cores (E-cores), on a single processor die. The integrated GPU (iGPU) features enhanced graphics performance for graphics virtualization through Single Root I/O Virtualization (SRIOV), fast Artificial Intelligence (AI) with hardware acceleration and Intel® Xe Architecture and last but not least Real-Time Capabilities such as Intel® Time Coordinated Computing (Intel® TCC) and Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) that help ensure smooth operation across multiple edge devices in industrial implementations.

In order to provide a seamless experience, the ACRN team has validated two systems for basic functionality based on ACRN v3.0 and above. For further information about these systems, please refer to the URLs below:

For the complete list of platforms supported by ACRN, visit: https://projectacrn.github.io/latest/reference/hardware.html