Platform development support - from Linux to QNX

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Nov 01, 2021

In our previous blog, Software is Everywhere’, we gave you an overview on how software drives your day-to-day life without you even realising it, in our ‘generation touch’ connected world.

In this blog, we will focus on ‘Platform Development Support’ and the benefits that our Anders customer can expect when partnering with us for their display and embedded technology and why it is so important and popular as we speak the same language and utilise the same frameworks.

Platform development support

For clarification, we will refer to the Linux (Yocto or not), Windows, QNX, Android Operating Systems (OS) and along with the embedded hardware (HW) they run on, as a ‘Platform’.

So, whether it is Linux, Windows, Android or QNX, our engineers can help with display initialisation, porting (touch) drivers, enabling hardware control and more.

We work with several customers who have created their app to run on an Android OS, however this is becoming less and less attractive for our industrial market segments. Linux is generally ubiquitously supported by chip manufacturers and has become the go to OS for most of our customers in recent years but there are always exceptions to this rule and for good reasons

embedded display software integration services

Ultimately, we view it as our job is to provide a platform that enables our customers to easily port their application and interface with the hardware seamlessly, greatly reducing the system debug time. We would like to share with you some examples of the breadth of services we offer for our customers’ platforms.

Linux platform integration

We have been working with a customer to produce an instrument cluster for a medical device, for creative, technical and user experience expertise including:

  • Customised i.MX8M Mini SOM based hardware platform
    • Availability with our hardware (Linux available with both ARM and X86 range)
  • Custom Yocto Linux BSP with custom drivers
    • BSP, Driver Development
    • Library integration
  • Flexible application back-end
  • Crank Storyboard front-end

Anders team workiing on a custom hardware platform

The solution we delivered allowed automatically switching resolution and configuration for different types of display panel, common back-end software routines to collect and process data from an expansion card with on-board microcontroller and a Crank Storyboard GUI.

Our assistance didn’t terminate with just SW deliverables. Our HW/SW expertise allows us to support customer to ‘bring up’ their unique HW designs. Our experience running both embedded System-on-Modules and driving touchscreens, allow us to quickly identify fixes for PCB issues as well as SW workarounds at early prototyping stages.

We are a team that understands the user, technical, and regulatory needs of design for healthcare and MedTech.

Windows platform integration

We cover areas such as SaaS, desktop applications (Windows, Linux), and web solutions mainly on x86.

We have been working with a customer to produce an Industrial HMI control panel for creative, technical and user experience expertise including:

  • Intel Apollo Lake SBC hardware platform
    • Availability with our hardware (both Windows and Linux OS)
  • Win10 integration with custom features
    • BSP, Driver Configuration
    • Win10 Activation Image
    • QT libraries Porting
  • Customer Application and OS integrated in one iso image

anders engineer performing software integration, bsp and driver configuration

QNX platform integration

For markets with mission or safety critical requirements such as Medical and Rail, QNX can be the preferred Operating System as it is a RTOS with a safety critical heritage, although it does come at a cost due to licence fees being levied from the outset. 

QNX has the advantage of regulatory compliance for these life-critical applications and provides all the kernels in one place making certification easier and quicker.

We have been working with a customer to produce a PCR based IVD medical device including:

  • Producing Board Support Package for iMX6 family
  • Porting to customer final HW platform
  • Developing additional custom device drivers
anders engineer porting software to customer final medical hardware platform

Let Anders help

As you can see, all platforms’ integration examples differ in platform types, but share a similar Anders expertise experience.

Optimum development time is key to market capture and by providing well documented, well supported embedded platforms and display systems with full engineering back up is what makes Anders “easy to do business with”.

Customers come to Anders as we are ‘the people behind the screen’, with over 60 years engineering knowledge and knowhow. With this fact, they know their brand is protected and that their product will be fit for function, always.

Get in touch today for your embedded display technology needs and any related software or hardware integration.