Embedded software broker aims for more re-use

A UK startup is set to tackle the compounding complexity challenges of embedded software development by becoming the electronics industry's first independent broker for embedded software.

Proven Software Solutions, the UK startup based in Maidstone, Kent, is set to tackle the compounding complexity challenges of embedded software development by becoming the electronics industry's first independent broker for embedded software.

Through software reuse, Proven Software Solutions reckons it will improve and change the way embedded software is developed, reducing development risks, helping to manage complexity and enabling device software optimisation (DSO) for embedded software developers everywhere.

"The rising complexity of product development means the industry must maximise its design resources", said Chris Briggs, Managing Director of Proven Software Solutions.

"At the moment, design reuse between companies is largely restricted to hard IP".

"Proven Software Solutions is changing all that, by transforming the way embedded software is developed and reused".

By developing a framework and methodologies where software can be brokered for reuse instead of redeveloped, Proven Software Solutions is giving OEMs and ODMs access to a wealth of proprietary software.

This reuse can result in enormous savings on R and D budgets and the deployment of design resources both in relation to time and cost.

Key to this framework is Proven Software Solutions' repository of proven software, submitted by OEMs and ODMs, systems integrators and design consultants.

Proven Software Solutions has developed a process to help OEM/ODMs to productise and submit their archived proprietary software for reuse, creating a previously untapped revenue source for them and a library of verified enabling software for the industry at large.

The rise in embedded software complexity now outpaces Moore's Law.

The increase in the number of transistors per square millimetre equates to more lines of embedded software, with each additional line representing a disproportionate increase in development and debugging effort.

The code base for an embedded application now typically exceeds two million lines and generally comprises an operating system, middleware and application software, some of which may be sourced commercially but a large element of which will be proprietary.

As a result, literally billions of new of lines of proprietary embedded software are developed every year, much of it duplicating R and D work that other companies will also have undertaken.

Unless the industry adopts a new software development methodology that matches hardware IP reuse, it will struggle to meet that challenge.

"The challenge of developing proprietary software and integrating it with a commercial code base has become the main cause for missed product launches and feature deficiencies", concluded Chris Briggs, Managing Director of Proven Software Solutions.

Developers are invited to contact Proven Software Solutions to find out what kind of software is suitable and how they could benefit from submitting it.

Providers of point-solutions, such as silicon, operating systems and middleware, can also benefit from Proven Software Solutions' framework, by joining its partner programme.

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