Dataweek honors QNX fastboot technology with product of the year award

This just in: Dataweek magazine has unveiled its product of the year awards, and QNX fastboot technology is one of the winners.

If you aren't familiar with QNX fastboot technology, it allows x86 systems, including those based on the Intel Atom, to boot wicked fast. Often in a second or less.

This isn't the first time QNX fastboot technology has taken home top honors. A year ago, it received a "Most Innovative Software for the Intel Atom Processor” award from Intel.

A picture, or should I say a video, is worth a thousand words, so I invite you to check out the fastboot demos that I've posted on this blog:

• What? Another QNX fastboot demo on Intel Atom? Aw, c'mon...
• More QNX fastboot for Intel Atom videos

Once you've finished viewing the talkies, download this whitepaper or simply view this article on Automotive DesignLine to take a peak under the hood of this technology.

For the complete list of Dataweek winners, click here.

To view all my blog posts on QNX fastboot technology, click here.

What? Another QNX fastboot demo on Intel Atom? Aw, c'mon...

Sorry, couldn't resist. I know I've blogged on similar demos in the past, but this one has a nice sequence where Kroy Zeviar of QNX pulls the plug on an Atom-based board to show that QNX fastboot truly is a cold-boot technology. The system doesn't have to be in any kind of "on" state for fastboot to work.

Kroy also briefly discusses how QNX fastboot technology can benefit a variety of HMI-intensive devices for the automation, medical, military, and communications markets.

More QNX fastboot for Intel Atom videos

I was browsing YouTube this morning when I discovered that a colleague had posted a couple of videos on QNX fastboot technology. If you haven't read my previous posts on this topic, QNX fastboot technology allows x86 systems, including those based on the Intel Atom processor, to boot wicked fast. Often a second or less.

Here's the first video, which features QNX fastboot on the LiPPERT Embedded Core Express Eco board:



Here's the second video, which features QNX fastboot on the Kontron nanoETXexpress board:



And here's an older QNX video, posted back in October, that features a QNX engineer discussing fastboot technology:



Of course, I couldn't get this far without plugging a whitepaper. So if you're interested, download QNX's fastboot of x86 whitepaper here.

The world's shortest product demo?

I feel sorry for some of my QNX colleagues. They'll be at the Embedded Systems conference next week, shilling the QNX fastboot demo. The problem with the fastboot demo is that it, well, boots fast. You flip the button, and it turns on. End of story. If the person viewing the demo isn't paying attention, they miss the whole thing. Fortunately, the solution is simple: you just flip the button again.

The demo is pretty impressive, in its fleeting way. Historically, x86 systems (like the one on your desktop) use a BIOS to boot. Now, the BIOS is useful on a desktop or laptop system, but serves little purpose on an x86 embedded system -- aside from making it boot slower. QNX fastboot technology eliminates the BIOS, allowing systems based on the Intel Atom and other x86 chips to achieve "instant on".

For evidence, check out the YouTube video and fast forward to the 1:50 mark. You'll see how QNX fastboot technology reduces boot time from about 17 seconds to under a second. But, please, pay close attention. Or you'll miss the whole thing.

An x86 system that boots in one second? Yeah, sure, tell me another one...

The minute I get into work, I always do one thing before anything else: power up my PC. I then take off my jacket, pour myself a coffee, shoot the bull with co-workers, do a couple of neck stretches, listen to voice mail, and, if my PC is ready, sit down to work. Often, though, the machine is still busy, launching gosh knows what.

So if I tell you that an x86-based box can boot faster than you can say "one steamboat", I will totally understand if you think I'm trying to B.S. you. But humor me and check out the following video. It shows how the QNX Neutrino RTOS running on an Intel Atom-based Kontron nanoETXexpress-SP board can boot up (and launch a 3D OpenGL ES program) in 1 second:



I won't attempt a long explanation of how QNX does this: Dave Green, the engineer in the video, does a much better job than I ever could. In a nutshell, though, QNX's "fastboot" technology eliminates the need for a BIOS (a firmware component common to PCs and other x86 systems), thereby reducing the boot time of this system from 17 seconds to just 1 second.

Personally, I hope that Windows box never learns to boot so fast. Because I would really miss having that leisurely cup of coffee, shooting the bull with my co-workers, etc. I would, horrors of horrors, have to work instead. :-)

Do the fast-boot boogie

If you have a QNX-based system that needs to boot or restart quickly, check out Andy Gryc's recent paper, Meeting Early Boot Requirements with the QNX Neutrino RTOS. He provides details on several techniques, such as changing the order of waitfor statements in your build script to reduce overall boot time.

For instance, here's a boot scenario that uses the default waitfor order. As you can see, there are a couple of gaps (at about 130 ms and 400 ms) where nothing executes while a waitfor waits for a resource to become available:



Now here's the same system, but with optimized waitfor placement. As you can see, changing the order of waitfor statements has largely eliminated the idle gaps, shaving over 100 milliseconds off the boot time: