Software engineering excellence depends heavily on relevant previous experience, but nothing illustrates it more than device driver development. In order to write a device driver the developer has to be familiar not only with the target operating system at kernel level but also with all the specialised tools and techniques which may be needed to diagnose unexpected behaviour in the hardware/software interface often at the hardware prototype phase.

Linux Support Packages & Board Support Packages alike rely on binding together the bootloader and drivers with the respective OS distribution which needs to be fully regression tested.

At Advantech we have written a large number of device drivers for a wide variety of hardware devices in particular for Real-Time and Linux environments. The many man years of experience we have gained allow us to deliver working device drivers early in the overall project timescale. Since this is usually a critical path milestone, it clears the way for other dependent tasks to proceed according to plan.