Timesys Software, Engineering Services, and Security Solutions for Yocto Project Development
High-efficiency, Yocto development expertise for your embedded Linux-based project
Timesys is a founding member of Yocto Project and an industry leader in open source software development. For years, we’ve been helping customers adopt Yocto based development standards and customize Yocto BSPs to meet their unique product requirements.
With Timesys’ Yocto expertise, you can:
Accelerate Yocto adoption with Timesys engineering services and expert support
Meet your security requirements with help from Timesys security experts and Vigiles on-demand security vulnerability monitoring and mitigation
Automate Yocto BSP and application testing on your local or remote hardware
Get started building your Yocto-based device quickly with hands-on, Timesys Yocto training that is customized for your team’s needs and experience level
Accelerate your application development with Timesys’ Yocto-optimized TimeStorm IDE
Bring secure Yocto Project-based products to market faster
Yocto Engineering Services
Yocto Layers and Images
Yocto best practices recommend using good organization of Yocto layers for code reusability and maintainability and creating product specific images. We can help with:
- Developing common and product-line specific layers and machine images
- Creating new recipes to include packages not already in your Yocto-built BSP
- Building or pinning specific versions of the software components
- Customizing layers to reproduce builds in both offline and online modes (local source repos)
- Creating custom filesystem layout to support A/B update schemes, security metadata, and integration with Yocto build tools such as the Wic image creator
- Custom image generation
Build System Migration
Yocto is the most widely used build system for embedded. We can help you migrate from your current build system (eg: Buildroot) to Yocto as well as help you integrate custom components into your Yocto BSP.
BSP Customization & Maintenance
Timesys recommends using a semi or SOM vendor Yocto BSP as a starting point for your customization. Timesys Yocto BSP customization & maintenance services include:
- Board bring up
- BSP upgrade including kernel and Yocto versions
- Developing device drivers
- and more
Yocto Security
Secure by Design
Security best practices recommend designing security into your product early in the development process, rather than addressing security as an afterthought. Our security design services include:
- Secure boot features such as HAB and U-Boot verified boot
- Full disk encryption via dm-crypt or verification via dm-verity for root filesystem (RFS) security
Stay Secure
With approximately 300 new CVEs per week, the task of maintaining security over the lifetime of your Yocto based device is daunting. Timesys’ stay secure DIY tool, Vigiles, automates most of the tasks and reduces the monitoring load by 90%. A few key features are:
- Generating Yocto manifest (Bill of Materials) using meta-timesys
- Monitoring and managing security vulnerabilities and fixes/mitigation using Vigiles
- Filtering based on various product-specific configurations such as Linux kernel and U-Boot configs
- Team collaboration for triaging
BSP Lifecycle Maintenance
We can maintain your Yocto-built BSP keeping your Yocto and kernel versions up to date, backporting patches or updating library versions used, thus securing your BSP from known vulnerabilities.
Yocto Device Testing
DevTest helps streamline your development and test cycles and improve quality. Timesys Software Test engineering services can help with:
- Developing custom test layers for integrating your specific test cases
- Implementing custom classes to handle image verification
- Integrating Yocto test layers for testing specific functionality including ptest, kernel test, and memory test
- Integrating the meta-timesys-testing layer for device driver testing
- Leveraging a common device test methodology across all your product lines
- Providing a test automation framework that is preintegrated with Jenkins and Jira and can easily be integrated with your Continuous Integration (CI) and issue management systems
- Testing your Yocto-based Qt GUI using Squish for Qt test automation tool
Yocto IoT Device Cloud Integration and OTA
Timesys has partnered with IoT device analytics cloud and device management platforms. Timesys IoT services include:
- Creating custom filesystem layout to support A/B update schemes for OTA
- Enabling IoT connectivity including WiFi, Zigbee, Bluetooth, Ethernet, etc.
- Integrating and testing IoT device provisioning frameworks (certificate management)
- Integrating and testing device management for AWS, Azure, and Arm Pelion
Yocto Tools
Timesys provides development tools that are optimized for Yocto Project-based development including:
- Timesys TimeStorm IDE, with integrated Yocto SDK and QEMU machine
- Timesys Remote Access Embedded Board Farm (EBF), enabling you to deploy Yocto built images to remote/managed hardware, simplifying setup for Yocto development and build testing
Yocto Training and Support
For developers/development teams wanting to undertake Yocto-based development themselves, you can leverage Timesys engineering years of experience. We can help you:
- Accelerate your Yocto immersion through a hands-on training class that’s tailored to your background and needs
- Get assistance when you need it and implement best practices as you develop
Yocto SoC Experience
Most semiconductor and board vendors provide Yocto Project Compatible BSPs for their reference boards: meta-nxp, meta-ti, meta-st-openstlinux, meta-xilinx, meta-intel, meta-altera, meta-advantech, meta-variscite, meta-digi, etc. Timesys recommends these reference BSPs as the best starting point for developing custom products with Yocto. However, not all Yocto layers are created equally, and each SoC has unique graphic accelerators. So you’ll undoubtedly find yourself needing to customize your BSP which can be challenging.
Timesys Software Engineering Services can help you customize your reference BSP to meet your unique product requirements. We can help you with systems integration including graphics integration and power management.
Yocto Development Resources
To help embedded Linux / Yocto developers incorporate best practices into their product development, Timesys frequently publishes blogs, webinars, and videos — often collaborating with our global ecosystem of semiconductor and board vendor/hardware partners — and we share links to additional helpful resources.
