The FPGA firm’s interest indicates how Linux is expanding its footprint beyond consumer and computing markets and into high reliability industrial, automotive and aerospace systems.

The theme of this year’s Embedded Linux Conference, which is sponsored by The Linux Foundation, was ‘Drones, Things and Automotive.’

“The use of Linux in embedded products has skyrocketed in recent years, with Linux now being used in avionics, industrial systems, automotive and consumer electronic devices of all kinds,” said Amanda McPherson, chief marketing officer at the Linux Foundation.

FPGA supplier Xilinx has in the last few years moved into the the ARM-based system-on-chip market with its Zynq All Programmable SoC devices, which are already running embedded Linux in automotive and industrial applications.

“Linux is a key embedded OS for our customers and aligns well with our Zynq-7000 All Programmable SoC and Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC product application areas spanning wired and wireless networking, data center, automotive, and industrial,” said Zach Pfeffer, director of embedded software development at Xilinx.



Two other companies joined the Linux foundation at last week’s Embedded Linux Conference in San Jose, California, they were Cirrus Logic and data analytics firm Treasure Data.

Kazuki Ohta, CTO and co-founder at Treasure Data said: