GE Intelligent Platforms Joins FACE™ Consortium to Help Drive Innovation and Lower Cost for Avionics Systems

 

HUNTSVILLE, AL. —MARCH 26, 2013—GE Intelligent Platforms (NYSE: GE) today announced that it has become a member of the Future Airborne Capability Environment  (FACEä) Consortium, a managed consortium of The Open Group, taking a leadership role in developing open standards for avionics systems of the future.

The FACE Consortium is comprised of U.S. industry suppliers, customers and end users, and is creating an open reference architecture, standards and business model that will foster innovation and competition, and result in greater interoperability and portability, reduced program risk and lower cost for avionics systems.

“Being a member of the FACE Consortium allows us to be deeply involved in helping to shape the standards that will in turn shape the future of avionics systems,” said Rod Rice, General Manager, Military & Aerospace Products at GE Intelligent Platforms. “The consortium represents the optimum approach to avionics systems design because, in an era of constrained budgets, its focus on open industry standards will help to ensure that costs – both in terms of near-term acquisition and long-term support – are minimized without adversely impacting innovation.”

“GE Intelligent Platforms’ long-standing commitment to advancing innovation and improving safety for aerospace and defense companies aligns well with our vision for the FACE Consortium,” said Allen Brown, President and CEO of The Open Group.  “The growing interest in the FACE Consortium by industry-leading companies such as GE validates the need for standardized approaches for using open standards within avionics systems. We welcome GE Intelligent Platforms as a new member of the FACE Consortium and look forward to their contributions and help in achieving our goals.”

In July 2012, GE Intelligent Platforms announced a complete, rugged subsystem designed to act as a reference platform for companies developing FACE conformant software. The company is working closely with Wind River Systems and Presagis to ensure that the two companies’ software roadmaps for FACE conformant operating systems, and that their OpenGL and HMI tools will work “out of the box” on the hardware platform.

The platform features GE’s SBC312 single board computer and PMCCG1 graphics PMC. The SBC312 is based on Freescale™’s Power Architecture™ P4080 8-core processor yet has the power envelope of previous dual core systems, while the PMCCG1 features the high performance/low power S3 2300E GPU (graphics processing unit).

For more information about GE Intelligent Platforms: http://defense.ge-ip.com/products/3687

For more information about the FACE Consortium: http://www.opengroup.org/face

About GE

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For more information: http://defense.ge-ip.com/products/3687.

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For more information, contact:

Contact:

Ian McMurray, GE Intelligent Platforms

+44 (0) 1327 322821

ian.mcmurray@ge.com

 

 

 

FACE is a trademark of The Open Group. Freescale is a trademark of Freescale Semiconductor Inc.  Power Architecture is a trademark of Power.org. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.