Systems software is a highly specialized area of software development. Systems software by definition is ‘low level’ software that interacts directly with a hardware device. Systems software serves as an intermediary interface or layer between the hardware and programs/applications designed to run on the hardware. Examples of systems software include operating sytems, device drivers, firmware as well as hardware simulation software.

Operating systems enables applications and users to interact with the underlying hardware such as microprocessor, memory etc. It manages the resources of the hardware and also acts as a command interpreter. The most popular computer operating systems are Windows, Unix, Linux and Sun Solaris. However, devices other than PCs, such as smart cards, PDAs etc (known as smart devices) can also have operating systems so that applications can be written to run on these devices.

Device drivers are systems software programs which serve a very specific function. If, for example, you would like to attach a device to your Windows PC through the USB port, the device driver enables the operating system to recognize and manage the new hardware device. C/C++ are the most common programming tools for writing device drivers.

Microcontrollers are special hardware platforms that can be programmed to perform specific functions. They are widely used in industrial automation, control systems, telecom equipment, automobiles, consumer electronics etc. Microcontrollers are programmed using specialized proprietary instruction sets. For example, the Motorola family of microcontrollers come with their own instruction set. Firmware is code that is written to program microcontrollers using this specialized instruction set.

CIL Technosoft has significant expertise in this highly specialized area of software development, having executed various systems programming projects for a number of international clients. Click here to learn more about our domain and technical expertise as well as solution case studies in the field of systems programming.

A new avenue of expansion in this field for CIL Technosoft is wireless communications technology. In order to develop competencies in Wireless networking, we have rapidly expanded our expertise in this area to meet growing demand. We have extensive experience in implementing systems based on IEEE 802.11 standards. We plan to leverage our Wireless engineering competence to create value-added solutions in the areas of IEEE 802.11 based systems. We expect to address the time-to-market needs of manufacturers of wireless handheld and networking equipment by developing efficient protocol and system solutions in this space.