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30-813: Linksys Holdings, Inc. , is an American brand of data networking hardware products mainly sold to home users and small businesses. It was founded in 1988 by the couple Victor and Janie Tsao , both Taiwanese immigrants to the United States. Linksys products include Wi-Fi routers , mesh Wi-Fi systems, Wifi extenders, access points, network switches, and Wi-Fi networking. It is headquartered in Irvine, California. Linksys products are sold direct-to-consumer from its website, through online retailers and marketplaces, as well as off-the-shelf in consumer electronics and big-box retail stores. As of 2020, Linksys products are sold in retail locations and value-added resellers in 64 countries and

60-420: A $ 199 broadband router designed for home and small office networks, the first consumer router that cost less than $ 300. It proved to be Linksys' turning point. Sales increased to $ 206.5 million in 2000, and tech analyst Steve Baker called Linksys the inventor of consumer home networking. By 2004 the company owned 49% of the networking market, with sales estimated at $ 538 million. The success of Linksys attracted

90-814: A Wind River copyright, "Real-Time Concepts for Embedded Systems" describes the development environment, runtime setting, and system call families of the RTOS. Written by Wind River employees with a foreword by Jerry Fiddler, chairman, and co-founder of Wind River, the textbook is an excellent tutorial on the RTOS. (It does not, however, replace Wind River documentation as might be needed by practicing engineers.) Some key milestones for VxWorks include: VxWorks supports Intel architecture, Power architecture, and ARM architectures. The RTOS can be used in multi-core asymmetric multiprocessing (AMP), symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), mixed modes and multi-OS (via Type 1 hypervisor) designs on 32- and 64- bit processors. The VxWorks consists of

120-463: A common application programming interface (API) and a stable environment for real-time operating system development. VxWorks is supported by popular SSL/TLS libraries such as wolfSSL . As is common in embedded system development, cross-compiling is used with VxWorks. Development is done on a "host" system where an integrated development environment (IDE), including the editor, compiler toolchain , debugger, and emulator can be used. Software

150-499: A line of Velop mesh systems and routers that support Wi-Fi 6E. HomeWRK is a two-node, mesh-enabled Wi-Fi 6 router. The appliance provides separate wireless networks for personal and business traffic. Fortinet’s security stack runs on the device, blocking malware, ransomware, and filtering content. Victor Tsao Born Ts'ao Ying-wei, Tsao received his bachelor's degree in computer science at Tamkang University in Tamsui , Taiwan. At

180-540: A new sales and marketing centre in Amstelveen (The Netherlands). The new facilities are close to leading technology centres and universities. Linksys initially sold connectors for PCs and printers before newer forms of connecting home and business networks through wired Ethernet and wireless technologies. Its networking products include Gigabit switches, Wi-Fi routers, Intelligent Mesh Wi-Fi systems, Wi-Fi extenders, Wi-Fi access points, and networking components. Linksys Aware

210-574: A number of platforms. This includes the Intel x86 family (including the Intel Quark SoC), MIPS , PowerPC (and BAE RAD), Freescale ColdFire , Intel i960 , SPARC , Fujitsu FR-V , SH-4 and the closely related family of ARM , StrongARM and xScale CPUs. VxWorks provides a standard board support package (BSP) interface between all its supported hardware and the OS. Wind River's BSP developer kit provides

240-540: A router. In 2018, Linksys released its cloud-based Wi-Fi management for business-class access points, the Linksys Cloud Manager. Linksys markets mesh Wi-Fi routers built for Wi-Fi 6 capacity, offering four times the speed and capacity of Wi-Fi 5. The mesh Velop Wi-Fi 6, announced in October 2019. In 2020, Linksys debuted 5G mobile hotspots, modems, mesh gateways, and outdoor routers. At CES 2021, Linksys announced

270-689: A set of runtime components and development tools. The run time components are an operating system (UP and SMP; 32- and 64-bit), software for applications support (file system, core network stack, USB stack, and inter-process communications), and hardware support (architecture adapter, processor support library , device driver library, and board support packages). VxWorks core development tools are compilers such as Diab, GNU , and Intel C++ Compiler (ICC) and its build and configuration tools. The system also includes productivity tools such as its Workbench development suite and Intel tools and development support tools for asset tracking and host support. The platform

300-496: A vendor of home networking-management software. Cisco announced in January 2013 that it would sell its home networking division and Linksys to Belkin , giving Belkin 30% of the home router market. In 2018, Belkin and its subsidiaries, including Linksys, were acquired by Foxconn , a Taiwanese multinational electronics firm and the largest provider of electronics manufacturing services, for $ 866 million. On June 4, 2021, Harry Dewhirst

330-437: Is a modular, vendor-neutral, open system that supports a range of third-party software and hardware. The OS kernel is separate from middleware, applications, and other packages, which enables easier bug fixes and testing of new features. An implementation of a layered source build system allows multiple versions of any stack to be installed at the same time so developers can select which version of any feature set should go into

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360-440: Is then compiled to run on the "target" system. This allows the developer to work with powerful development tools while targeting more limited hardware. VxWorks uses the following host environments and target hardware architectures: VxWorks supports a range of target architectures including ARM, Intel, Power architecture, RISC-V architecture and more. For the latest target architecture processors and board support packages, refer to

390-482: Is used by products across a wide range of market areas: aerospace and defense, automotive, industrial such as robots, consumer electronics, medical area and networking. Several notable products also use VxWorks as the onboard operating system. Aircraft As of July 2019, a paper published by Armis exposed 11 critical vulnerabilities, including remote code execution , denial of service , information leaks, and logical flaws impacting more than two billion devices using

420-782: The Atlas Max 6E mesh system. In January 2022, Linksys launched Hydra Pro 6, a scaled-back version of the 6E model. The Linksys Intelligent Mesh line, Velop, combines Linksys software and hardware to provide higher connection speeds throughout a location by using nodes with dynamic networking capabilities. Linksys in 2019, with the Linksys Aware line, was first to release mesh nodes as motion sensors, utilizing Wi-Fi signals without having to rely on other sensor devices. Linksys markets Wi-Fi extenders that work with most Wi-Fi and ISP routers, including dual or tri-band units, and plug-in devices that eliminate Wi-Fi dead zones by wirelessly communicating with

450-591: The Eclipse 4 base provides full third party plug-in support and usability improvements. Wind River Simics is a standalone simulation tool compatible with VxWorks. It simulates the full target system (hardware and software) to create a shared platform for software development. Multiple developers can share a complete virtual system and its entire state, including execution history. Simics enables early and continuous system integration and faster prototyping by utilizing virtual prototypes instead of physical prototypes. VxWorks

480-1106: The Tsao Family Foundation, they work with the Center for Asian American Media to produce documentaries "promoting understanding and communication." VxWorks VxWorks is a real-time operating system (or RTOS) developed as proprietary software by Wind River Systems , a subsidiary of Aptiv. First released in 1987, VxWorks is designed for use in embedded systems requiring real-time, deterministic performance and in many cases, safety and security certification for industries such as aerospace , defense , medical devices, industrial equipment, robotics, energy, transportation, network infrastructure, automotive, and consumer electronics. VxWorks supports AMD / Intel architecture, POWER architecture, ARM architectures, and RISC-V. The RTOS can be used in multicore asymmetric multiprocessing (AMP), symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), and mixed modes and multi-OS (via Type 1 hypervisor) designs on 32- and 64-bit processors. VxWorks comes with

510-497: The Tsaos began running Linksys full time and moved the company and its growing staff to a formal office. By 1994, it had grown to 55 employees with annual revenues of $ 6.5 million. Linksys received a major boost in 1995, when Microsoft released Windows 95 with built-in networking functions that expanded the market for its products. Linksys established its first U.S. retail channels with Fry's Electronics (1995) and Best Buy (1996). In

540-425: The Tsaos had an idea for a product that would allow multiple computers to share a printer. They started DEW International, later renamed Linksys , and financed the company with their own savings. It was founded in the garage of the Tsaos' Irvine, California home. Janie quit her job to run the company full-time. It was a gamble for the couple, who had two toddler sons aged 2 and 4 at the time. The company's product

570-712: The VxWorks Marketplace or via citation. The Eclipse-based Workbench IDE that comes with VxWorks is used to configure, analyze, optimize, and debug a VxWorks-based system under development. The Tornado IDE was used for VxWorks 5.x and was replaced by the Eclipse -based Workbench IDE for VxWorks 6.x. and later. Workbench is also the IDE for the Wind River Linux, On-Chip Debugging, and Wind River Diab Compiler product lines. VxWorks 7 uses Wind River Workbench 4 which updates to

600-568: The VxWorks kernel libraries. Optional advanced add-ons for VxWorks provide additional capabilities, including the following: Core features of the OS include: In March 2014 Wind River introduced VxWorks 7, emphasizing scalability, security, safety, connectivity, graphics, and virtualization. The following lists some of the release 7 updates. More information can be found on the Wind Rivers VxWorks website. VxWorks has been ported to

630-612: The attention of the networking giant Cisco Systems , which contacted the Tsaos in 2002. In March 2003, Victor and Janie Tsao agreed to sell the company to Cisco in a deal valued at $ 500 million. The following year, the couple was jointly named Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc. Magazine . They continued to work for Cisco as senior vice presidents until 2007, when they retired from corporate life and shifted their focus to Miven Venture Partners, an investment firm they had founded in 2005. Tsao and his wife have two sons, Michael and Steven. Through

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660-465: The kernel, middleware , board support packages, Wind River Workbench development suite, complementary third-party software and hardware. In its latest release, VxWorks 7, the RTOS has been re-engineered for modularity and upgradeability so the OS kernel is separate from middleware, applications, and other packages. Scalability, security, safety, connectivity, and graphics have been improved to address Internet of Things (IOT) needs. VxWorks started in

690-500: The late 1980s as a set of enhancements to a simple RTOS called VRTX sold by Ready Systems (becoming a Mentor Graphics product in 1995). Wind River acquired rights to distribute VRTX and significantly enhanced it by adding, among other things, a file system and an integrated development environment . In 1987, anticipating the termination of its reseller contract by Ready Systems , Wind River proceeded to develop its own kernel to replace VRTX within VxWorks. Published in 2003 with

720-477: The late 1990s, Linksys released the first affordable multiport router, popularizing Linksys as a home networking brand. By 2003, when the company was acquired by Cisco, it had 305 employees and revenues of more than $ 500 million. Cisco expanded the company's product line, acquiring VoIP maker Sipura Technology in 2005 and selling its products under Linksys Voice System or later Linksys Business Series brands. In July 2008, Cisco acquired Seattle-based Pure Networks,

750-591: The university, he met his future wife and business partner, Wu Jian (later known as Janie Tsao ), an English literature major. Janie Tsao moved to the United States in 1975, and a year later, Victor went to Chicago to attend graduate school at Illinois Institute of Technology , where he obtained his master's degree in computer science in 1980. The couple married and moved to California after graduate school. He worked in various computer-related jobs at Montgomery Ward , Kraft Foods , TRW and Taco Bell , and earned an MBA degree from Pepperdine University . In 1988,

780-626: Was a moderate success and by 1991, it was generating enough profit to allow Victor to also quit his job at Taco Bell and work on the company full-time. During the company's early days, Tsao often worked 100 hours a week, involving himself with all aspects of the business. His wife took charge of sales, and was responsible for persuading the major retailers Fry's Electronics and Best Buy to sell Linksys products in 1995 and 1996, respectively. These were crucial breaks for Linksys, quadrupling its revenue to $ 21.5 million in 1996, and tripling it again to $ 65.6 million two years later. In 1999, Tsao developed

810-537: Was appointed as CEO. In September, cybersecurity firm Fortinet made a $ 75 million investment in Linksys. Their focus is on the security of home networks for remote workplaces. On September 24, 2021, Fortinet invested an additional $ 85 million in cash for shares of Series A Preferred Stock of Linksys. Mark Sanders became CFO in October. In 2023, the company starts its global expansion with a development centre in Taipei (Taiwan) and

840-670: Was introduced in 2019 as a first-to-market home monitoring system that alerts users to movement in their home through the Velop Triband system. In 2020, Linksys released Linksys Shield, a parental control subscription service for the Velop AC2200 Triband that allows users to manage or block online content. The company also announced its Linksys Cloud Manager 2.0, which included a configurable captive portal. Linksys released its first Wi-Fi router in 2001 and has maintained early router releases for newer generations of Wi-Fi. The WRT54G

870-726: Was notable for having firmware based on the Linux operating system . Since version 5, flash memory was reduced from 4 MB to 2 MB, and VxWorks was used instead of Linux. The original Linux model with 4 MB was later available as the WRT54GL. In 2017, Linksys launched the Velop line, a multi-unit tri-band mesh router system that uses three Wi-Fi radios. First announced in 2020, Linksys began marketing home-based Linksys smart routers and Velop Mesh Wi-Fi. In April 2021, launched its first Wi-Fi 6E-certified systems, including Hydra Pro 6E router and

900-647: Was the first router company to ship 100 million products. In 1988, spouses Janie and Victor Tsao founded DEW International, later renamed Linksys, in the garage of their Irvine, California home. The Tsaos were immigrants from Taiwan who held second jobs as consultants specializing in pairing American technology vendors with manufacturers in Taiwan. The founders used Taiwanese manufacturing to achieve its early success. The company's first products were printer sharers that connected multiple PCs to printers. The company expanded into Ethernet hubs, network cards, and cords. In 1992,

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