June 2026

Enabling Secure and Reliable Edge Computing at the Intersection of Silicon and Open Source Software

Authors: Vignesh Raghavendra and Khasim Syed Mohammed, Texas Instruments

Introduction

The industrial world doesn’t move at the pace of consumer electronics. A smart factory controller, a railway signaling unit, or a power grid edge node may be deployed for 10, 15, or even 20 years — long after the smartphones in engineers’ pockets have been replaced three or four times over. For embedded systems developers working in these environments, the question isn’t just “does it work today?” — it’s “will it still be supported, secure, and maintainable in 2040?”

This is where two industrial-grade commitments intersect: Texas Instruments’ (TI) industrial processor portfolio and the Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) Project’s mission to provide a long-term, stable, open-source software foundation for industrial systems. TI as a hardware vendor is an active participant in shaping the future of industrial-grade Linux. Here’s why that matters for designing tomorrow’s industrial-edge computing systems.

The Industrial Long-Term Challenge: It’s Not Just About the Hardware

The industrial sector has long grappled with a paradox: the very stability that makes a proven design trustworthy also makes it vulnerable over time. A product designed around a microprocessor today may ship for years and remain in the field for decades. The hardware remains the same, but the open-source software ecosystem — Linux kernel, User Space, middleware — evolves rapidly, with older versions aging out of active support.

As explored in CIP’s recent reflection, “Ten Years of CIP Project: From a Vision to the Industrial Gold Standard”, the CIP Project was founded precisely to solve this problem. Born from the recognition that industrial companies needed Base Layer support horizons measured in decades, not months, CIP established the CIP Open Source Base Layer — a curated, long-term stable (LTS) Linux kernel backed base layer supported by a coalition of global industry leaders committed to collaborative maintenance.

And as CIP’s own strategic analysis highlights in “The Shift in OSS Strategy Driven by the Challenge of Long-Term Maintenance”, the industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation in how it thinks about open-source software governance. Companies can no longer afford to maintain forked, proprietary BSPs in isolation. The cost — in engineering hours, security exposure, and integration fragility — is simply too high. Shared, community-driven maintenance is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s a strategy.

TI’s Industrial Processor Legacy: Proven in the Field

TI has a great track record in producing industrial-grade SoCs. The AM335x processor family — launched over 15 years ago — remains one of the most widely deployed application processors in industrial automation, building control, medical devices, and smart grid infrastructure due to robust peripherals for industrial I/O, deterministic real-time performance, wide operating temperature ranges, and a rich software ecosystem. But equally important has been the community that grew around it. The BeagleBone platform, built on AM335x and developed in close collaboration with the open-source Beagle community, became a global reference point for Linux-based embedded development including CIP. 

Today, TI’s current generation of industrial processor portfolio extends well beyond AM335x to include the AM62P, AM62L, AM62x, AM64x,  and AM67A — all designed with the industrial-grade peripherals, HMI, Edge AI and with hardware security features, functional safety enablement, and multi-decade product availability commitments. These processors power the next generation of industrial edge nodes, motor drives, PLCs, and smart grid products.

Where CIP and TI Converge: The Secure, Reliable Edge

TI has been a long term supporter of various Linux Foundation initiatives around making the open source SW offering robust and production ready. It’s part of the Real Time Linux foundation enabling PREEMPT_RT Kernels, the KernelCI project enabling robust testing of various Linux Kernel and related products and the Yocto project to enable build and deployment of custom Linux-based systems. A natural extension to this list is to enable Industrial Grade production ready Linux-systems which is what CIP project is all about.

The modern industrial edge node faces requirements which need complex SW stacks:

• Agile System: OTA update capability, cryptographic chain of trust, vulnerability patching without downtime – supported by CIP Core WG
• Longevity: Software support aligned with 10–15+ year hardware lifecycles – supported by CIP Kernel and Core WG
• Compliance: IEC 62443 and emerging EU Cyber Resilience Act obligations – supported by CIP Security WG
• Reliability: Deterministic behavior, robustness – supported by continuous testing via CIP Testing WG

The investment necessary to meet all of this doesn’t make sense for one company to bear alone, and would be redundant with other companies with the same goals. Hence, the CIP’s software governance model forms a compelling, complementary stack for TI SoCs.

CIP’s Super Long Term Support (SLTS) kernel provides the stable, well-maintained Linux foundation that TI’s industrial processors need to remain viable in the field for their full intended lifespan. CIP’s security working group enables security hardening that TI’s hardware security features (Secure Boot, TrustZone, hardware crypto accelerators) are designed to support. CIP’s testing initiative (ISAR/CIP Testing) ensures that the kernel remains validated across hardware targets — creating a framework in which TI silicon can be continuously regression-tested against a stable software baseline.

For an industrial OEM building on a TI processor today, here is an action plan to achieve the value proposition:

• Choose a CIP-validated Linux Base Layer and benefit from long-term security patch backporting.
• Leverage TI’s hardware security features with the confidence that the software layer will keep pace with evolving threat landscapes.
• Reduce BSP maintenance burden by contributing to and drawing from a shared, industry-wide software pool working on CIP baseline.
• Align product lifecycle planning with software support timelines that actually match industrial deployment realities.

Looking Ahead: The Edge is Just Getting Started

Industrial digitalization — Industry 4.0, IIoT, smart grid modernization, predictive maintenance — is still in its early innings. The edge computing nodes being designed and deployed today will form the backbone of industrial infrastructure for the next 15–20 years. The software decisions made now — which kernel, which maintenance model, which security framework — will echo through those decades.

CIP’s first ten years established the foundation. TI’s industrial processor heritage provides the proven silicon. Together, they offer industrial engineers something increasingly rare: a long-term bet you can actually make with confidence.

For embedded developers, system architects, and industrial OEMs: pair your hardware with a software strategy that thinks in decades, not release cycles. That’s what CIP was built for.

– The Evolution of an Industrial Linux Platform with the CIP Project –

Author: Takehisa Katayama and Chris Paterson, Renesas Electronics

Introduction: The Challenge of Long-Term Maintenance

The use of Linux in embedded systems has advanced significantly over the past decade. However, in industrial equipment and civil infrastructure, simply adopting Linux was not enough to solve every problem. One of the most significant challenges was long-term software maintenance. In industrial domains, where product lifecycles often extend to 10 or even 20 years, operating systems and middleware are likewise expected to be maintained over the long term. This article looks back on how Renesas addressed this challenge and how it achieved a major strategic shift through the CIP (Civil Infrastructure Platform) Project.

The Launch and Positioning of the RZ Family

Among Renesas’s SoC product portfolio, the RZ/G series was created as an initiative to bring R-Car-class performance and advanced functionality into industrial markets. The RZ/G series has been developed and expanded as a member of the RZ family, which targets industrial applications. 

The name “RZ” is derived from “The Zenith of Renesas micro,” reflecting its positioning within the Renesas processor lineup. Within the RZ family, the RZ/G series was designed to provide platform value not only through its hardware capabilities, but also through a Linux-based software foundation built on open-source software.

The Initial Platform Vision and Its Evolution

In the early days of the RZ family’s software strategy, the aim was to provide a comprehensive solution that included not only Linux packages and middleware, but also development environments and the surrounding ecosystem. As our understanding of customer usage patterns and development processes deepened through customer engagement and proposal activities, the value we needed to deliver gradually became more refined. As a result, part of the original concept was eventually streamlined, but this was a part of the process of evolving through trial and error into a more practical and effective form. Through this experience, the importance of a platform centered on a common software foundation became clear, and that way of thinking has since been carried forward into current today’s Common Linux Platform and Inner Source initiatives.

The Distance from OSS: From Use to Participation

Looking back at software development at the time, Linux was indeed being used, but in many cases only at the level of consumption. A development model based on collaboration with the open-source community had not yet been fully established. Yet in embedded Linux, what truly matters is not simply using OSS, but sustaining it over the long term.

An Industry Assumption: The Expected Role of Semiconductor Vendors and its Limits

One important factor here is an implicit assumption in the industry: semiconductor vendors are generally expected to maintain the software for their own devices, especially the Linux kernel. At Renesas, development and contributions to maintain Linux had already continued since the SuperH era, particularly in the automotive domain. In the industrial domain, however, before joining CIP, Linux kernels were maintained in-house, with ongoing work on vulnerability response, backporting, and validation.

However, there was a large gap between product lifecycles and software support periods, and it was  not realistic for a single company to continue maintaining software long term on its own. This structural challenge became a major motivation for seeking a more sustainable solution.

Encountering the CIP Project and a Strategic Shift

It was in this context that Renesas encountered the CIP Project. CIP takes an approach of having multiple companies collaborate to maintain Linux over the long term, and it provides Super Long-Term Support (SLTS) kernels with support periods of more than ten years. In addition, based on the upstream-first principle, CIP has established mechanisms to ensure continuous quality and maintainability in close coordination with the broader community.

These characteristics were exactly aligned with the needs of the industrial sector, and Renesas decided to join the CIP Project early in 2017. This decision marked a major turning point in its software strategy in the industrial domain: a shift from simply using OSS to becoming an active participant in community-driven development.

How CIP Transformed Development and Business

Participation in the CIP Project significantly changed the way software was developed. With long-term maintenance supported by a community, the burden of individual backporting work was reduced, improving both development efficiency and quality. Moreover, being able to provide a platform with long-term support created substantial value in the industrial equipment market and helped build customer trust.

Furthermore, the fact that the OSS community itself supports maintenance is important from another perspective as well: it helps reduce dependence on a specific vendor and has become a major benefit for users.

Contributing to OSS and Influencing the Ecosystem

Within the CIP Project, Renesas has not been merely a user, but an active contributor. It has played an important role in sustaining the ongoing operation of the CIP Project through efforts such as helping launch initiatives in the security domain, building up testing infrastructure through activities in the Testing Working Group, and providing reference boards.

In particular, the Testing Working Group has expanded the scope and effectiveness of the CIP Project’s validation activities through collaboration with the KernelCI project. By working with a broader community focused on automated kernel testing, participating in KernelCI governance and technical development, and contributing support for CIP-specific requirements, Renesas has helped strengthen the overall testing infrastructure. These efforts also demonstrate that long-term maintainability is not achieved through isolated work, but through sustained collaboration across a community, and they have enabled continuous, large-scale validation of CIP kernels across a wide range of platforms and use cases.

These activities have also been fed back into internal development, contributing to the establishment of a common platform and the promotion of automation.

Growing Cybersecurity Requirements and the Role of CIP

In recent years, the emergence of the European Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), long-term software maintenance and security response have increasingly become strong regulatory requirements as well. As vulnerability management across the entire product lifecycle and the continuous delivery of patches have become legal obligations, many companies are now working to address them.

In this context, the long-term model provided by CIP is being re-evaluated as a highly practical solution. What is important is that CIP was not created as a response to regulatory compliance but was originally formed to meet the needs of industrial systems. As a result, it has become a foundation that aligns naturally with today’s regulatory requirements.

Conclusion: Moving to a Stage Where OSS Is Used Strategically

Renesas’ engagement with OSS traces back to its upstream activities in the SuperH era and has developed through different stages of maturity across different domains. In the industrial field, there was a period of stagnation, but through initiatives around the RZ family, particularly the RZ/G series, and participation in the CIP Project, those efforts were reintegrated and have now evolved into a stage where OSS is used strategically.

As discussed in this article, CIP kernels play an important role as the software foundation of the RZ/G series. At the same time, the outcomes and knowledge generated through these efforts have also been extended to some other products within the RZ family, making CIP an important pillar supporting Renesas’ industrial Linux platform as a whole. Going forward, Renesas will continue contributing to the realization and broader adoption of Industrial Grade Linux in the industrial domain through collaboration with the OSS community. This is not simply a matter of technological evolution; it is also a practical answer to the question of how to ensure the reliability and sustainability of systems that support society over the long term.