The Ada Programming Language
The Ada programming language, together with SPARK, is one of the most reliable programming languages available for the development of high integrity applications. AdaCore provides a comprehensive suite of software development tools that encompass code compilation, development and verification.
Key Advantages of Ada
Rich and Verifiable Specification
Ada allows developers to precisely specify program requirements and constraints directly in the code through features like strong typing and contract based programming.
Memory Safety
Ada offers strong support for memory safety, including automatic run-time protection against dereferencing invalid pointers or accessing outside the bounds of arrays.
High Efficiency
Ada is compiled and designed to support embedded needs. The resulting code is efficient and offers a small footprint, without reliance on a run-time interpreter or garbage collector.
Self-Checking and Automatic Defensive Code
Ada can insert run-time checks for programming errors and specification verification if required, for example to harden critical code or to enrich testing campaigns.
Built-in Concurrency Support
Ada has native support for concurrent programming through tasks and protected objects, making it easier to write correct multithreaded applications.
Strict Undefined Behaviors
The Ada language follows a strict specification that doesn't leave space to undefined behavior. Compiler implementation permissions and bounded errors are clearly documented and limited as much as possible.
Our Ada Technology
GNAT Pro
GNAT Pro offers software development environments and toolchains for all versions of Ada across a rich set of platforms, featuring IDEs, native and cross compilers, a multi-language build system, multi-language debuggers, and configurable runtime libraries.
GNAT Static Analysis Suite
A comprehensive set of tools for enforcing coding standards, analyzing code metrics, and detecting defects and vulnerabilities in Ada code.
GNAT Dynamic Analysis Suite
Provides unit testing and fuzz testing capabilities, along with a structural coverage analysis tool.
SPARK Pro
Leverages formal methods to automatically prevent or detect a wide range of bugs in Ada, ensuring higher reliability and security.
Our Ada Services
Certification Support
Library & runtime certification and tool qualification are available for DO-178, EN-50128, ISO 26262, ECSS-E-ST-40C / ECSS-Q-ST-80C, and IEC 61508.
Mentorship
AdaCore offers a unique mentorship program that helps your team get up and running with our languages and tools. Our goal is for your team to be fully autonomous at the conclusion of the mentorship.
Novel and Custom Ports
AdaCore has extensive experience building ports to new or custom environments (hardware architectures and real-time operating systems).
Ada Language Training
Get your team started with Ada fundamentals or take your Ada programming skills to the next level with advanced Ada training.
Trusted in High-Integrity Industries
Ada to plays a pivotal role in safety- and security-critical systems across aerospace and defense and avionics, largely because its design enforces strong typing, modularity, concurrency control, and run-time checks that help in meeting high integrity requirements and certification standards like DO-178 and others. More recently, Ada (and its formally verifiable dialect SPARK) has broken into new domains, such as medical devices, automotive or industrial automation. As the demand for high integrity increases, Ada continues to find new places of relevance.
Expert Guidance
Ready to use Ada for your next high-integrity project? Our team can help you choose the right tools and support to ensure success.
Ada at ITEC: Real-Time Control over Complex Semiconductor Manufacturing Processes
ITEC, one of the major semiconductor manufacturing equipment and automation providers, chose Ada as its programming language to develop its critical control software.
Find answers to common questions about Ada
Ada has a strong footing in safety-critical industries such as aerospace, defence, and railway, and adoption is increasing in the automotive and medical devices domains. It is also well established in mission-critical areas like banking and industrial automation.
With GNAT Pro, Ada is compiled to machine code running directly on the machine, either with an OS or bare metal. In addition, the language provides very precise control over the hardware representation of data, making it a very good choice for device drivers.
Ada is highly suitable for large-scale applications due to its strong type system, robust concurrency support, modular structure, and emphasis on maintainability. These features collectively address critical challenges inherent in large-scale software development.
AdaCore provides support for Ada on a wide range of hardware architectures (x86-64, Arm, RISC-V, PowerPC) as well as native and embedded RTOS environments (Windows, Linux, VxWorks, FreeRTOS, etc.). We can also develop customer-specific ports on generally available architectures and OSes.
