Dubbing the technique ‘cycle-resolution timing’, “scheduling of all time-based events, such as time-outs, delays and periodic timers, can now be specified in microseconds or CPU cycles”. It “replaces ad-hoc, target-specific techniques for precise timing with clean and consistent API calls”.
It has been included in ’embOS-Ultra’ RTOS, a new product which is API-compatible with the company’s embOS.
“Using cycles as the internal time base for an RTOS is a completely new concept with many benefits. The resolution of scheduling is orders of magnitude better than that of traditional RTOSes,” said company founder Rolf Segger, adding that it allows RTOS API calls where dedicated hardware timers were needed before.
“We already use it in our J-Link debug probes and Flasher in-system programmers,” he said.
No application changes are required in migrating to the new RTOS as existing API and RTOS behaviour is maintained.
Millisecond-aligned timing is available where classic embOS API calls are used, and microsecond or cycle resolution where new API calls are used. Traditional APIs can be mixed with embOS-Ultra APIs in the same application.
The embOS-Ultra product page is here