RTOS available for new PIC32 microcontrollers

Computer/Embedded Technology

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23 January 2008 Computer/Embedded Technology

Express Logic, a supplier of royalty-free realtime operating systems (RTOS), has announced the availability of its ThreadX RTOS for the new PIC32 microcontroller family from Microchip. In August, Express Logic announced its ThreadX/MCU Edition for Microchip's 16-bit PIC24 and dsPIC33 controllers. With this latest addition, ThreadX users can easily migrate between Microchip's 16- and 32-bit families using the same RTOS and the same MPLAB Integrated Development Environment (IDE) toolchain from Microchip.

Embedded systems engineers are demanding increasingly higher levels of MCU performance to enable differentiated end-product features. To maximise end-product features and differentiate their designs from the competition, engineers can take advantage of the PIC32's high-performance and efficient 72 MHz 32-bit core, which allows software to run faster and multiple threads to run simultaneously. Additionally, the PIC32 provides ample code space with up to 512 KBytes of on-chip Flash memory and up to 32 KBytes of RAM.

ThreadX is a good match for the multithreading applications that target Microchip's new 32-bit PIC32 family. With ThreadX's small footprint, low overhead and royalty-free business model, PIC32 developers can deploy applications ranging from simple to complex, all with minimal overhead and memory footprint. ThreadX offers around 60 services for applications, including priority-based, pre-emptive thread scheduling, message queues, communication semaphores, resource-locking mutexes, flexible application timers and event flag groups.

ThreadX is said to be easy to learn and use, enabling developers to bring new products to market rapidly and successfully. As a result, it is widely deployed, with over 450 million units in consumer electronics, medical devices, industrial automation and wireless networking. The royalty-free licensing model is ideal for high-volume manufacturing where cost is king.

A free demo version of ThreadX for Microchip's PIC32 is available from the Express Logic Website at www.rtos.com/download. The demo version includes all the features of ThreadX, and is limited only in the number of threads and other kernel objects that can be created. The demo version is configured to run with Microchip's MPLAB IDE, and can be running out-of-the-box in minutes. It includes a sample 8-thread application program that can be used as the basis for user development.

For more information visit www.rtos.com

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RTOS available for new PIC32 microcontrollers

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