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An embedded RTOS for 'do-it-yourselfers'
SynthOS creates a customized RTOS for you
By Design News Staff -- Design News, October 23, 2005
For two decades, the so-called roll-your-own embedded design crowd has been scratching out its own RTOSes in an effort to maintain control over software code and circumvent the cost of commercial operating systems.
Now, there may be a better way.
A software product known as SynthOS creates an RTOS for the designer using an automated technique that lifts the tedium accompanying that task. It provides full visibility to the resulting software code as well.
To use the system, the developer first writes software tasks in C code (which would have to be done anyway, even with a commercial RTOS), and then adds simple SynthOS statements, or "primitives." The primitives, which specify inter-task communications and operating system parameters, as well as a simple configuration file, are the only inputs required of the programmer. With those pieces available, SynthOS creates the appropriate mutexes (synchronization objects designed to allow mutually exclusive access to a resource) and semaphores (a synchronization object that allows access to a resource to a fixed number of owners). It also creates software flags, message queues, and mailboxes for each task and does the tedious work of inserting the appropriate code at the appropriate points in each task.
The result is an RTOS written in the same C code as the original input code. By generating code that way, SynthOS allows programmers to use all their current tools—compilers, debuggers, interpreters, and emulators.
The resulting RTOS provides a smaller footprint, faster latency times, no royalties, and a shorter learning curve. It is less likely to generate errors than a commercial RTOS.
CONTACT:David Sell, Zeidman Technologies, Inc. Tel: 408-871-7944; http://rbi.ims/ca/4399-531
