RTOS kernel is much smaller and faster

The latest Nucleus Plus real-time operating system offers developers a smaller, faster and even easier to use RTOS to build embedded applications for a variety of target markets.

Mentor Graphics Corporation has released a new version of its flagship Nucleus Plus real-time operating system (RTOS), giving developers a smaller, faster and even easier to use RTOS to build embedded applications for a variety of target markets.

"The changes are highly targeted to focus on speed, sise and ease of use", said Neil Henderson, General Manager for Mentor Graphics' Embedded Systems Division.

"While the Nucleus Plus RTOS is already small, our customers wanted it smaller; while fast, they wanted it faster; and though it is the easiest to use in the industry, they wanted it foolproof".

"All these features are available in our newest version of the Nucleus Plus RTOS".

The Nucleus Plus RTOS comprises generic and hardware-dependent code.

Generally, generic code has already been proved in previous applications and requires no change from processor to processor.

The bulk of the engineering effort, therefore, is focused on improving the hardware-dependent or hardware-specific code, such as code related to the interrupt controller or tool.

As the goal is to streamline the development process, the hardware-specific code is reorganised along the lines of architecture, core, processor, development platform and tool set.

This provides a logical way to partition the functionality into easily defined groups for code reuse.

More than 80% of the assembly code in the Nucleus Plus RTOS has been replaced with ANSI C, alleviating the need for developers to know how the RTOS software interacts with the hardware - particularly when migrating their product from an evaluation board to custom hardware.

The code has also been reorganised for decreased complexity.

By reducing the complexity and by segmenting the code into more logical groupings, Nucleus Plus RTOS customers, who face short product life cycles and shrinking market windows, will now be able to easily and more accurately move from platform to platform, and from evaluation to custom hardware.

As a result of these changes, the Nucleus Plus RTOS now provides a kernel that is much smaller and faster.

Nucleus customers with regulatory requirements to meet, such as those in the medical, industrial, avionics and other transportation industries, can especially benefit from the reduced complexity and increased performance and quality.

Not only are they able to more quickly and accurately migrate from their development hardware to their custom hardware, but they can also reuse more of their testing and certification artifacts produced from prior uses of Nucleus Plus.

"When a real-time operating system has been used and trusted for over a decade, the decision to perform a major revision is not taken lightly", said Glen Johnson, Director of Product Marketing for Mentor Graphics' Embedded Systems Division.

"That is why the reorganisation was localised to the target-specific portion of the Nucleus Plus RTOS".

"The generic or non-hardware-dependent features are proven solid in millions of devices worldwide".

The Nucleus embedded software is sold with source code and without royalty fees.

Licences for the Nucleus software begin at US $14,495.

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