"Rock-solid" RTOS runs on ARM-based cores

Techsol has ported Kadak's AMX RTOS to the Aeroflex family of ARM-based processors.

When Aeroflex of Colorado Springs needed an RTOS ported to its single-chip ARM offering, AMX was a natural choice.

Although Techsol is best known for applying Linux on ARM technology, the company was a developer of real-time systems prior to the Linux revolution.

Techsol's team has experience with this RTOS dating back to 1985, and AMX on ARM experience from more recent years.

In less than a month, Techsol ported AMX-for-Thumb to the Aeroflex AX07CF192 and added support for Ethernet connectivity.

The target demo board then communicated with both a Medallion development kit and a Windows laptop via TCP/IP messaging.

It was shown at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston.

When asked why Techsol prefers AMX over other, sometimes better known RTOS packages, Techsol's CEO Brian Empey stated: "AMX offers several advantages besides our familiarity with it: it is small, offering all the important stuff for real-time control, but no unnecessary fluff; it is fast, much faster than VxWorks or any other Posix compliant OS; it is rock-solid - this is an OS that was bug-free two decades ago; and it is royalty free, making it a great choice for volume products".

The Aeroflex AX07CF192 chip offers 192Kbyte of onboard Flash, along with SRAM, two UARTS, six timers, five A/D channels plus more, all powered by a 32bit ARM-7 core at 50MHz in a 100-pin TQFP.

Combined with the AMX RTOS, the result a very high-performance SoC at low cost, ideal for demanding industrial applications.

Additionally, Techsol has also ported AMX to its HY7201 CPU modules, which are powered by the Aeroflex AX07PT7201 CPU, an extremely-integrated 32bit ARM-720T processor running at 60MHz.

"Whether your application is in a vehicle, in your hand, or on your desk, we have all the technologies to do the job", says Empey.

"In addition, we can design, customise, and manufacture your product to the strictest quality standards.

Techsol is one of the few companies who can take your product from concept to production, using open-source tools and applications.

Plus, we do it quickly and efficiently with the experience of many industrial, medical, and consumer products behind us".

"Embedded engineering is the same all over the world.

Engineers face the same challenges of too much to do, and not enough time or money to do it with.

Techsol's Medallion CPU modules address this issue and provide a solution that extends into the production stages of a product, not just the 'proof-of-concept' stage like most SBCs.

We optimise performance through the tight integration of software and hardware to provide the highest value Linux computing hardware competing even with custom designs.

It's a challenge, but we're providing ROI from 100 units to 100,000 per year".

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