March 2, 2010 – Embedded World, Nuremberg, Germany ― Express Logic, Inc., the worldwide leader in royalty-free real-time operating systems (RTOS), today announced that Express Logic’s ThreadX® RTOS now supports Renesas Technology’s SH-2A core-based SH7216 microcontroller (MCU). Designed for small footprint, demanding real-time control, the ThreadX RTOS is a perfect match for the SH7216, an integrated connectivity chip targeting real-time control applications. Express Logic’s support technology—NetX™ TCP/IP and USB Host/Device/OTG stacks—also supports the SH7216’s connectivity needs.
“Express Logic’s leadership in royalty-free real-time operating systems makes them an ideal fit for the high-volume applications we target,” said Robert Kalman, Marketing Manager, Renesas Technology Europe. “ThreadX presents a small memory footprint with an easy-to-use, rich set of system services such as threads, message queues, counting semaphores, and mutexes. Embedded developers wanting a taste of our combined strengths can check out an evaluation version and demonstration application available for our SH7216 MCUs.”
Although its been introduced recently, the SH7216 has already become one of the most successful for Renesas, targeting connectivity and inverter markets. It features
communication interfaces such as Ethernet, CAN and USB along with 72 different connectivity options, giving developers maximum flexibility for their device, package, performance needs. Its inverter capabilities feature two dedicated timer units, each capable of automatic deadtime insertion, deadtime optimization and automatic synchronization with the analog-to-digital converter making it suitable for solar, motor control or other inverter applications.
The SH7216, capable of 480DMIPS and 400MFLOPS performance, enables extremely fast interrupt response (as low as 30 ns), and contains up to 1 MB of the industry’s fastest embedded flash, MONOS flash—performance only available from Renesas.
Express Logic’s ThreadX® RTOS offers a robust library of application-callable operating system services that simplify and optimize the performance of an embedded system. ThreadX is designed for microcontroller-based applications and features a small memory footprint of under 6KB so it can reside in even the most limited on-chip MCU memory. ThreadX provides preemptive, real-time, priority-based scheduling for optimum responsiveness and high performance and includes services such as thread scheduling, message passing, resource allocation, synchronization, and interrupt management.
User applications are easily managed and remain easily portable to higher- or lower-performance SH2-A core-based processors. ThreadX is complemented by FileX®, a full embedded file system, NetX™, a rich but small-footprint IPv4/IPv6 TCP/IP stack, USBX™, a full USB Host/Device/OTG stack, and PEGX™, a graphics development toolkit. TraceX®, Express Logic’s graphical real-time event analysis development tool, also is available for the SH7216. ThreadX is provided with full source code and is fully integrated into the Renesas HEW IDE.
“ThreadX support of the Renesas SH7216 marks the next step in a long partnership between two very strong players in the embedded space,” commented Udo Nuelle, Managing Director for Express Logic, GmbH. “The SH7216 with its integrated connectivity and Express Logic’s ThreadX RTOS and stacks offer a great synergy that provides real value to customers in a wide range of different applications.”
A free evaluation version of ThreadX and a demonstration program in source code form are available for the SH7216 from Express Logic’s web site, www.rtos.com. The demonstration program consists of a simple multi-threaded application that uses many advanced, yet easy-to-use features of ThreadX, including message passing, thread creation, and scheduling. The entire application, including the ThreadX RTOS, requires less than 7KB of flash and less than 4KB of SRAM. Users can modify the demonstration or write a completely new ThreadX application up to the evaluation version’s limits, which consist of ten threads, one instantiation of each type of memory pool, and a maximum of two instantiations for each of the other ThreadX objects. The demo application is provided in C source code form, and is fully integrated with the SH7216 system and intended for use with the Renesas HEW tools.
“We are pleased to extend ThreadX RTOS support for Renesas’ family of SH-2A-based microcontrollers with support for the SH7216,” commented John Carbone, Vice President of Marketing of Express Logic. “These powerful MCUs operate at up to 200 MHz, enabling ThreadX to deliver sub-microsecond context switch performance for the most demanding real-time applications.”
Shipping and Availability
ThreadX is available in full source code form, royalty free, and at license prices starting at $12,500.
About Express Logic and ThreadX
Headquartered in San Diego, CA, Express Logic offers the most advanced run-time solution for deeply embedded applications, including the popular ThreadX® RTOS, the high-performance NetX™ TCP/IP stack, the FileX™ embedded MS-DOS compatible file system, and the USBX™ Host/Device USB protocol stack. All products from Express Logic include full source-code and have no run-time royalties. For more information about Express Logic solutions, please visit the Web site at www.expresslogic.com, call 1-888-THREADX, or email inquires to [email protected].