When debugging something as involved as kernel scheduler timings, you would typically use one of the software-based debugging mechanisms available. However, in cases when software is close to bare ...

This paper will discuss design practices and guidelines that will maximize the efficiency of interrupts and interrupt handling in an embedded system IC. These practices can result in a smaller code ...

Desktop or laptop computers are extremely powerful and amazingly low cost. This means that developers of software for desktop systems assume that there is infinite CPU power, so they worry very little ...

An embedded system typically has enough CPU power to do the job, but typically only just enough — there is no excess. Memory size is usually limited. It is not unreasonably small, but there isn't ...

When do you need to use a real-time operating system (RTOS) for an embedded project? What does it bring to the table, and what are the costs? Fortunately there are strict technical definitions, which ...

An increasing number of multi-threaded embedded applications want to leverage multicore designs. Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP) RTOS provides automatic load balancing of multiple threads in a ...

There's an interrupt service routine invoked when the 16 bithardware timer overflows. The ISR services the hardware, increments aglobal variable named timer_hi, and returns. Therefore, timer_hi ...

Low-Power/High-Performance engineering sat down to discuss latency with Chris Rowen, CTO at Tensilica; Andrew Caples, senior product manager for Nucleus in Mentor Graphics’ Embedded Software Division; ...

The time it takes to service an interrupt. It becomes a critical factor when servicing real-time functions such as a communications line. See UART overrun. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY.