Extending the reach of ARM

That is because the performance and power efficiency of such processors is essential for addressing challenges surrounding the IoT connectivity explosion and growing consumer demand for the ability to create, share and consume large volumes of information.

Customer demand driving up processor power needs

The current appetite of customers for ever-increasing functionality has shifted the focus of applications. For example, smartphone users not only want to capture premium high quality photos and videos, but also want to be able to edit such content, an activity that requires performance levels more typical of 64-bit processors like the ARMv8.

Consequently, analysts claim that enhanced image editing features are expected to migrate into basic smartphones and other mobile devices over the next few years, creating extensive performance and power efficiency demands on microprocessors and RTOSes alike.

Other consumer products, such as televisions and set-top boxes, and business products, such as site and local servers, manage rapidly increasing volumes of information for supporting high definition video, photos and other images, and text, while using very little power. In all three cases - mobile devices, stationary consumer products and business servers - ARMv8 64-bit processors are well suited.

High performance, small footprint

ThreadX addresses the high performance, real time needs of the ARMv8 64-bit space in two ways. First, ThreadX support for ARMv8 64-bit processors provides real time responsiveness and performance with a memory footprint of less than 7KB. Second, ThreadX provides context switches measured in nanoseconds and API service times in the order of the 100-200 cycles speeds found in a rare few such products.

“Our support for the ARMv8 architecture enables embedded developers to address demanding requirements for managing ever-larger volumes of content while using minimal processor cycles and memory,” commented William E. Lamie, President of Express Logic. “As well, ThreadX enables developers to make the most of powerful processors by supporting the highest performance and fastest real time response.”

Support for safety certification

Express Logic ThreadX is also well suited for developers creating 64-bit applications for devices requiring safety certifications. ThreadX was the first RTOS to earn UL/IEC 60730-1 annex H safety certification and is pre-certified to most relevant standards, including IEC 61508, IEC 62304, ISO 26262, EN 50128, CSA E60730-1 Annex H, UL 60335-1 Annex R, IEC 60335-1 Annex R and UL 1998. ThreadX comes complete with source code developed entirely by Express Logic and is 100% MISRA-C compliant to both the 2004 and 2012 standards.

The combination of ThreadX performance and pre-certifications makes ThreadX well suited for RTOS for the development of 64-bit applications and next generation IOT devices.