When you have a task in your system that is supposed to execute at regular intervals, say for instance that it needs to read a sensor value every 5 milliseconds, then you have a system that is sensitive to random delays – also known as .jitter.
In embedded systems using multitasking, you may run into a situation where some of your tasks run slowly or not at all. This is called task starvation (the affected tasks are starved of CPU time) and it can happen for a number of reasons.
There is no doubt a learning curve when you begin using a real-time operating system (RTOS) in your development. Timing, scheduling et cetera will affect your code in ways that are not directly visible in the source code.
When you have a task in your system that is supposed to execute at regular intervals, say for instance that it needs to read a sensor value every 5 milliseconds, then you have a system that is sensitive to random delays – also known as “jitter”. When your task experiences jitter, it sometimes has to [...]
In embedded systems using multitasking, you may run into a situation where some of your tasks run slowly or not at all. This is called task starvation (the affected tasks are starved of CPU time) and it can happen for a number of reasons; today we will look at one particular reason – a fixed [...]
There is no doubt a learning curve when you begin using a real-time operating system (RTOS) in your development. You will work at a higher abstraction level, using more or less parallel tasks rather than just subroutines, and you will need to consider how your tasks shall share data and the processor time with each [...]
A research group at Mälardalen University here in Västerås, Sweden, is investigating how RTOS trace tools like Percepio Tracealyzer can be extended for testing purposes and automatically detect bugs related to concurrency and timing. To validate their research, they need real-world bug examples. We at Percepio want to help them obtain RTOS traces, recorded with Tracealyzer, [...]
Embedded Conference Scandinavia, ECS, takes place on 7–8 November, 2017 at Kistamässan in Stockholm, Sweden. Last year’s conference attracted just under 2,000 delegates so ECS now claims to be the largest embedded conference in Europe. The conference program is still in flux but the organizers have announced the first keynote speaker: Maarten Struys, Account [...]
Synopsys ARC Processor Summit is a free one-day event where you can pick from any of 25+ technical seminars on embedded development and electronic design. This year’s Summit takes place on September 26 and Percepio will be there discussing how to catch bugs in RTOS-based programming. Once again we are represented on the stage by [...]
Percepio’s Field Application Engineer Niclas Lindblom will talk about using Percepio Tracealyzer to debug common timing issues in RTOS applications at the Microchip MASTERs tech conference in the U.S. in August. Niclas shares a four-hour class with Darren Wenn, Global Group Leader for embedded development at Microchip, and they will focus on the combination of [...]
Percepio’s Field Application Engineer Niclas Lindblom will talk about using Percepio Tracealyzer to debug common timing issues in RTOS applications at the Microchip MASTERs tech conference in Berlin in September. Niclas shares a four-hour class with Darren Wenn, Global Group Leader for embedded development at Microchip, and they will focus on the combination of Tracealyzer [...]
Using an RTOS, or perhaps considering an RTOS for your next project? In that case, we recommend reading our article RTOS Trends and Challenges by Percepio founder Dr. Johan Kraft, featured on Embedded.com. The article discusses the strong RTOS trend in the embedded industry, including the motivations and fundamental challenges of using an RTOS, pitfalls that even caused NASA's JPL some serious problems during the [...]
Check out this new series of Tracealyzer tutorial videos that one of our users made last week. They include everything from using STM32 CubeMX to create a project, configuring the trace library, debug probe, and STM32 Nucleo board, all the way using Tracealyzer to view the FreeRTOS trace data. New Tracealyzer video tutorial series: Tutorial [...]
Delivering ultra-low power operation in IoT nodes means they will spend most of their time in a dormant mode, waiting to exchange data with a gateway. Could employing an RTOS help deliver a more reliable user experience? Read our latest white paper where Dr. Johan Kraft, Founder and CEO of Percepio, examines some of the [...]
Being able to measure the timing of RTOS tasks and interrupts is key to understanding the performance of a real-time system. Measuring response time is easy, but then what? Understanding the contributing factors behind performance anomalies requires good visualization that can explain the data. Read our white paper about how Tracealyzer can help you [...]
Check out Erich Styger's review of our upcoming solution for FreeRTOS trace streaming via SEGGER J-Link debug probes.