VRTX Development System

An optimized release of the VRTXsa Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) is now available as part of a complete System-on-Chip (SoC) development environment for ARM Powered applications. The comprehensive, multi-tasking development suite will be used to accelerate time-to-market for the VRTX applications in mobile handsets, and other deeply embedded applications, incorporating members of the ARM7 and ARM9 Thumb families of embedded RISC processors.

The new version has been optimized to reduce footprint, minimize code size and to offer superior performance in both ARM and Thumb execution states. The enhanced RTOS offers the same scalability, reliability and performance features found in other VRTX development suites, such as per-call configuration of the system and priority inheritance.

The development system, used to build VRTX-based applications, provides users with configuration and build tools as well as two distinct but complementary levels of debugging support -- the System and Application Developer's Kits -- based on the XRAYDebugger, that help to ensure speedy deployment of SoC solutions. The development platform includes the VRTXsa libraries, networking and file system support, board support packages (BSP), run-time libraries (RTL), configuration tools, and the ARM C and C++ compilers.

The System Developer's Kit includes an XRAY RDI Debugger with built-in VRTX awareness and connectivity to both the ARMulator (Instruction-Set Simulator) and hardware-assist solutions offering complete, instruction-by-instruction control over the target code. This kit is targeted at engineers developing device drivers, boot code and handling the hardware/software interface. It is ideally suited to the task of debugging the initialization of the operating system for the first time on new hardware as well as completing the integration of the final application into the SoC.

The Application Developer's Kit utilizes the Spectra Backplane to provide unique, unobtrusive, application-level debugging and performance profiling. In addition to fast, network-wide connectivity, the Spectra Backplane enables the debugger to view and edit system resources, and also supports run-mode debugging.

Mentor Graphics Corporation, 8005 SW Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, OR 97070. Tel: 503-685-7000; Fax: 503-685-1903.