RL-RTX

This chapter describes the powerful Keil RTX Real-Time Operating System (RTX-RTOS) designed for microcontrollers based on ARM7™TDMI, ARM9™, and Cortex™-M CPU cores. The RTX kernel can be used for creating applications that perform multiple functions or tasks simultaneously.

While it is certainly possible to create real-time applications without an RTOS (by executing one or more tasks in a loop), there are numerous scheduling, maintenance, and timing issues that can be solved better with an RTOS. For example, an RTOS enables flexible scheduling of system resources like CPU and memory, and offers methods to communicate between tasks.

RTX programs are written using standard C constructs and are compiled with the ARM Compiler. The RTL.H header file defines the RTX functions and macros that allow declaring tasks and accessing all RTOS features easily.

This chapter contains the following sections:

Overview

Provides an overview about the RL-RTX basic functions, inter-process communication and technical specifications.

Theory of Operation

Describes the resources and their management, such as scheduling, task and stack management, interrupts, and timers.

Configuring RL-RTX

Describes the basic and advanced RTX configuration options, and lists the RL-RTX library files.

Using RL-RTX

Provides instructions for writing and debugging applications.

Function Reference

Describes the RTX functions.

The topic Create New RTX Application provides a step-by-step introduction that explains you how to create RTX applications.