Express Logic’s ThreadX RTOS adds kernel-aware debug support for ARM DS-5 development tools

DIEGO, USA: Express Logic Inc., the worldwide leader in royalty-free real-time operating systems (RTOSes), added kernel awareness for the ARM Development Studio-5 (DS-5) tools.

Kernel awareness, which provides greater levels of transparency into the thread and task management of a system, speeds the development and debug of applications. In adopting kernel awareness for the DS-5 tools, Express Logic's ThreadX RTOS is among the first to provide this increased functionality.

Kernel awareness provides on-demand views of kernel data structures such as threads, queues, semaphores, and other objects of interest during the debug process. With this feature, at any point in time, a developer can set a breakpoint and, on hitting that point, easily see the status of all system threads and resources. The DS-5 plug-in provides the following ThreadX RTOS views:

* Comprehensive thread list with thread status and objects on which the threads are blocked/suspended, if any.
* All major ThreadX objects including semaphores, mutexes, memory pools, message queues, event flags, and timers.
* Stack usage for individual threads.

"ARM's partnership with Express Logic strengthens the position of the ARM DS-5 Development Studio as the only integrated development environment supporting all ARM Cortex processors," said Javier Orensanz, director of product management, System Design Division, ARM. "Accelerating the development of ThreadX-based systems reduces time to market and lowers risk and cost for software developers focused on markets that include industrial, consumer, and medical devices."

"Already, the ThreadX RTOS has been shown to deliver faster time-to-market on the ARM platform," commented William E. Lamie, president of Express Logic. "By adding kernel awareness for the ARM DS-5 tools, ThreadX delivers even shorter development time. Developers gain greater visibility into ThreadX objects throughout the development process, giving them a quality, robust option for ARM-based embedded development."