Express Logic intros ThreadX-Lite for IAR embedded workbench users

DESIGN West 2012/ESC Silicon Valley 2012, SAN JOSE, USA: Express Logic Inc. announced the IAR Systems exclusively offered ThreadX-Lite RTOS, a new, single-user license targeting the ARM Cortex-M series microcontrollers. A subset of the popular ThreadX RTOS, ThreadX-Lite contains many ThreadX features and capabilities packaged in a compact object library designed with IAR Systems for use with the IAR Embedded Workbench IDE.

ThreadX-Lite, like ThreadX, is a real-time, priority-based, preemptive scheduling RTOS with services for the use and management of threads, queues, timers, semaphores, event flag groups, byte pools and block pools. It shares the ThreadX API for these services, and applications written using ThreadX-Lite are immediately able to run with ThreadX, should developers desire to upgrade to the full system for maximum functionality and full source code.

Designed specifically for microcontrollers, ThreadX-Lite is amazingly small, requiring a mere 2KB of ROM and less than 1KB of RAM. Similarly fast, ThreadX-Lite executes a context switch on a 100MHz Cortex-M3 processor in less than one microsecond. For developers just starting to use an RTOS, ThreadX-Lite is an excellent choice thanks to its features as a small, easy-to-use, fully supported, well documented, and inexpensive RTOS.

ThreadX-Lite targets Cortex-M0, M0+, M3, and M4-based microcontrollers from Atmel, Freescale, Fujitsu, Infineon, NXP, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments, making it an ideal platform for electronic products in the areas of consumer electronics, medical devices, and industrial control.

“Many developers are just starting to recognize that a commercial RTOS is needed to compete effectively in today’s crowded marketplace,” commented William E. Lamie, president of Express Logic. “Express Logic has tailored ThreadX-Lite to appeal to these developers as an easy-to-use, first step in gaining increased functionality and efficiency for their real-time applications. Only offered by IAR Systems, ThreadX-Lite is tightly integrated with the IAR Embedded Workbench IDE, further simplifying and easing the developer’s job of bringing low-cost products to market quickly and successfully.”

“We are extremely happy and proud that we have been selected by Express Logic to be the exclusive distributor of their new RTOS package,” says Stefan Skarin, CEO IAR Systems. “Among the 14,000 companies that are our customers, we see a large and increasing interest for high-quality RTOS products that are well integrated with our tools. I think ThreadX-Lite is exactly what these customers are looking for. This is another step in our endeavor to supply our customers with simplified, seamless development workflows.”

When used with IAR Embedded Workbench, ThreadX-Lite makes available many run-time development capabilities, including support for Express Logic’s TraceX® graphical event-trace tool and extensive RTOS awareness in the IAR C-SPY® Debugger. Together, ThreadX-Lite and IAR Embedded Workbench provide an ideal platform for new product development.

ThreadX-Lite is available through IAR Systems, for $4,500 per seat, with no run-time royalties.