Express Logic, renowned provider of advanced run-time solution for deeply embedded applications, recently added Kernel-Aware Debug Support for ARM DS-5 Development Tools in order to provide greater transparency into thread and task management–a sure way to further reduce development and debug time. By providing kernel awareness for DS-5 tools, Express Logic has become the first solution provider to offer this increased functionality.

“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.”

ThreadX is a real-time operating system (RTOS), and uses a multitasking kernel with preemptive scheduling, fast interrupt response, memory management, interthread communication, mutual exclusion, event notification, and thread synchronization features. It supports a full range of ARM processor architectures, including the Cortex-M0/M3/M4/R5/A5/A8/A9 cores, and is used in over 1.5 billion electronic products worldwide.

Kernel awareness for ARM DS-5 tools provides on-demand views of kernel data structures such as threads, queues, etc. during the debug process. This allows developers to easily and quickly look up the status of all system threads and resources. 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.

“When it comes to both the Industrial Internet and the Internet of Things, embedded OS and electronic systems will need to be capable of controlling numerous different types of end-products,” says SiliconANGLE‘s Kyt Dotson. “ARM chips appears in numerous handheld devices, mobile phones, and wearable computing and ThreadX provides a powerful embedded OS. Enhanced debugging capability can mean a quicker understanding of the stresses that a mobile device or sensor suite might undergo in the field.”