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Product category: Embedded Software and Operating Systems
News Release from: Altera Europe | Subject: ThreadX for Nios II
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 18 November 2004

FPGA-based processor gains RTOS support

Express Logic's ThreadX real-time operating system is now available for the industry-leading Nios II processor

Altera Corp and Express Logic have announced immediate support for Altera's Nios II soft-core embedded processor using Express Logic's ThreadX real-time operating system (RTOS). Now, the thousands of embedded designers using the ThreadX RTOS can realise the performance and flexibility benefits of the industry-leading Nios II processor for applications such as consumer electronics, medical equipment, wireless networking, and industrial automation.

With its fast software timers and pre-emption-threshold capabilities, ThreadX enables developers to maximise the strengths of the Nios II processor.

Applications can take advantage of ThreadX's pre-emption threshold to eliminate excessive context switching, undeterministic priority inversion and enhance responsiveness.

ThreadX is delivered as a plug-in for the Nios II integrated development environment (IDE), enabling users to configure, build, and debug their application from a single tool.

ThreadX also makes use of the Nios II hardware abstraction layer (HAL), a software service library custom-tailored to the system hardware, which automatically generates the correct RTOS integration.

Using as little as 3Kbyte of ROM, ThreadX's small footprint and high performance strongly complements the Nios II processor.

ThreadX also provides significant technical innovations including highly efficient interrupt handling and thread context switching.

ThreadX is complemented by a robust set of middleware, including the NetX TCP/IP stack and a broad set of application protocols, including SNMP, PPP, PoP3, FTP/TFTP, and SSL.

Express Logic's FileX MS-DOS-compatible embedded file system is also available for the Nios II processor, and provides small, fast file system capabilities for embedded systems.

"FPGA solutions with embedded soft-core processors represent a growing opportunity for our customers", said William E Lamie, President of Express Logic.

"We view Altera's Nios II processor as a highly flexible and powerful soft-core processor, and are pleased to offer ThreadX RTOS support for it".

"Many of our customers have ThreadX-based designs deployed on standard microprocessors and have been wanting to move these designs to Nios II embedded processors", said Craig Lytle, Vice President of Solution Engineering at Altera.

"ThreadX support for Nios II soft embedded processors provides customers with an easy migration path".

ThreadX for Nios II processors is immediately available from Express Logic.

Pricing starts at $12,500 for a single design licence, with no run-time royalties.

The Nios II processor is available royalty-free from Altera as part of development kits featuring the Cyclone, Stratix, Stratix II FPGAs and upcoming Cyclone II development kits.

A downloadable evaluation version is available from the Altera website

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