For cost-sensitive ARM-powered MCU applications, the IAR PowerPac real-time operating system (RTOS) sports a 2-KB memory footprint and features pre-emptive as well as round-robin scheduling, handling up to 255 priorities with an unlimited number of tasks, semaphores, mailboxes, and software timers. Full interrupt and zero-interrupt latency time support are also on board. Support for nested interrupts allows for faster context switching times. The PowerPac File System is MS-DOS/MS-Windows compatible, with FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32 support as well as support for multiple device drivers and multiple media. These include RAM disk, MMC, SD, CompactFlash, IDE, SMC, and NOR/NAND flash memory. An evaluation version of the RTOS is available for download from the company's website. IAR SYSTEMS SOFTWARE INC., Marlborough, MA. (508) 281-6680.
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