MDK-ARM Keil, MDK-ARM Datasheet - Page 11

• Manufacturer Part Number: MDK-ARM
• Description: KIT REALVIEW MCU DEVELOPMENT
• Manufacturer: Keil
• Type: Compiler and IDEr

Specifications of MDK-ARM

• For Use With/related Products: ARM MCUs
• Lead Free Status / RoHS Status: Lead free / RoHS Compliant

Getting Started: Building Applications with RL-ARM
11
RTX RTOS
Traditionally developers of
small, embedded applications
have had to write virtually all the
code that runs on the
microcontroller. Typically, this
is in the form of interrupt
handlers with a main
background-scheduling loop. While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with
this, it does rather miss the last few decades of advancement in program structure
and design. Now, for the first time, with the introduction of 32-bit ARM
processor-based microcontrollers we have low-cost, high-performance devices
with increasingly large amounts of internal SRAM and Flash memory. This
makes it possible to use more advanced software development techniques.
Introducing a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) or real-time executive into
your project development is an important step in the right direction. With an
RTOS, all the functional blocks of your design are developed as tasks, which are
then scheduled by RTX. This forces a detailed design analysis and consideration
of the final program structure at the beginning of the development. Each of the
program tasks can be developed, debugged, and tested in isolation before
integration into the full system. Each RTOS task is then easier to maintain,
document, and reuse. However, using an RTOS is only half the story.
Increasingly, customers want products that are more complex in shorter and
shorter time. While microcontrollers with suitable peripherals are available, the
challenge is to develop applications without spending months writing the low-
level driver code.
Flash File System
The RL-Flash file system allows
you to place a PC-compatible file
system in any region of a
microcontroller’s memory. This
includes the on-chip and external
RAM and Flash memory, as well
as SPI based Flash memory and
SD/MMC memory cards.