Nios® V Processor Software Developer Handbook

ID 743810
Date 10/02/2023
Public

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Document Table of Contents

9.1. Overview of the MicroC/OS-II RTOS

MicroC/OS-II is a real-time kernel produced by Micrium® Inc. in 1992. MicroC/OS-II is a portable, ROMable, scalable, pre-emptive, real-time, multitasking kernel. MicroC/OS-II is used in hundreds of commercial applications. It is implemented on more than 40 different processor architectures in addition to the Nios® V processor.

MicroC/OS-II provides the following services:

  • Tasks (threads)
  • Event flags
  • Message passing
  • Memory management
  • Semaphores
  • Time management

The MicroC/OS-II RTOS kernel is ported to the Nios® V processor. It is built on top of the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) and board support package (BSP). It provides RTOS facilities that makes it easier to write programs to run on Nios® V processor. Programs written on top of uCOS-II has the following advantages:

  • Programs are portable to other Nios® V processor hardware systems of the same variant.
  • Programs are more resistant to changes in the underlying hardware.
  • Programs can access all HAL services by calling the UNIX-like HAL application program interface (API).
  • Interrupt Service Routines (ISR) are easy to implement.

For more information about MicroC/OS-II features and usage, refer to MicroC/OS-II - The Real-Time Kernel by Jean J. Labrosse (CMP Books).