The development of embedded software frequently requires engineers to make difficult tradeoffs. Should you use a real-time operating system or some alternative design approach? If an RTOS is appropriate, which one is the best fit for your system? Finally, how can you most effectively divide your software up into parallel-running tasks?

Multithreaded RTOS Programming
There is a lot of misinformation about multithreaded programming and the use of real-time operating system features. Misinformation and programmer inexperience often leads to poor task decomposition and introduces system failures such as task starvation, deadlock, and priority inversion. This course teaches the proper use of C and RTOS APIs to develop multithreaded software. Variants of the course cover specific RTOS APIs and features, such as VxWorks and µC/OS-II (more).

RTOS Alternatives
Though there are good reasons to use an RTOS in some applications, this decision also creates a number of problems for embedded software developers. An RTOS adds excess complexity when the application is not well suited to being coded as a set of tasks that can preempt each other. This course examines RTOS tradeoffs and a set of alternative approaches to multitasking that do not employ a preemptive scheduler (more).

Embedded Linux Jumpstart
Linux is popular because it’s powerful, portable, and free. These features also make Linux attractive for use in embedded systems. Unfortunately, Embedded Linux can be challenging to configure and use correctly with custom hardware. This course examines the Linux porting, development, and debugging processes. Students will also learn how to write Linux device drivers, interrupt service routines, and other code that interfaces directly to the electronics (more).

To request pricing or dates, or for more information about these courses, contact us.