1. MSP432™ MCU RTOS Solutions

2. MSP432 RTOS RTOS Options TI-RTOS freeRTOS RTX (CMSIS-RTOS) Micrium OS
Middleware
File Systems
Connectivity
Wi-Fi
User Application
Tasks
TI-RTOS
freeRTOS
RTX (CMSIS-RTOS)
Micrium OS
Power Manager
Real-time Kernel
Drivers
MCU
Sensors
Welcome. In this video we will discuss various Real Time Operating Systems or RTOS that can be used when creating applications for MSP432. The four RTOS products that fully support the MSP432 today are TI-RTOS, freeRTOS, ARM RTX and Micrium OS. RTOS products provide applications with various levels of services. Many RTOS solutions provide much more than just a real time kernel.

3. “RTOS Core” standard offering from all RTOSes
MSP432 RTOS
Middleware
File Systems
Connectivity
Wi-Fi
User Application
Tasks
Broad Middleware offering from TI-RTOS & CMSIS
Unique to TI-RTOS: Simplify power management for MCU
Power Manager
Real-time Kernel
Broad offering from TI-RTOS Drivers
Drivers
MCU
Sensors
“RTOS Core” standard offering from all RTOSes
The Real time kernel is provide by all four RTOS solutions. TI-RTOS include drivers for various peripherals on the MSP432. More details on the drivers in a bit. Unique to TI-RTOS is also the Power Manager which greatly simplifies power management by abstracting all device specific configuration needed to enter low power modes on the MSP432. Middleware such as File system APIs is provided by TI-RTOS and ARM CMSIS.

4. RTOS Features Comparison
Scheduler Type
CMSIS comp-liant
Services
Interrupt Latency
Device Specific Support
Device Drivers
Flash Size
Low
Power Support
TI-RTOS
By TI
Pre-emptive X
Tasks
Swis
Hwis
Software Timers
Semaphores
Mutex
Mailbox
Events
Zero-latency interrupts supported (115 cycles for ISRs with TI-RTOS calls)
Systick
Interrupts
Exception Handling
SPI
SPI-SD
I2C
UART
Timer
RTC
Timestamp
Watchdog
4K to 10K
Tick Suppression,
Device specific Power Manager
ARM RTX By Keil
Round-robin (default)
Cooperative √
SWIs
Zero-latency interrupts supported
<4K
Device specific support coming soon
FreeRTOS By Real Time Engineers Ltd
Co-routines (task share stack)
Direct TASK notifications
Semaphore
5K to 10K
Pre and post sleep macros for customization,
Idle task hook.
Micrium OS By Micrium
Unknown
5K to 24K
Idle Task Hook
Tick suppression coming soon
Here is a table comparing the various features of the four RTOS products that support MSP432. Various scheduler configurations are supported.
As seen in the table per-emptive, co-operative or round-robin are supported by one or more RTOS products.
Pre-emptive - each task has a different priority and will run until a higher priority task is ready to run.
Round-Robin - each task will run for a fixed period of CPU run-time (time slice).
Co-operative - each task will run until it is told to pass control to another task or reaches a blocking OS call.
Being CMSIS-compliant will help integrate into other middleware provide by ARM. ARM RTX is compliant.
All four RTOS provide a rich list of services including the familiar Tasks, Semaphores and Software Timers. All four support zero latency interrupts when RTOS services are not required within the interrupt. Approximate size benchmarks are provided for the four RTOS.
Since low-power is key for all MSP432 applications, various features related to low power support are listed. Tick suppression is supported by most as allows the system tick to get turned off when no tasks require it. This allows the CPU to sleep for longer periods of time without being woken up by the RTOS tick. Most RTOS also provide hooks for applications to use device specific code to enter low power modes. TI-RTOS is the only one that supports a full-featured Power Manager that is specific to the MSP432.

5. RTOS Tools Comparison
Object Viewer
Execution Graph
Logging
RTOS
Config Tool
Signal Plots
Compiler support
Examples
License Certified
Cost
TI-RTOS
By TI √
(GUI composer)
CCS
IAR
GCC
> 50
BSD
Free
ARM RTX By Keil X
Keil
Cosmic 2
FreeRTOS By Real Time Engineers Ltd
3rd party
Standalone
Tasking 1
Modified GPL
SafeRTOS
Micrium OS By Micrium
Micrium
SIL3/SIL4
Contact Micrium
No RTOS offering is attractive without a good set of debugging and trace tools. This table lists the various tools offered by the RTOS products. Object viewers are Graphical Tools that display the current state of the RTOS objects – such as how many tasks are waiting on a particular semaphore, which task is in a run state, etc.
Execution graph shows the time consumed by the various threads over time and can be used to visualize how an applications meets/ or does not meet real time needs.
Logging here refers to a graphical tool that captures and displays debug messages sent by the RTOS over UART, Ethernet, USB etc. This tool is very useful to trace RTOS events for debug.
Several RTOS have a GUI to configure the RTOS such as Number of Priorities, Task stack size etc. TI-RTOS going beyond and allows allocation of static RTOS objects.
Several RTOS (some associated with an IDE) allow applications to plot variables, and associate variables with a dial, heat map etc.
Although the four RTOS options support various IDEs (and their associated compilers), they many not provide out-of-the box projects for all the various IDEs/compilers.
The last few columns talk about examples, license, available certifications and cost. Most RTOS are free and are licensed BSD or modified GPL except Micirum.
TI-RTOS provides a large number of examples.
Micrium has been certified for safety applications.

6. MSP432 & TI-RTOS Developed and maintained by TI
Components Supported
Kernel
Wi-Fi
FAT File System
Device Drivers
Power Manager
Instrumentation
IDE: CCS, IAR, & GCC Tools
Device Drivers
Real-time clock NEW!
Timer
UART
I2C
SPI
SPI-SD
PWM NEW!
Watchdog
GPIO
Developed and maintained by TI
Fully supported on MSP432 with > 50 examples. Out of the box examples for supported booster- packs.
Power Manager to simplify & optimize power during runtime
Power-aware Drivers that work with TI-RTOS kernel or can even be used with another RTOS
Underlying structure for Energia MT - first hobbyist-oriented multi- thread IDE supporting MSP432
BoosterPack Supported
CC3100 Booster Pack
SD-Card BoosterPack
TMP006 BoosterPack
Sharp Memory LCD BoosterPack
RF430CL330 NFC Transponder
TPL0401EVM Board
Here we talk about TI-RTOS is more detail. TI-RTOS is developed and maintained by Texas Instruments. They fully support the MSP432 device and have >50 out-of-the box examples. Many of these examples run on the MSP432 LaunchPad with a combo BoosterPack to demonstrate real world examples.
TI-RTOS Kernel provides a broad range of real-time kernel services as seen in the table earlier.
TI-RTOS has provides drivers for various MSP432 specific peripherals such as SPI, I2C, Uart, PWM, RTC, GPIO and Timer. The driver APIs are common across various TI MCU’s – for example same API can be used on an MSP432, C2000 as well as a CC26xx.
The exciting new addition to TI-RTOS is the MSP432 specific Power Manager which we will cover in the next slide.
TI-RTOS is also the basis for new Energia MT. (multi Theraded Energia). More details shortly.

7. Using TI-RTOS Power Manager
MSP432 Power Sequence
Using MSP432 DriverLib
Using TI-RTOS Power Manager
FlashCtl_setWaitState(FLASH_BANK0, waitsNew);
FlashCtl_setWaitState(FLASH_BANK1, waitsNew);
/* now change clocks and dividers */
CS_setDCOCenteredFrequency(
PowerMSP432_perfLevels[level].DCORESEL);
CS_initClockSignal(CS_MCLK,
PowerMSP432_perfLevels[level].clockSource,
PowerMSP432_perfLevels[level].DIVM);
CS_initClockSignal(CS_HSMCLK,
PowerMSP432_perfLevels[level].DIVHS);
CS_initClockSignal(CS_SMCLK,
PowerMSP432_perfLevels[level].DIVS);
FlashCtl_enableReadBuffering(FLASH_BANK0, FLASH_DATA_READ);
FlashCtl_enableReadBuffering(FLASH_BANK0,
FLASH_INSTRUCTION_FETCH);
FlashCtl_enableReadBuffering(FLASH_BANK1, FLASH_DATA_READ);
FlashCtl_enableReadBuffering(FLASH_BANK1,
changedStateOK = PCM_setPowerState(stateNew);
AMx_LDO
SLx_LDO
AMx_LPR
SLx_LPR
AMx_DCDC
SLx_DCDC
1MCLK
3MCLKs
AM1_LDO
AM0_LDO
AM1_LPR
AM0_LPR
AM1_DCDC
AM0_DCDC
RESET
RTC_C_holdClock();
WDT_A_holdTimer(); PCM_setPowerState(PCM_LPM3);
Power_setPerformanceLevel(level)
Power_sleep()
Active-mode Transition
Sleep-mode Transition
Power Manager helps applications with entering/exiting various Low Power Modes modes and choosing among the various performance levels – AM_LDO_VCORE0, AM_DCDC_VCORE1.
Power Manager reduces a gnarly code sequence into a single function call!!!!
Application can pick the sleep mode and performance level and then the Power Manager will manage the rest in a thread-safe way.
Clocks get configured, Flash wait states and buffering modes, RTC and Watchdog are managed based on the performance level automatically
Simply ask power Manager these questions – “What are my clocks right now?” “What is my performance level?” “ Why can’t my system enter LPMx.5? What are my latencies to enter/exit LPM modes?” etc.
All TI-RTOS drivers use the Power Manager services. Drivers can give inputs to Power Manager on which sleep mode or performance level they can handle at any given time.Drivers can get notified by the Power Manager when sleep or performance events occur.

8. Energia MT ??
Single sketch code hard to write for multiple LEDs at different rates
Multiple sketches makes code clean and easy to write
Complex single sketches to simple multiple sketches
Run sketches in parallel
Automagic low power
The power of an RTOS for everybody without the complexity!
Easy to create interactive component libraries
See video!
Energia is the easy to use programming environment for micro controllers based on the Wiring framework, the same framework Arduino is based on.
Energia has a vibrant self supporting community of enthusiastic user and contributors
Using TI-RTOS as a foundation, Energia now supports multiple threads which make it easy for the applications to write modular code. Automagic low power comes with using TI-RTOS.
As seen in this slide, a complex sketch can be broken down into simpler sketches that run in parallel (i.e in diff threads)

9. Energia MT – Reuse of framework
TI-RTOS enables Energia to be ported to new devices rapidly!
Energia MT
Energia/Wiring API
UART
SPI
I2C
PWM
Device
TI-RTOS
Libraries
Sketches
Energia
This is the Energia Framework, To the left we see that Energia MT uses TI-RTOS that makes Energia even more portable across TI MCUs.

10. MSP432 & ARM RTX
Download Keil IDE from
Free for all
ARM RTX details
Run examples today on the MSP432 LaunchPad
Full suite of examples and CMSIS drivers coming soon
CMSIS compliant
Royalty Free
Small footprint <4K
Flexible Scheduling
Arm RTX supports MSP432.
ARM RTX comes as part of the ARM_MDK install at the link shown here.
Now lets talk about some of the key features and advantages of ARM RTX.
ARM RTX is free and comes installed with ARM_MDK.
2. RTX is specifically written for embedded systems based on ARM and Cortex-M MCUs.
It therefore runs quickly and has a very low memory footprint of around 4K bytes.
Detailed benchmarks are available on line.
3. ARM RTX follows the ARM CMSIS standard.
4. ARM RTX has a flexible scheduler which is deterministic and supports zero latency interrupts.
Scheduler can be per-emptive, co-operative or round-robin.
Pre-emptive - each task has a different priority and will run until a higher priority task is ready to run.
Round-Robin - each task will run for a fixed period of CPU run-time (time slice).
Co-operative - each task will run until it is told to pass control to another task or reaches a blocking OS call.
Default is round-robin pre-emptive. Tasks execute for the duration of their time-slice
If no other task with the same priority or higher is ready to run, the currently running task resumes it execution.
5. ARM RTX low power support specific to the MSP432 is coming soon.

11. Free, Modfiied GPL licence
MSP432 & FreeRTOS
Download FreeRTOS from
See the demo that runs on the MSP432 LaunchPad at OS_Demo.html
MPU support
Tickless
Free, Modfiied GPL licence
Lets talk about some of the key features and advantages of FreeRTOS
1. FreeRTOS is "free" and is provided with a Modified GPL license. This license makes the kernel source code remain open source, while allowing application code, drivers and middleware that just uses the kernel to remain closed if needed.
2. Its compiler agnostic and supports CCS, IAR, Keil, GCC and Tasking. Our-of box demo for CCS and IAR are available.
2. FreeRTOS uses prioritised preemptive scheduling with time slicing. That means the RTOS scheduler
will always run the highest priority task that is in the Ready state, and will
switch between tasks of equal priority on every RTOS tick interrupt. If
config parameter USE_TIME_SLICING is set to 0 then the RTOS scheduler will still
run the highest priority task that is in the Ready state, but will not switch
between tasks of equal priority just because a tick interrupt has occurred.
3. FreeRTOS supports tickless mode of operation and provides idle task hooks
for applications to enter low power modes.
4. SafeRTOS version available for safety critical applications.

12. MSP432 & Micrium OS
Built-in benchmarks
Download Micrium µC/OS-II from results/?searchterm=mi- msp432p401r&supported=true
Contact Micrium for pricing questions.
Certified for safety!
Micirum OS also supports MSP432. Micirum RTOS is a well known in safety-critical applications such as Avionics, Medical and Nuclear. MSP432 is supported in UCOS I and UCOS III RTOSes from Micirum.
Please contact Micirum for cost and licensing questions.

13. Backup

14. MSP432 TI-RTOS – Power Manager
Power Manager helps applications with
entering/exiting various LPM modes,
choosing among the various performance levels – AM_LDO_VCORE0, AM_DCDC_VCORE1 etc
Drivers can give inputs to Power Manager on which sleep mode or performance level they can handle at any given time.
Drivers can get notified by the Power Manager when sleep or performance events occur.
Application can pick the sleep mode and performance level and then the Power Manager will manage the rest in a thread-safe way.
Power and performance decisions are made in ONE place.
Clocks get configured based on requested performance level.
Flash wait states and buffering modes set automatically based on performance level.
RTC and Watchdog are managed to enter LPM3
Simply ask power Manager these questions – “What are my clocks right now?” “What is my performance level?” “ Why can’t my system enter LPMx.5? What are my latencies to enter/exit LPM modes?” etc.
All TI-RTOS drivers use the Power Manager services.

15. MSP432 TI-RTOS – Power Manager APIs
Init and setup
Power_init(); - Call once before other APIs at init time.
Power_enablePolicy();
Enable Power Manager – call once at init time.
Power_idleFunc(); - Add to idle loop or forever while(1).
Get/Set
Power_set/getPerformanceLevel();
Use this API to set various performance levels such as AM_DCDC_VCORE1, AM_DCDC_VCORE0 etc. This API also manages flash wait wait and buffering modes. Constarints are taken into account before entering a new performance level.
Power_register/unregisterNotify();
Register a function with the power manager to get notified on power events such as “about to sleep”, “waking up”. Apps can then manage their state/resources accordingly.
Power_set/releaseConstraint();
Use this API to prevent entry into Low Frequency Mode or prevent entry into LPMx.5.
Getters
Power_getConstraintMask(); -
Get constraints that can prevent power manager from entering a particular sleep state or performance level. This API will tell the application why the power Module did not allow entry into a particular sleep or performance state.
Goto to LPM
Power_shutdown();
API to enter LPMx.5.
Power_sleep();
API to enter LPM0, LPM3 or LPM4.

16. TI-RTOS Development Tools16

17. ARM RTX Development Tools
Leverage ARM standard CMSIS-DSP library