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TI-RTOS or SafeRTOS??

Doug Wendelboe
Prodigy 50 points

I just noticed TI's announcement of the TI-RTOS product. I recently completed a Stellaris application using the ROM-based SafeRTOS (FreeRTOS) in December 2012. Now I am about to start another similar project. Before I start, however, I am wondering which RTOS I should use. Should I continue to invest efforts in SafeRTOS or should I consider TI-RTOS for this next project?

How do the two RTOS's are fit into the TI processor line. Are they competing, or is one better suited for a particular processor family than the other? SafeRTOS is built into the ROM of the Stellaris '96 I used. Will that continue to be true, or will TI eventually migrate to TI-RTOS?

  • 0
    TI__Expert 5560 points

    Doug:

    The most important difference between SafeRTOS (which isn't the same as FreeRTOS) and TI-RTOS is that SafeRTOS has been safety-certified and has certification kits available. TI-RTOS does not so if you are doing applications that require safety certification, it is better to use an RTOS like SafeRTOS that has these attributes. If you are not doing safety-certified applications then there is no major advantage of SafeRTOS over TI-RTOS. One potential advantage of TI-RTOS is that includes no-cost TCP/IP and USB stacks and a file system so if you need this type of middleware, you don't need to buy it.

    In terms of SafeRTOS being in the ROM, it won't be in the upcoming Stellaris devices because these are not aimed at safety critical applications. I believe we may have ARM Cortex-R4-based microcontrollers aimed at safety-critical apps that will offer SafeRTOS in ROM as an option.

    Our OS strategy will be to have multiple RTOS offerings available on our microcontrollers. Some will be free of charge (e.g. TI-RTOS, FreeRTOS, ...) but others will require the purchase of a commercial license from the appropriate vendor.

    Nick

  • 0 in reply to Nick Lethaby
    Prodigy 50 points

    Nick:

    Thanks for your response to my question on SafeRTOS vs TI-RTOS. I wasn't aware that SafeRTOS will not to be included in future Cortex M-3 products. I used it in my last LM3S9B96 project simply because it was already there in ROM. Your new release of TI-RTOS seems to be the way to go for me on future products. The TCP/IP and USB stacks included in TI-RTOS are a nice bonus. I'm anxious to see how the TCP/IP stack compares with the LwIP stack I used last time.

    I guess that since TI-RTOS was just recently announced that TI is still assembling it's information and webpages on the package. I see that TI-RTOS contains the old SYS/BIOS package. I thought that SYS/BIOS was previously associated with your DSP line. Has SYS/BIOS been revamped for use with ARM processors? Is TI-RTOS a separate side package to SYS/BIOS, or is it tightly integrated into TI-RTOS as a whole? When will a User's Manual, examples, and other supporting materials be available for TI-RTOS?

    Doug

  • 0 in reply to Doug Wendelboe
    TI__Expert 5560 points

    TI-RTOS information and downloads are available here:

    http://www.ti.com/tool/ti-rtos

    There is a detailed getting started documentation etc included in the download.

    TI-RTOS is based on SYS/BIOS. SYS/BIOS represents the latest generation of DSP/BIOS in which we also ported the kernel across multiple ARM cores.

    The TCP/IP stack for TI-RTOS and LWIP are pretty comparable.Note that the default settings for the TI-RTOS TCP/IP stack are too RAM-heavy for many MCU apps. You can change these of course and we'll be changing the defaults in a future release.

     

     

  • 0 in reply to Nick Lethaby
    Prodigy 50 points

    Thanks, Nick for your clarification on TI-RTOS. I look forward to using it in my next project.

  • 0 in reply to Nick Lethaby
    Prodigy 100 points

    Nick,

    I wish I'd found this thread about TI-RTOS vs SafeRTOS a couple months ago.  We've been toggling back and forth between the two as we consider how to go forward with our designs.  The SafeRTOS demo/example code has been a wonderful springboard for our efforts, but the lack of easy USB and FAT access has been a serious bother.

    Can you please tell us what the plans are for continued support of SafeRTOS in the LM3S9D96 line?  If it's going to be end-of-lifed, then we really need to know that.

    John

  • 0 in reply to John Ivory1
    Prodigy 100 points

    By way of update, we just learned that SafeRTOS is not included with the LM3S9D96 chip.  According to the rep from High Integrity Systems, it is included only for the *B96 line.  (They had sent emails to us indicating back and forth on this issue.)

    I wish this had been a LOT clearer.