At Embedded Power, we have built the most dependable hard Real-Time OS products used by embedded application developers for the past twenty-two years. But our real work is helping our customers overcome obstacles to success.
So, when we create RTOS products, we focus not just on innovative technology. We deliver that innovative technology in products built on new thinking - about how we can give you the power to resolve your real-world business problems. We're not just building the smallest, fastest, most powerful RTOS available. We're redefining all of the things an RTOS should be. We want you to "Feel the Power" of our embedded application solutions by helping you help yourself. To win, you'll need a clear path to cross that future finish line.

Staffing Discontinuities

Unforeseen staffing changes have major repercussions, and usually at the most inconvenient times. When your scheduler programmer decides to follow his star - and starts his very own weasel ranch in Death Valley - will another staff member be able to create necessary scheduler updates? Will that successor understand how that custom scheduler's capabilities can best be implemented?

Inflexible Custom Scheduler or Commercial RTOS

You need a clear path to cross a future finish line, and that path to product growth is often obstructed by:

• A shortsighted or inaccessible custom scheduler design. (Go back to problem #1. Spend more time and money - or call your local Rent-A-Weasel) Perhaps you have discovered that your once-elegant embedded application is held hostage by a ragged patchwork of conversion tables and other artificial constructs?
• A stiff and over-simplified first-generation commercial RTOS Perhaps your current commercial RTOS' interrupt latency or context-switching is causing stack a depth that could sink the Titanic? Many awkward, oversimplified RTOS strategies force you application to allocate huge amounts of stack. Each new task or interrupt causes that RTOS to save the entire stack of past contents!

Either situation is unpleasant and expensive to correct.
You say that RAM is free? We don't think so. And, timely access of microcontroller RAM in your system is subject to wait states and other mystery cycles that are already part of that iceberg. They're below the water line, where you can't see them.

Could your investment in re-worked application code sink the Titanic? It could sink YOU.

You need help. Soon.

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Can you identify any of the following conditions within your embedded applications development business environment?

"Can't Justify Commercial RTOS Costs" vs. "More Unplanned Scheduler Revisions"

Many development teams choose to write their own simple scheduler because they can't justify the costs of a first-generation commercial RTOS. Because their applications don't require extensive services, they argue "Why stick a big footprint in memory that causes more lost CPU cycles?" Or, worse, "Why pay for that RTOS even if we can shrink that footprint to fit the system's requirements?"
We're here to tell you that the simple scheduler you're building today will not deliver the complex networking capabilities you will need tomorrow.

Why? The nature of implementing custom scheduler solutions causes a tight focus on an application's current needs. Much less emphasis is placed on planning ahead. If project time is allotted to plan for scheduler changes in response to product growth, those precious hours will vaporize as project deadlines approach the flash point. Continued dependence on customization of your schedulers lengthens the time-to-market factor and increases exposure to unforeseen business risks, like changes in staffing.