ARC International

Software & Tools

MQX RTOS

Deploy with Operating Systems Optimized for ARC® IP

MQX Software has helped leading companies bring embedded products to market for over 20 years. The MQX RTOS offers a highly optimized application development platform designed for speed and size efficiency, with specific support for ARC processors. The MQX RTOS is at the center of a wide array of MQX software protocol stacks, file systems and other run-time components, all compatible with the MQX RTOS that enhance the capabilities of today's advanced embedded devices.

ARC's royalty-free MQX RTOS includes full source code with each license and offers many comprehensive features that support reliability, deterministic performance, reconfiguration and multiprocessing. The scalable design allows MQX users to pick the components and features they require from MQX and prevents unused features from being included in the RTOS memory footprint. At less than 6 KB in size, the MQX RTOS is small enough to replace a home-grown scheduler while still providing a much more comprehensive feature set.

MQX includes support for ARC Energy PRO Technology, allowing the application to control power at a fine-grained level, even down to individual threads. Size-critical applications can use the MetaWare Automatic Overlay Manager (AOM), even in a multi-tasking environment, since MQX has specific support for AOM built-in.

Benefits


  • MQX RTOS – highly optimized for ARC® subsystems and configurable ARC® cores
  • Small and fast real-time operating system for deeply-embedded designs
  • Compact (~6k), configurable and scalable microkernel architecture
  • Reliable operation, fast real-time response
  • Proven in thousands of systems over decades of development
  • Comprehensive, easy to use API and features
  • Configurable-CPU aware: When users add and remove features from their ARC hardware configuration, the RTOS capabilities must be adjusted as well. MQX includes support for ARC DSP extensions (XY memory, MUL/MAC units, etc), core extension registers, and ARC peripheral devices (Timers, UARTs).
  • Multiprocessing support – inter-processor communications interface over a highly abstracted physical interface
  • Easily enable Energy PRO power management capabilities
  • Use with MetaWare’s Automatic Overlay Manager – even in a multi-tasking system!
  • Includes board support packages for use on ARCangel FPGA development platforms and MetaWare ISS simulator
  • Includes full source to enable full user configuration control and optimization
  • Powerful MQX Host Tools included for debugging, performance analysis and prototyping
  • Up and running right out of the box with MetaWare IDE, compiler and debugger
  • Minimize risk by taking advantage of ARC's excellent support and services: Single point of support for both hardware and software!
  • Royalty-free licensing

MQX Diagram



Click for larger view.

With MQX’s function-level scalability, all API functions outside of the central core are only included in the linked image if they are explicitly called by the application. This, along with dozens of compile-time configuration options (also grouped into sets), gives the application developer maximum control over the memory footprint of MQX.

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Use the MQX RTOS Instead of a Scheduler


At less than 6 KB in size, the MQX RTOS is small enough to replace a home-grown scheduler while still providing a much more comprehensive feature set.

Architecture Minimum
Code Size*		 Context Switch Time Interrupt Latency
ARC® 600 5.2 kB 3.417 μs
(Measured on 48 MHz FPGA, 32K caches) 		2.054 μs
(Measured on 48 MHz FPGA, 48K caches)
ARC® 700 5.3 kB 2.09 μs
(Measured on 95 MHz FPGA, 32K caches) 		1.59 μs
(Measured on 95 MHz FPGA, 32K caches)

*Includes – interrupt handler, scheduler, memory manager, micro-kernel, task management, time management, processor and board support package

Detailed timing and code size reports are available from ARC upon request.

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MQX-EP and MQX RTOS Processor and Board Support


The MQX-EP RTOS is available with ARC Energy PRO Technology. The MQX RTOS is available for the full range of ARC® 600 and ARC 700 configurable processors. End-users can easily configure the MQX RTOS to support any configuration.

Board Support Packages (BSPs) are available for the ARCangel 4 FPGA development system as well as the MetaWare® Instruction Set Simulator. Users can modify MQX RTOS BSPs easily to support changes in the user’s ARC-Based™ SoC configuration.

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MQX Host Tools for Windows


The MQX RTOS also comes with the MQX Host Tools. This set of advanced embedded development tools includes:

  • MQX Task Aware Debugging (TAD) for MetaWare® - Integrated into the MetaWare Debugger, TAD provides intimate details of the embedded system, giving visibility into MQX’s data structures via easy-to-understand displays. You can view task summaries, the state of individual tasks, and details on queues, messages, semaphores, memory and memory partitions; Full access to all MQX data through easy-to-understand displays!
  • EDS client - allows many of the same task-aware-debugging features as TAD without a standalone debugger, using a TCP/IP or serial connection to a running target.
  • Performance Tool - analyzes application execution and performance from the perspective of the RTOS (and the MQX RTCS™ Internet stack, if present), generating detailed actionable performance information from kernel logs, with full visibility into state transitions, events, mutexes, messages, semaphores, clock, scheduler, task creation/destruction, interrupts and RTCS calls.
  • Design Tool - GUI-based source-generation tool for rapid prototyping to quickly create MQX RTOS and RTCS-based applications.


ARC also offers the following enhancements to the MQX RTOS, when application requirements dictate:

  • MQX Microsoft-compatible File System (MFS) - a portable, compatible implementation of the Microsoft MS-DOS file system. Provides a library of MS-DOS-compatible file-system functions for embedded applications.
  • MQX RTCS™ Embedded Internet Stack - Proven in embedded networked products for over 10 years, MQX RTCS is a fast, efficient embedded Internet stack supporting a rich set of standard protocols.
  • MQX Portable Embedded GUI (PEG) Library - a professional quality graphical user interface library. MQX PEG is small, fast, and easily ported to virtually any hardware configuration capable of supporting graphical output. PEG delivers exceptional visual appeal and an intuitive and powerful API for application-level user interface development.

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Support for ARC Energy PRO Technology


MQX contains features that allow software developers to exploit the full power-saving capability of the Energy PRO Technology. MQX includes a software API that allows designers to program Energy PRO’s power management unit and optimize the power settings for a given application.

In additional to its power management features MQX’s small memory footprint saves power by reducing the amount of system memory needed. The low overhead of MQX allows developers to take advantage of the benefits of using an RTOS without a significant performance or memory overhead.

Highlights of MQX’s Energy PRO extensions

  • Easy-to-use development environment for low power applications
  • Provides software interface for Energy PRO power management features
  • Automatic DVFS mode intelligently controls features of the Energy PRO Power Management Unit (PMU)
  • Allows control of power-down options and Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS)
  • Dynamically adjusts RTOS timer period to enable longer power down cycles
  • MetaWare® MQX-aware debugging displays power management related information
  • Logging and display of Energy PRO PMU events and energy usage can be used to fine tune PMU settings

 

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MQX Performance Tool with Power Management Analysis

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MQX Software Evaluation Kit for ARC Processors


The MQX RTOS Evaluation Kit for ARC Processors lets users evaluate ARC’s proven MQX RTOS and the unique and powerful MQX Host Tools. MQX Software evaluation kits for ARC processors are available for Windows hosts, and provide the following key components:

  • MQX RTOS- pre-built binary libraries with full API
  • MQX Host Tools
  • MQX RTOS-aware plug-in for the MetaWare Debugger
  • Source code for example applications
  • Documentation
  • Drivers
  • Support for MetaWare ISS and ARCangel targets
  • Tight integration with MetaWare Development Toolkit - works out of the box with full and evaluation versions of MWDT (installed separately)
  • Available for Windows Hosts



MQX Software Evaluation Kit Downloads:


For all ARC 700 processor cores

Download the MQX Embedded MetaWare Evaluation Kit for ARC 700 Cores


For all ARC 600 processor cores

Download the MQX Embedded MetaWare Evaluation Kit for ARC 600 Cores