RTX
RTX® – Real-time Extension for Control of Windows®.
 RTX Datasheet (pdf)
Ardence RTX is the only software solution architected as a high-performance extension to control Microsoft Windows. RTX is proven in thousands of demanding applications providing enhanced performance, control, scalability combined with unmatched dependability for: industrial automation; military/aerospace; test and measurement equipment; robotics; and many other industries while reducing system costs and speeding time to market.
Overview
RTX is specifically designed as a real-time extension to the Windows operating system. It is not an RTOS ported to Windows. RTX provides precise control of IRQs, I/O, and memory to ensure that
specified tasks execute with proper priority and 100% reliability. By operating in Ring 0, RTX ensures the highest performance and requires minimal configuration, supporting sustained interrupt rates of
30 KHz with an average IST latency of less than one microsecond.
Software engineers using RTX benefit from optimized tools that simplify development by providing the information to quickly and accurately troubleshoot and resolve development issues.
RTX is built as a Win32 extension in Ring 3 to utilize memory protection, and can be recompiled as a real-time sub-system (RTSS) in Ring 0, where performance can be optimized.
RTX Architecture
RTX architecture is a true extension in that it does not encapsulate Windows and does not interfere with, or modify any of the Windows infrastructure. By maintaining this separation, the RTX real-time sub-system (RTSS) ensures that RTX-based applications survive Windows crashes or “blue screens.”
The RTX real-time sub system is designed around a high-speed scheduler that utilizes both prioritydriven and preemptive algorithms. RTX supports up to 1,000 independent processes, with each
process supporting unlimited threads. Fine-grained control over applications is assured with 256 levels of assignable thread priority. The scheduler guarantees that critical thread context switches and yields to threads of higher priority occur in the 500 nanosecond to less than two microsecond range.
To facilitate data communications between RTX processes and Win32 applications, RTX utilizes a shared memory and synchronization IPC mechanism. Using a shared memory model, IPC can share large amounts of data with no performance degradation.
Precise execution of events is critical in a real-time system. To support this precision, RTX provides three clocks on which to base event timers. Clock resolution, depending on the clock used, can be as precise as .001nanosecond without any drift. Timer intervals supported are 100, 200, 500 and 1000 microseconds.
(Click to Enlarge Image)
Performance and Scalability
From IST latency, to clocks and timers, to the scheduler, to the IPC mechanism and thread prioritization – every component in RTX is optimized for performance. Developers can be confident that their applications built on RTX will perform as specified right out of the box, no performance tuning is required.
By supporting interrupt frequencies of 30 KHz or greater, RTX can easily scale within a single PC platform. This means that there is no requirement for distributed processing or additional hardware or runtime licenses. This enables significant cost savings.
Development Environment
By providing a comprehensive suite of tools that integrates smoothly into the well-known Microsoft IDE, Visual Studio, software developers can significantly reduce development and debugging time. These tools provide the ability to interactively view the application in real time to understand the interactions between hardware, RTX and the RTSS application, to easily debug and analyze application behavior.
RTX Development Environment Plug-Ins
RT TCP/IP: High-performance TCP/IP networking for RTX applications.
RTX USB: USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 support in the real-time environment.
RTX Application + Device Driver Wizards: allow developers to define the configuration of RTX that best suits the application. In addition, developers can precisely specify the framework for an RTX based application.
RTSS ObjectViewer: provides access to internal RTX objects in real time to inform the developer of the status and usage of memory, interrupts and threads, and presents them in a graphical display.
TimeView: displays the interactions between processes and thread usage within RTX and RTX-based applications. Presents in a text file, all thread switches, context switches and yields along with event tracking data.
RTX Debugger and Data Extension: is a powerful plug-in to Microsoft's Kernel Debugger–WinDbg. It provides access to internal RTX data structures.
PerformanceView: monitors CPU utilization for both Windows and RTX, increasing visibility to the developer for RTX-based application CPU usage.
Platform Evaluator: A software tool to document and characterize the real-time capabilities of a uniprocessor Windows® system with RTX installed.
Key Features
- Robust, High-performance Windows RTOS Extension in Ring 0: sustained interrupt rates of 30 KHz
- Smallest operational footprint - 250KB
- Support for all standard Microsoft HALs: including ACPI compliant PIC, uni-processor and multi-processor APIC
- Comprehensive Microsoft Windows operating system support: Windows XP Pro, XP Embedded, 2000, Server 2000 and Server 2003
- Win32 API compliant: no need to use code wrappers for API mapping
- Complete IA X86 CPU support: Pentium II, Pentium III, Pentium 4, Pentium 4 Multicore, Pentium M, Xenon, as well as AMD CPUs – single CPU and multiprocessor in either shared or dedicated operation
- Microsoft’s Visual Studio 6.0, .NET 2002, .NET 2003 and 2005: develop, compile and debug in the standard Windows development environment
- Priority Inversion Avoidance with Promotion: ensures that lower priority threads do not impact application
performance
- Priority-driven or preemptive scheduling: assignable on a per thread basis
- WinSock compliant TCP/IP stack: independent of Windows
- High-speed Inter-Process Communication (IPC) mechanism
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