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Last site update May 1 2013

FreeRTOS™

Don't let your RTOS solution lock you in - FreeRTOS is the easy to use, high quality, cross platform standard for microcontrollers. 33 architectures - 18 toolchains, millions of product deployments - just 1 market leading RTOS.

* Immediate Free Download * Feature Rich * Easy To Use Pre-configured Projects * Can be (and is) Used in Commercial Applications * Massive User Community * Free Monitored Support Forum * Optional Commercial Licensing/Support * Strict Coding Standard * Safety Critical Version Available * Tiny Footprint *Tickless Mode for Low Power Applications


FreeRTOSTM is a market leading real time operating system (or RTOS) from Real Time Engineers Ltd. that supports 33 architectures and receives 103000 downloads a year. It is professionally developed, strictly quality controlled, robust, supported, and free to use in commercial products without any requirement to expose your proprietary source code. Why would you choose anything else?
The FreeRTOS value proposition . . .
Things you might not know about FreeRTOS . . .

Latest News . . .

FreeRTOS+Trace™

"In less than 5 days from running the tool, we improved the performance of our graphic rendering engine by 3x!" - Terry West, Serious Integrated Inc.

FreeRTOS+TraceTM (part of the FreeRTOS+ ecosystem showcase) is a sophisticated trace tool for FreeRTOS. With 15 graphically interconnected views, FreeRTOS+Trace provides a world leading level of insight into the run-time behaviour of your FreeRTOS application. It has become an indispensable debugging and optimisation tool.


OpenRTOS®
OpenRTOS is a commercially licensed and supported version of FreeRTOS that includes fully featured professional grade USB, file system and TCP/IP components. OpenRTOS is provided by a global engineering company under license from Real Time Engineers Ltd.
SafeRTOS®
SafeRTOS (part of the FreeRTOS+ ecosystem showcase) is a SIL3 TUV certified RTOS for the safety critical market. SafeRTOS is provided by a global engineering company under license from Real Time Engineers Ltd.

SafeRTOS is delivered as source code, with as much or little certification evidence as required. Certification packs and design history files are available that specifically target applications that fall under IEC 61508, EN62304 and FDA 510(k) regulatory requirements.

SafeRTOS has been specifically designed for the (primarily 32-bit) microcontroller market, resulting in a design that is highly optimised for use in applications where a small code size footprint is essential. The SafeRTOS ROM footprint is typically in the 7K to 14K bytes range.


 

Did you know?

  • FreeRTOS came top in class in the 2011, 2012 and 2013 EETimes embedded systems market surveys in two categories: The RTOS kernel currently being used, and the RTOS kernel being considered for the next project!
  • Some FreeRTOS ports never completely disable interrupts.
  • For strict quality control purposes, and to remove all IP ownership ambiguity, official FreeRTOS code is separated from community contributions.
  • FreeRTOS has a tick-less mode to directly support low power applications.
  • FreeRTOS was downloaded 103000 times in 2012.
  • FreeRTOS is designed to be simple and easy to use: Only 3 source files that are common to all RTOS ports, and one microcontroller specific source file are required, and its API is designed to be simple and intuitive.
  • FreeRTOS offers lower project risks and a lower total cost of ownership than commercial alternatives because:
    • It is fully supported and documented.
    • Most people take products to market without ever contacting us, but with the complete peace of mind that they could opt to switch to a fully indemnified commercial license (with dedicated support) at any time.
  • The RL78 port can create 13 tasks, 2 queues and 4 software timers in under 4K bytes of RAM!
 

Latest News Snippets:

  • FreeRTOS V7.4.0 has been released, with a new queue set feature, and enhanced tick-less low power support.
  • Atmel add highly efficient and thread aware FreeRTOS drivers into their Atmel Software Framework (ASF). View the application note for details.
  • Photos from FreeRTOS training at the Microchip Masters technical training conference: photo #1, photo #2, photo #3, photo #4.

  • All news snippets...
 

Why choose FreeRTOS?
"It's probably safe to say at this point that FreeRTOS goes through more 'peer-review' than any other RTOS available on the planet. I have used it in several projects - one of which was a multiprocessor environment that used more than 64 processors and needed to run for months reliably. The RTOS core performed well. Take FreeRTOS for a spin." - John Westmoreland

FreeRTOS is a risk free choice, providing the best of all worlds: FreeRTOS is truly free, even for use in commercial applications. The FreeRTOS license does not pose any risk to your proprietary software. You can take a product to market using FreeRTOS without even talking to us, let alone paying any fees, and thousands of people do just that. If, at any time, you would like to receive additional backup, or if your legal team require additional written guarantees or indemnification, then there is a simple low cost commercial upgrade path. Your peace of mind comes with the knowledge that you can opt to take the commercial route at any time you choose.

Here are some reasons why FreeRTOS is a good choice for your next application - FreeRTOS...

  • Provides one solution for many different architectures and development tools.
  • Is known to be reliable. Confidence is assured by the activities undertaken by the SafeRTOS sister project.
  • Is undergoing continuous active development.
  • Has a minimal ROM, RAM and processing overhead. Typically an RTOS kernel binary image will be in the region of 4K to 9K bytes.
  • Is very simple - the core of the RTOS kernel is contained in only 3 C files. The majority of the many files included in the .zip file download relate only to the numerous demonstration applications.
  • Is truly free for use in commercial applications (see license conditions for details).
  • Comes with a porting, platform development, or application development service should it be required.
  • Is well established with a large and ever growing user base.
  • Contains a pre-configured example for each port. No need to figure out how to setup a project - just download and compile!
  • Has an excellent, monitored, and active free support forum.
  • Has the assurance that commercial support is available should it be required.
  • Provides ample documentation.
  • Is very scalable, simple and easy to use.
  • FreeRTOS offers a smaller and easier real time processing alternative for applications where eCOS, embedded Linux (or Real Time Linux) and even uCLinux won't fit, are not appropriate, or are not available.


FreeRTOS Announcements Mailing List

You can keep up to date with very occasional FreeRTOS announcements by adding yourself to the FreeRTOS mailing list. Emails are infrequent and kept short. We respect your privacy, so do not provide email addresses to any third party. Every email sent contains unsubscribe instructions.



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Microchip Premier RTOS Partner
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Atmel RTOS partner supporting ARM Cortex-M3 and AVR32 microcontrollers
Texas Instruments MCU Developer Network RTOS partner for ARM and MSP430 microcontrollers
Freescale Alliance RTOS Member supporting ARM and ColdFire microcontrollers
Cypress RTOS partner supporting ARM Cortex-M3
STMicro RTOS partner supporting ARM7, ARM Cortex-M3, ARM Cortex-M4 and ARM Cortex-M0
Fujitsu RTOS partner supporting ARM Cortex-M3 and FM3
Microsemi (previously Actel) RTOS partner supporting ARM Cortex-M3
Atollic Partner
IAR Partner
Keil ARM Partner
Code Red
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