RTX Support

The SDK provides an implementation of an extension to ARM Keil RTX that is referred to as tickless mode. It allows waking up the MCU only when it is needed.

Limitations

You should be aware of the following limitations when using RTX:

• nRF51 does not have a SysTick timer. Therefore, RTC1 is used instead.
• To provide the early wake-up mechanism, the rtos_suspend variable must be cleared in every interrupt handler that uses system services. See Examples for a code example.

• All interrupts are passed to the application through the SoftDevice, which generates additional interrupt latency. See the SoftDevice and RTX specification for more information.

  The following table lists the additional latency according to the specifications for RTX (V4.74) and S110 nRF51822 (v1.2):

  Interrupt	S110 (CPU cycles)	RTX (CPU cycles)
  Open peripheral interrupt	50	< 20
  Blocked or restricted peripheral interrupt	63	< 20
  Application SVC interrupt	14	≈ 35

Cooperation with the SoftDevice

RTX shares the SVC interrupt with the SoftDevice. Therefore, it works on the same interrupt priority (UpperStack) as the SoftDevice API functions.

Examples

This example shows how to use the system function in interrupt handlers.

Warning

You must always clear the rtos_suspend variable in interrupt handlers that use RTX functions. Not clearing it might cause undefined behaviour.

void ***_IRQHandler(void);
{
    /**
    *implementation of handler
    */
    rtos_suspend = 0;
    osSignalSet (thread_id, SIGNAL); //example of system function
}

The following example applications demonstrate the use of RTX:

Blinky RTX Example

Heart Rate Application with RTX