This morning I received an e-mail from an embedded software developer. It read in part:
We are trying to find the best case, average, and worst-case context switch times for the ThreadX and eCOS real-time operating systems. I have searched the Internet extensively. I found one source stating that the ThreadX context switch time can be under 1 microsecond, but it was unclear if that was the best-case, average, or worst-case timing. Can you help us?
As questions like this keep coming, I shall respond via this blog.
None of the timings sought (even the 1 microsecond timing found online) can be calculated without knowledge of the specific processor family, clock speed, and memory architecture. Context switch code is generally written in assembly language and mostly consists of pushing a number of CPU register contents to RAM and popping older data from RAM into registers. The primary factors in context switch timing are the number of opcodes involved, the speed of their execution, and RAM access speeds.
Note though that even for a given hardware platform, I am unaware of any analytical use of any but the worst-case context switch timings for an RTOS. ThreadX purveyor ExpressLogic should, like any RTOS vendor, be willing and able to provide a prospective customer an estimate of the worst-case context switch timing on their planned hardware. But you will want to validate that number on your final hardware before performing Rate Monotonic Analysis (RMA) to prove that all critical deadlines will be met.
Related Article: How to Choose a Real-Time Operating System.
