New realtime microkernel Sphere SP 2.0

05/14/2002

Today miray Software introduced a new realtime microkernel, named Sphere SP 2.0. Compared to its predecessor, it has been completely redesigned and delivers high realtime performance for 32-bit processors. At a size of only 21 KB, Sphere SP 2.0 is especially suitable for embedded systems. But due to its extreme scalability it's also well prepared for large systems.

The Sphere microkernel is already in use in the client/server OS µnOS, also developed by miray Software. Now miray Software offers the new version 2.0 of this microkernel as a stand-alone-product for licensing.
Sphere SP 2.0 allows fast and easy creation of multi-threaded realtime applications. Its field of application covers small and simple applications as well as huge and complex systems. Through the extraordinary low use of resources of Sphere SP 2.0 applications can already be realized with a minimum of 116 KB of RAM - incl. microkernel (!) - and a 386 processor.

The Sphere SP 2.0 microkernel combines the five principles realtime, scalability, stability, small size and simplicity in a completely new way: It provides a small, very compact kernel API with only 22 function calls, that can be quick and easily employed. The kernel itself is with only 21 KB a real microkernel. Sphere SP 2.0 executes system calls not only fast but also in realtime, i.e. within a firmly defined time interval. Nevertheless the system is fully scalable. Limitations are only defined by the used processor architecture.
An absolute innovation in Sphere SP 2.0 is the IRQ handling mechanism, which is performed outside the privileged kernel mode. This has crucial advantages: On the one hand drivers can't endanger the system's stability and reliability. On the other hand writing drivers becomes much easier.

For optimal employment on different platforms miray Software additionally provides a broad spectrum of options. Subsequently Sphere SP 2.0 can be adapted to the specific requirements in the best possible way. Besides others this in-cludes FPU support, different memory managers and processor-dependent kernel optimizations. The ease-of-use of Sphere SP 2.0 is also upgraded by the amount and quality of the available drivers and libraries. Furthermore miray Software offers the creation of customer specific drivers and libraries.

At the moment Sphere SP 2.0 already supports various processors of different manufacturers, including Intel, AMD and VIA. The amount of supported processors will be increased by miray in the future.

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