Mentor Graphics' next-gen Nucleus RTOS addresses power management and connectivity for embedded systems

Mentor Graphics Corporation has released the third generation of its Nucleus real time operating system (RTOS) with new power management, connectivity, and wireless communication features. Nucleus power management uses hardware features such as dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS), designed for power conscious, battery-powered applications. New connectivity features include a certified “IPv6 Ready” networking stack and security protocols, and the RTOS now offers a variety of wireless communication options such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee to enable faster time-to-market when developing connected devices.

The Nucleus RTOS supports a comprehensive set of architectures and processor families, including ARM, MIPS, Power PC, and SuperH, as well as DSPs and soft processor cores on FPGAs.

The new version delivers high performance while optimizing resource usage in a single-OS or multi-OS platform, making it a good choice for resource-constrained devices (frequency and memory), and for environments where squeezing out every cycle-per-watt is critical across any system architecture.

Through single API calls, application developers can use the built-in power management capability in the Nucleus product to accomplish complex tasks like changing system states or switching operating points in a portable and re-usable way. This saves them from having to implement and maintain highly complex scenarios within their application code. The Nucleus RTOS also includes a new configuration technology that enables developers to immediately and easily customize system requirements.


The third-generation Nucleus RTOS has been extended into the Mentor Embedded Nucleus ReadyStart platform, integrating software IP, developer tools, and services to provide a single ready-to-use solution for applications where fast boot time, deterministic performance, and small code size are essential. With the Nucleus ReadyStart platform, developers can create a board-specific application development environment in just ten minutes. It includes the Mentor Embedded Sourcery CodeBench technology, GNU-based integrated development environment (IDE), and the Mentor Embedded Inflexion UI tool for dynamic 2D/3D user interface creation.

For further information on the new Nucleus-based technologies, visit the company website at www.mentor.com/nucleus.

Toni McConnel covers new products in the embedded systems industry and is a partner in the technical writing team TechRite Associates. She can be reached at Toni@TechRite-Associates.com.