The Benefits of RTOSes in the Embedded IoT

RTOSes will play a greater role in embedded microcontroler designs for the Internet of Things as developers migrate from 8-bit and 16-bit to 32-bit MCUs where there will be requirements for enhanced device functionality, low cost and higher performance.

By William E. Lamie, Sept. 04, 2015 – 

Industry estimates predict there will be 25 Billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices shipping by the year 2019 (source: Business Insider). Since an IoT device will require some type of network connectivity (e.g., Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE, ZigBee, Ethernet), and many will also include a graphical user interface (GUI), these new IoT devices generally will require 32-bit microprocessors in order to provide the necessary address space and processing power to support such connectivity and a responsive GUI.

There already is strong migration from 8-bit and 16-bit microprocessors due to requirements for enhanced device functionality as well as the attractive cost/performance attributes of new 32-bit microprocessors. The predicted IOT explosion promises to sharply accelerate this migration.

On the hardware front, the migration to 32-bit processors is clear, but what about the software side? Just the increased connectivity requirements alone necessitate the execution of communication protocol stacks on the 32-bit embedded microprocessor, which in turn necessitates the use of a real-time operating system (RTOS).

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