Introduction to embARC OSP

Overview

The embARC Open Software Platform (OSP) consists of software and documentation to accelerate the development of embedded systems based on DesignWare ARC processors.

• Comprehensive suite of free and open-source software, including drivers, operating systems, middleware and utilities for embedded software development on DesignWare® ARC® processors for IoT applications
• Includes ports of FreeRTOS and Contiki OS operating systems
• Open-source networking (TCP/IP, IPv4, IPv6, 6lowPAN) and Security (TLS/DTLS) protocol stack support
• Packaged with common IoT protocol implementations, including MQTT, CoAP and LWM2M
• Supported by free open source GNU Toolchain and premium MetaWare tools
• Dedicated website with downloads, documentation and user forums

embARC OSP Software

The embARC OSP includes drivers, operating systems, middleware, and utilities ported to the ARC EM family of processors. It provides developers with the choice of leading real-time operating systems (RTOSes) including FreeRTOS, Contiki OS and ARC MQX RTOS (contact Synopsys representative for more information).

FreeRTOS is a scalable, compact and reliable operating system that is extremely popular among embedded software developers. Accompanying middleware and utilities include the TCP/IP stack lwIP, file system fatfs as well as TLS/DTLS, MQTT, CoAP, libcoap and LWM2M IoT protocol implementations. The Contiki OS is specifically designed for networked, memory-constrained systems such as low-power, wireless IoT applications. It comes with a middleware package that has an integrated IoT protocol stack including MQTT, a publish/subscribe messaging protocol for lightweight machine-to-machine communications, and the CoAP application layer protocol for resource-constrained IoT applications.

Tools

Free software development tools built on the open-source Eclipse IDE and GNU toolchain are available for use with the embARC Open Software Platform, giving developers a flexible software environment with an IDE, compiler, debugger and utilities that are familiar to embedded developers.

The embARC OSP software is also supported by the commercially-available Synopsys ARC MetaWare Development Toolkit, providing developers the option to use a highly optimized toolchain for maximum code density and performance.

ARC EM Processors

Synopsys' DesignWare ARC processors are 32-bit CPUs that SoC designers can optimize for a wide range of uses, from deeply embedded to high-performance host applications in a variety of market segments. The ARC EM processor family is based on the scalable ARCv2 Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) and is optimized for performance efficiency (DMIPS/mW and DMIPS/mm2). The EM processors are highly-configurable and extensible, enabling designers to implement each core with the optimum combination of performance, code density, area and power consumption for the specific task or application.

ARC EM Starter Kit

The embARC Open Software Platform has been ported to Synopsys' ARC EM Starter Kit, a low-cost, versatile software development board consisting of pre-installed FPGA images of ARC EM Processors with peripherals and a software package. The ARC EM Starter Kit enables rapid software development, code porting, software debugging, and profiling for the EM4, EM6, EM5D, EM7D, EM9D and EM11D processors.