Talon 5500

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Talon 5500

Talon 5500 Evaluation Version

Overview of the Talon 5500 Operating System

Realtime System	Uniprocessor System	Multiprogrammed System	Multithreaded System
TALON 5500 is a realtime operating system which supports scheduling of program entities executing in parallel in such a way that deadlines are met and application programs respond to external events in a bounded time. Realtime features include all POSIX specifications such as high-resolution timer management, sophisticated interrupt management, priority thread scheduling, realtime signals, and a number of communication and synchronization facilities with timeout capability.	TALON 5500 is a uniprocessor operating system supporting one DSP executing operating system and application code. It is assumed that the target system consists of one TMS320C55x DSP, ROM as well as External and/or Internal DSP RAM.	TALON 5500 is a multiprogrammed operating system that supports loading and execution of parallel POSIX processes, which are separate program modules allowing the application to be split to a group of relatively independent tasks executing concurrently and using the operating system services to synchronize their activities.	TALON 5500 is a multithreaded operating system which supports multiple threads of control within a single process, allowing the programmer to exploit the inherent parallelism in the application and to divide it into a set of activities executing in parallel in a tightly coupled manner. The supported thread model are the POSIX threads.

Operating System Capabilities

System ROM Image

Shared Libraries

Device Drivers

File Systems

In addition to serving as a repository for kernel and application code and data of an embedded system, the system ROM Image File may be used during system development and debugging stage, because this file may be loaded into a target system and the program modules it consists from may be debugged using a conventional source code debugger tool. The following types of Program Modules are supported by the system ROM image format.

.	Process Modules.
.	Process Driver Modules.
.	Shared Library Modules.
.	Library Driver Modules.
.	Kernel Extension Modules.

TALON 5500 provides facilities for sharing program code and data between program modules by means of Shared Libraries. The shared library mechanism offers a significant saving in program memory as compared with the regular linkable libraries. Shared libraries are automatically loaded when a process module or another shared library module that needs them is loaded. When several modules need the same shared library, the already loaded copy of the shared library is used. When no longer referenced, shared libraries are automatically unloaded to free memory resources.

The TALON 5500 operating system provides a mechanism to dynamically attach loadable Device Drivers modules. Support for generic character and block device drivers is provided by the device driver interface. In addition, a dedicated interface and supporting line discipline shared libraries are provided for TTY Device Drivers. A Pseudo-TTY device driver is supplied that offers a terminal support through the host device driver interface.

The TALON 5500 operating system provides a mechanism to dynamically attach loadable File Systems as kernel extension modules. Three different file systems are implemented:

.	Memory File System. Serves as the root of the file system hierarchy.
.	ROM File System. Supported implicitly for the system ROM Image.

Windows Host File System. For customization a Host Device Driver in the target system and a Target Device Driver in the host machine have to be developed.

Operating System Kernel

Design Limits

Unbounded Kernel Limits

Compilation Limits

Build Configuration Parameters

.	Approximately 100KB kernel code size.
.	Nearly 200 system calls.
.	Nearly 300 library functions.
.	32 priority levels for threads and messages.
.	32 different signals (from these 12 are real-time signals).
.	23 characters name length for named kernel objects.

.	Number of threads per process.
.	Number of timers per process.
.	Number of queued signals per process.
.	Number of semaphores in the system.
.	Number of message queues in the system.
.	Number of mutexes in the system.
.	Number of condition variables in the system.
.	Number of reader-writer locks in the system.
.	Number of barriers in the system.
.	Number of spin locks in the system.
.	Number of ISR connected to an interrupt.

.	32 open semaphores per process.
.	32 open files per process.
.	32 open message queues per process.
.	32 priority levels for threads and messages.
.	32 thread-specific data keys per process.
.	16 cleanup levels per thread.

.	Max number of active processes in the system.
.	Interrupt stack size and location.
.	Available system memory layout.
.	System clock period.
.	Round-robin scheduling period.
.	Memory file system parameters.


	Back to top C Language Run Time Library A POSIX-compliant implementation of the C language run-time library is provided which excludes mathematical functions and character handling, available in the Texas Instruments C language run-time library. The run-time library is completely Thread Safe, that is, can be used in a multithreaded process without fear of interference between threads executing in parallel.

	Back to top POSIX Extensions The following extensions to the POSIX standard are provided to support specific features of TMS320C55x DSP family. Support for dual access internal DSP memory. Support for single access internal DSP memory. Support DSP-specific devices as DMA channels. Modified COFF format for tuning program modules to the DSP architecture, memory saving and efficient loading.

	Back to top Development Support The operating system package comes with a set of tools for system building and a set of utility programs to be used at run-time.

	Back to top Building Tools The process of system configuration and building is largely automated by the following system building tools, running under versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. System Builder. A tool to build the system ROM image file. Module Builder. A tool to build a program module using the optimized modified COFF format. Module Dumper. A tool for dumping the contents of a regular COFF file, a module COFF file or a ROM Image file.

	Back to top Program Tools The following tools are supplied to assist program development and to serve as multithreaded programming examples. Embedded Shell. An original multithreaded shell program esh that implements partially the POSIX.2 shell standard. Command Line Utilities. A set of ported program utilities such as ls, cat, cp, rm, mv, etc. to be used under the control of the embedded shell.

	Back to top Customization The system customization process is reduced to the customizing of a single source file, which is then linked with the operating system kernel to produce the executable kernel image. The rest of the customization is supported by the System Builder tool at system generation time.

	Back to top Documentation The documentation is in HTML format for easy browsing and searching. The following entry documents are provided: Installation and Release Notes Thematic Index Alphabetic Index Thematic Index (Frame-Based) Alphabetic Index (Frame-Based)