Rapid development of reliable embedded systems

RapidiTTy® MCU provides a cost-effective suite of tools which support the development of code for microcontrollers with ARM7®, Cortex-M3® and TTE32-TT3 cores.

In the current version of the tool (v2.3), full support is provided for NXP LPC-2xxx (ARM7), STM32 (Cortex M3) and TTE32-SM3 devices. Initial support for NXP LPC-17xx (Cortex-M3) devices is also provided in this release.

RapidiTTy® MCU includes the TTE Builder™ engine which helps the designer integrate, customise and configure an extensive suite of library code plus a range of royalty-free operating systems, in order to match the precise needs of a given application.

RapidiTTy® MCU helps to ensure that even new developers can produce reliable embedded systems, and helps to maximise the efficiency of an experienced development team.

Key benefits

• A tightly-integrated tool suite with the familiar RapidiTTy® IDE: provides support for microcontrollers with either ARM7® or Cortex-M3® processor cores. A full list of supported targets is available.
• RapidiTTy™ MCU includes an extensive suite of high-quality code components and drivers, helping you to complete day-to-day tasks such as reading switches, reading analogue-to-digital convertors, RS-232 (UART) communications, using pulse-width modulation, etc.
• RapidiTTy™ MCU includes the royalty-free InfiniTTy™ operating systems which is suitable for use in wide range of embedded systems.
• RapidiTTy™ MCU includes the TTE Builder™ engine which helps the designer integrate, customise and configure both the library code and selected operating system configuration, in order to match the precise needs of a given application.
• RapidiTTy® MCU includes a powerful timing analysis toolbox. With this toolbox, you can perform measurement-based timing analysis and obtain a full understanding of the way your tasks behave as the system executes on your actual hardware. Information such as processor utilisation, individual task execution time and task jitter can be obtained very easily. The information is reported graphically, and can be exported in a range of formats (pdf, xls, jpeg etc) for use in your system and testing documentation.
• RapidiTTy® MCU includes a static memory analyser that provides useful information on stack utilisation for individual functions, as well as both code and data meters.
• RapidiTTy® MCU informs the user of any incompatibilities that may arise when porting source code between devices of the same or different family, making it easy for you to re-use existing code in new projects.
• Last (but not least), RapidiTTy® MCU is based on time-triggered (TT) technology. Use of TT technology helps to ensure that your applications have very predictable behaviour, and makes them easier to debug and test.

Further information about RapidiTTy® MCU

• RapidiTTy® family: Brochure (PDF)
• RapidiTTy® MCU v2.3: Introductory presentation (PDF)
• RapidiTTy® MCU v2.3: Getting started guide (PDF)
• RapidiTTy® MCU v2.3: Tutorial (LPC2378)

Starter kits and evaluation boards

Please see our Partners page for information about starter kits and evaluation boards which are compatible with RapidiTTy® MCU.

Compatible JTAG hardware

To make full use of RapidiTTy® MCU (for example, to carry out detailed timing analysis) you will require appropriate JTAG debug hardware.

Please see our Partners page for information about cost-effective JTAG hardware which is compatible with RapidiTTy® MCU.

Product packages and pricing

RapidiTTy® MCU is available in both Development and Production packages.

Single (permanent, development) licences for RapidiTTy® MCU 2.3 are available for £1995 + VAT per seat (pricing in other currencies available on request).

Significant discount are available for multi-seat orders.

Other licence options are also available (including Production licences).

Please contact us to place your order or to request further details.

Support and product updates

In the rapidly-changing embedded environment, our products are updated frequently. To help ensure that our customers always have access to our latest toolsets, we run a very simple and transparent system for product updates.

To summarise:

• Except where otherwise stated explicitly (e.g. RapidiTTy® Student Edition) we provide customers with all product updates (that is, both ‘major’ and ‘minor’ updates) for a period of 12 months from the date of first product installation.
• After the initial 12-month period, this maintenance arrangement can be extended for a further 12 months at a fee of 20% of the current product cost. Customers who wish to do so can continue to maintain their products indefinitely under this arrangement.
• Customers are entitled to receive full support (both by e-mail and by ‘phone) while their products are covered by the above agreements.

Please refer to our support page for further details.

Evaluating RapidiTTy® products

We recognise that purchasing tools is not a straightforward process, and that you need to make sure that you make the right decision for your company.

If you are interested in evaluating any of our RapidiTTy® products, we’ll be happy to help: please see our evaluation page for details.

Applications for RapidiTTy® MCU

As with all products from TTE Systems, RapidiTTy® MCU is based on time-triggered (TT) technology. Use of TT technology helps to ensure that your applications have very predictable behaviour, and makes them easier to debug and test.

The benefits of TT technology are widely recognised, which is why this approach has been used in the aerospace industry for some 30 years. As a result of more than a decade of research (and several patent applications), the advent of the RapidiTTy® family now means that the benefits of TT technology are available for use in a much wider range of applications.

Typical applications for RapidiTTy® MCU include:

• Aerospace (e.g. aircraft flight and engine control; satellite systems)
• Automotive (e.g. cruise control, steer-by-wire, engine management, roadside traffic signal)
• White goods (e.g. washing machines, dishwashers)
• Brown goods (e.g. set-top boxes)
• Medical (e.g. clinical monitoring systems)
• Industrial / factory control (e.g. robotics, control systems, condition monitoring / fault diagnosis)
• Railway (e.g. on vehicles and trackside)
• Defence (e.g. in-vehicle communications, flight control)
• Telecommunications (e.g. handsets, walkie-talkies, base stations)
• Agriculture (e.g. farm equipment, dairy systems, livestock feeding systems)
• Sports (e.g. score boards, monitoring horse racing)

Example application

One example of a system created using RapidiTTy® MCU is our Adaptive Cruise-Control Test Facility, which is illustrated below.

This testbed incorporates 10 embedded processors (NXP LPC2378), linked by a dual CAN bus and executing a PID algorithm: it represents a state-of-the-art (adaptive) cruise control system for a passenger car.

Please note that the CAN library employed in the Adaptive Cruise-Control Test Facility is not provided in RapidiTTy® MCU: such support will be provided in the forthcoming RapidiTTy® Distributed Systems Toolbox.

Further information is available.

RapidiTTy® Builder

Previous versions of RapidiTTy® MCU were known as RapidiTTy® Builder.

Further information about time-triggered technology

All RapidiTTy® products are based on time-triggered technology. To find out more about this approach to software development, a free book is available.

“Patterns for Time-Triggered Embedded Systems” (PTTES) describes the first comprehensive set of ‘design patterns’ to support the rapid development of time-triggered embedded systems based on resource-constrained embedded processors.

You can download a complete copy of PTTES (PDF file), plus all of the source code, from this WWW site (free of charge).