Freescale: MQX RTOS Stacks Overview

Overview

Freescale streamlines embedded design with MQX, a complimentary real-time operating system (RTOS) complete with USB, Ethernet, and file system stacks. The entire source code for both the kernel and stacks is available, making it highly configurable for your specific application. It has been available on Freescale processors for over 15 years, and can be found in millions of embedded devices due to its flexible nature and advanced features.

Real-Time TCP/IP Communication Suite (RTCS)

The Freescale MQX real-time communication suite (RTCS) is a fast, efficient and low-footprint embedded Internet stack that supports a rich set of standard TCP/IP protocols. It comes complete with a number of application layer protocols such as Telnet, FTP, SNMP v1 and SNMP v2. A number of optional protocols and products are also available from Freescale or third parties. The scalability of the Freescale MQX RTCS allows developers to easily define the feature set needed to accommodate a variety of ROM and RAM memory budgets. RTCS is implemented in ANSI C, and full source code is provided. It is completely re-entrant and is responsive to the demands of real-time systems. The RTCS supports any number of hardware interfaces and any number of IP addresses on each hardware interface.

A variety of additional components pre-integrated with Freescale MQX RTOS are available through third parties. These include: Network Security Products (IPSec, SSL, and SSH), Web Server Toolkits, SFFS Flash File System, PEG+ Graphics Library, and CANopen for embedded devices.

IPv6 Ready
Get ready for IPv6 with the IPv6 protocol add-on for MQX RTCS. With this new optional add-on available for purchase from Freescale, the network stack can be configured for IPv4 only, IPv6 only, or dual (IPv4 + IPv6) operation. With dual IPv4 + IPv6 operation, embedded products will be ready for the worldwide transition to the next generation of the Internet (IPv6), but retain support for the Internet of today (IPv4).
MQX RTCS with IPv6 leverages the existing IPv4 code base as much as possible so the memory footprint of adding IPv6 is minimized. Starting with about 21 KB of additional ROM code, embedded products can be IPv6 ready.

The IPv6 protocol add-on is IPv6 Ready Logo (Phase-2) Certified for Core IPv6 protocols as a Host. It supports stateless auto-configuration, network auto-discovery and the massive address extensibility that IPv6 provides. RTCS protocols that currently support IPv6 include IPv6, ICMPv6, ND, TCP/UDPv6, Sockets, SMTP Client, HTTP Server, MLD Discover, FTP Server, FTP Client and DNS Resolver. Additional protocols may be supported in the future, such as DHCPv6 and Telnet, but are not available at this time.

A variety of additional components pre-integrated with Freescale MQX RTOS are available through third parties. These include: Network Security Products (IPSec, SSL, and SSH), Web Server Toolkits, SFFS Flash File System, PEG+ Graphics Library, and CANopen for embedded devices.

Universal Serial Bus (USB)
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a plug-and-play protocol widely used in embedded devices, ranging from set-top boxes, printers, web and digital cameras to modems, speakers, industrial control devices, card readers and cable/DSL modems. Because of its flexibility, simplicity, speed and low-cost, USB connectivity has moved from the PC world to the embedded market. There has been an explosion of plug-and-play, consumer friendly USB peripherals that has resulted in making USB a standard requirement for embedded device products.

Freescale provides USB Host/Device software stack as well as USB Class Drivers and implementations designed to speed products to market with advanced USB connectivity. The stack is provided with complete source code, example drivers and documentation. It was designed for integration with the Freescale MQX RTOS and is a great way to jump-start USB product development.

MQX File System (MFS)
The Freescale MQX File System (MFS) is an embedded FAT file system compatible with Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS file systems. It can format, read, write and exchange files with any operating systems running a FAT-12, FAT-16 or FAT-32 file system. It is fully re-entrant and uses the Freescale MQX RTOS file device driver to access disk devices. Also included with the Freescale MQX RTOS is a Trivial File System (TFS) that can be used in HTTP applications requiring a simple read-only file system. MFS is integrated with the FTP server of the Freescale Real-Time TCP/IP Communication Suite (RTCS) and the Mass Storage Class Driver of the USB Host Stack.