Real Time and Windows XP Embedded

Real-time performance is essential for the time-critical responses required in high-performance embedded applications. With 3rd party extensions, Windows XP Embedded can meet the needs of these real-time applications.

What Is Real Time?

There are many definitions of real time. In the context of the Microsoft Windows® Embedded family of operating systems, we will use the definition adopted by the Open, Modular, Architecture Control (OMAC) user group: a hard real-time system is a system that would fail if its timing requirements were not met; a soft real-time system can tolerate significant variations in the delivery of operating system services like interrupts, timers, and scheduling. Dedicated Systems builds on this definition as follows: "A real-time system is one in which the correctness of the computations not only depends upon the logical correctness of the computation but also upon the time at which the result is produced. If the timing constraints of the system are not met, system failure is said to have occurred."

While Windows XP Embedded is not inherently a real-time operating system, you can easily add real-time capabilities and optimize Windows XP embedded to meet your real-time needs with available 3rd party solutions.

The Resources Developers Need to Build Real-Time Devices

In recent years, independent software vendors have developed solutions to easily add real-time functionality to the Windows desktop environment. To find a 3rd party solution to optimize Windows XP Embedded to meet the real-time needs of your device design, visit the Windows Embedded Partners site. There you can conduct a search under Software for "realtime extensions" to find the partners that offer real-time extensions solutions.