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2025-01-11

The Story Behind the Embedded Operating System µC/OS

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The Story Behind the Embedded Operating System µC/OS

Author | strongerHuang

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Speaking ofμC/OS, most people are familiar with it, as it is a real-time operating system (RTOS) underMicrium Company.

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Origin of μC/OS
The story of μC/OS began in 1989 when the founderJean J.Labrosseparticipated in a Dynalco control project and started designing a new ignition control system based on a microprocessor for large industrial reciprocating engines.
Initially, J.Labrosse planned to achieve this by purchasing a real-time operating system. However, the purchased operating system had some issues, and it took a long time for the vendor to fix them.

The Story Behind the Embedded Operating System µC/OS

Jean J.Labrosse

After some twists and turns, J.Labrosse began developing his own kernel. About a year later, the operating system μC/OS was born.

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Publishing “μC/OS, The Real-Time Kernel”
Eager to describe the new software to others, J.Labrosse wrote an in-depth paper to explain the inner workings of μC/OS.
The paper’s abridged version was published in Embedded Systems Programming and received a strong response. Engineers were delighted to discover the inner workings of the high-quality kernel and downloaded the μC/OS source code.
Shortly after J.Labrosse’s article was published in Embedded Systems Programming and R&D Publications, the publisher of “C User’s Journal” contacted J.Labrosse, expressing interest in a complete book on μC/OS.
By the end of 1992, J.Labrosse released the first book titled “μC/OS, The Real-Time Kernel”.

The Story Behind the Embedded Operating System µC/OS

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μC/OS-II
For several years after its release, J.Labrosse made only minor changes to μC/OS. However, when R&D requested J.Labrosse to write a second edition, J.Labrossebelieved it was necessary to make substantial updates to both the operating system and the book, resulting in the updated operating system μC/OS-II.

μC/OS-II also provided many features missing from its predecessor, including stack checking, HOOK functions, and a safe method for dynamically allocating memory.

The Story Behind the Embedded Operating System µC/OS

MicroC/OS-II: The Real-Time Kernel was released in 1998, and due to the book and easily accessible source code, students chose μC/OS-II.

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Micrium Company Established
In July 2000, when the avionics product combining μC/OS-II received DO-178B Level A certification, it provided authoritative proof of the operating system’s reliability.
Other certifications for μC/OS-II include FDA pre-market notification (510(k)), pre-market approval (PMA) for medical devices, and industrial control IEC-61508.
Eventually, J.Labrosse decided to establish his own software company. In September 1999, Micrium was officially established.
Micrium comes from Micro (for microprocessor or microcontroller) and the term ium (representing Universe), thus, Micrium represents the “microprocessor universe” (from a software perspective).

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μC/OS-III
μC/OS-III is an extension of μC/OS-II with added and expanded functionalities, and the μC/OS-III book was launched in 2008.
Using ST’s MCU, specifically the Cortex-M3 based STM32F107. The book aims to enable readers to not only understand the inner workings of the kernel but also experiment on practical popular MCUs.

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Micrium Acquired
On October 3, 2016, Micrium announced:Silicon Labs acquired the leading RTOS company Micrium.
Website:

https://www.micrium.com/silicon-labs-acquires-leading-rtos-company-micrium

The Story Behind the Embedded Operating System µC/OS

Since the acquisition of Micrium by Silicon Labs in 2016, μC/OS-III has evolved into the Micrium OS kernel, with Silicon Labs optimizing its performance, size, and power consumption, and offering it to its customers for free. Silicon Labs is committed to enhancing, supporting, and licensing μC/OS-II, μC/OS-III, and other Micrium software using MCUs from different manufacturers.

Reference Content:

https://www.micrium.com/about/story
https://www.micrium.com/silicon-labs-acquires-leading-rtos-company-micrium
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