Real-Time Considerations and Latency
Write code with predictable timing for soft and hard real-time systems.
What is Real-Time?
A real-time system must respond within a deadline. Missing deadlines causes failure:
- Hard real-time — missed deadline is a system failure (medical, avionics)
- Soft real-time — missed deadlines degrade quality but are tolerated (audio, video)
Determinism Beats Speed
Real-time code values predictable timing over peak performance. A function that always takes 10us is preferred over one that takes 1-20us.
All lessons in this course
- Constraints in Embedded No RTTI No Exceptions
- Memory Mapped IO and Volatile
- Real-Time Considerations and Latency
- Cross-Compilation for ARM Targets