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🔵 SEGGER embOS RTOS Family

The Backbone of your Embedded Application:
High-Performance Real-Time Operating Systems

embOS RTOS

  • Deterministic real-time behavior for precise control
  • Optimized for efficiency and low resource consumption
  • Certified RTOS variants for safety-critical applications

Key Features

embOS is built to empower developers with the tools they need to create efficient, reliable, and scalable embedded systems. Its design reflects decades of refinement, ensuring it meets the diverse requirements of modern applications while remaining adaptable to a broad range of hardware and development environments.

Reliability

Now in its fourth decade, embOS has proven its reliability after being deployed in several billion devices. An edition certified for functional safety in accordance with IEC 61508 SIL 3, IEC 62304 Class C, and ISO 26262 ASIL D is available as well.

Efficiency

embOS is a high-performance real-time operating system. It is a true lightweight RTOS optimized for minimum memory consumption in both RAM and ROM, as well as for high speed and versatility.

Availability

embOS supports virtually any core and compiler, offering more than 100 ports and over 500 board support packages for the embedded market. It integrates seamlessly with all major compilers and embedded develop-ment tools, including SEGGER’s Embedded Studio.

Use Cases

embOS is suitable for a wide range of use cases across a variety of embedded applications. In general, something
that all use cases have in common is that they involve one or multiple microcontrollers or processors.

Battery powered Devices

Wherever power is a valuable resource (such as with handheld devices), low-power operation modes should be employed as often as possible. All embOS RTOS editions include features (like tickless RTOS support) to significantly reduce power consumption, and they are tailored to run on even the smallest microcontrollers.

Networking and IoT

Connected networks introduce a variety of tasks
that might interfere with the original intended use
of the device. All embOS editions provide robust
and proven RTOS scheduling and task
management functions to ensure safe operation
under adverse conditions. This makes embOS an
ideal loT RTOS.

Safety-critical Devices

embOS-Safe's functional safety certification is in
accordance with IEC 61508 SIL 3, IEC 62304 Class C, and ISO 26262 ASIL D. Certification is achieved without modifications to the backbone, which serves as a foundation for all embOS editions.

Precise and predictable Control Systems

Closed-loop and other control systems require
real-time conditions to operate. embOS warrants
deterministic behavior by design, minimizing or
even removing RTOS latency and jitter. embOS-
Ultra takes precision even further by providing
enough headroom for future applications.

embOS Editions

embOS-Ultra —> Details

The next Generation RTOS

embOS-Ultra offers higherprecision and time resolution than any other RTOS on the market,creating the best RTOS fordeterministic applications. This also results in less energy consumption and improved erformance.

embOS-Safe —> Details

Safety-Certified RTOS

embOS is a certified RTOSaccording to IEC 61508 SIL 3, IEC 62304 Class C, and ISO 26262 ASIL D. embOS-Safe comes with a certification kit containing all necessary docu-ments, including the compre-hensive embOS Safety manual.

embOS-MPU —> Details

The Heart of every Safety-Critical loT Device

embOS-MPU offers memory pro-tection in addition to the proven embOS RTOS. It significantly enhances both stability and safety for embedded applications, simpli-fying any certification process.

embOS-Classic —> Details

The leading real-time operating system

embOS-Classic has proven its reliability in billions of deployed devices over several decades, and as a small memory footprint RTOS, it lays the foundation for all embOS editions.

Licensing

The software is available under various embedded software license models and can be delivered as source code. All commercial licenses are based on a one-time payment, are royalty-free, and include six months of updates and support from SEGGER's Embedded Experts. There are no subscription fees, ensuring predictable and fixed costs over the entire product lifetime.

For non-commercial use, evaluation, and educational purposes, the software is provided under SEGGER's Friendly License.

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Evaluation Software

NEWSLETTER & Training

Update: September 4th, 2026

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embOS-Ultra

SEGGER embOS-Ultra is a high-performance real-time operating system (RTOS) designed for embedded applications requiring extremely precise timing, deterministic behavior, and low power consumption. Unlike traditional tick-based RTOS solutions, embOS-Ultra uses SEGGER’s Cycle-Resolution Timing, enabling scheduling and time management down to individual CPU cycles. This makes it particularly suitable for industrial automation, motor control, robotics, medical devices, and battery-powered IoT applications.

A major advantage is its tickless, cycle-based scheduling architecture. Timer interrupts are generated only when required, reducing unnecessary CPU activity and allowing the processor to remain in low-power states longer. At the same time, applications benefit from precise timeout handling, minimal latency, deterministic real-time performance, and flexible timing in milliseconds, microseconds, nanoseconds, or CPU cycles. embOS-Ultra is also highly modular and optimized for low RAM and ROM consumption.

Integration into an existing development environment is designed to be straightforward. embOS-Ultra supports C/C++ applications, provides Board Support Packages (BSPs), and is available for multiple processor architectures and toolchains. Existing embOS-Classic applications can migrate without application-level changes, as the API and RTOS behavior are maintained. Applications using other tick-based RTOS solutions can also be migrated more easily when an abstraction layer such as CMSIS-RTOS is used. This allows development teams to introduce higher timing precision and improved energy efficiency while minimizing changes to their established application architecture and development workflow.

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embOS-Safe

SEGGER embOS-Safe is a safety-certified real-time operating system (RTOS) designed for safety-critical embedded applications. It provides deterministic multitasking, communication and synchronization services, and memory protection while supporting development according to major functional-safety standards. embOS-Safe is certified by TÜV SÜD for IEC 61508 SIL 3, IEC 62304 Class C, and ISO 26262 ASIL D, making it suitable for industrial automation, medical devices, automotive systems, and safety-related home appliances.

A major advantage is the combination of proven embOS technology with a pre-certified safety foundation. Customers receive the certificate, safety manual, and supporting documentation required to simplify their own certification process. Controlled maintenance and long-term support further help manage safety-critical products throughout their lifecycle. While embOS-Safe reduces certification effort, certification of the complete end product remains the manufacturer’s responsibility.

Integration into an existing development environment is designed to minimize changes. embOS-Safe is available for different processor, compiler, and safety-standard combinations and includes BSPs that can be adapted to the target hardware. The package contains the pre-certified library used for the final firmware as well as source code for development and debugging. Existing embOS applications can generally be reused with little or no modification due to API compatibility between embOS variants. This allows development teams to retain much of their existing application architecture, hardware, compiler, and IDE while adding a certified RTOS foundation for functional-safety projects.

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embOS-MPU

SEGGER embOS-MPU extends the proven embOS real-time operating system with hardware-based memory protection, enabling customers to build more robust, secure, and fault-tolerant embedded applications. Using the processor’s Memory Protection Unit (MPU), individual tasks can be isolated from each other and from the operating-system kernel. Unprivileged tasks receive access only to explicitly permitted memory regions, peripherals, and RTOS objects. If a task violates these restrictions, embOS-MPU can detect the fault and prevent it from compromising the rest of the system.

The key advantage is fault containment: a software error in one task does not have to bring down the complete application. Critical tasks and the RTOS can continue operating, improving system stability, reliability, and security. This makes embOS-MPU particularly attractive for medical equipment, industrial automation, avionics, automotive systems, and other applications with high reliability or safety requirements. Memory protection is available for both embOS-Classic and embOS-Ultra.

Integration into an existing development environment requires minimal effort, especially for applications already using embOS. The API is fully compatible, allowing existing embOS applications to be adapted without redesigning the overall software architecture. Developers mainly define which tasks run privileged or unprivileged and configure their permitted memory, peripheral, and RTOS-object access. embOS supports numerous processor, compiler, and IDE combinations, including GCC, IAR, and Keil environments. Ready-to-use BSPs, source packages, documentation, and SEGGER analysis tools further simplify integration, debugging, and verification.

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embOS-Classic

SEGGER embOS-Classic is a mature, high-performance real-time operating system (RTOS) for developing reliable and deterministic embedded applications. It enables applications to run multiple tasks in parallel and provides priority-based scheduling, synchronization, communication, timers, and resource management. Typical use cases include industrial control, automotive electronics, medical devices, consumer products, and applications using communication stacks such as TCP/IP or USB.

Key advantages are deterministic real-time behavior, high performance, low memory consumption, and broad platform support. embOS-Classic has been deployed in billions of devices and is optimized for minimal RAM and ROM usage. More than 80 ports and over 500 Board Support Packages (BSPs) cover a wide range of processors, compilers, and development tools. Development and analysis are further supported by tools such as embOSView, IDE plugins, and SEGGER SystemView instrumentation.

Integration into an existing development environment is straightforward. Developers can start with a ready-to-use BSP or add embOS-Classic directly to an existing bare-metal project. Depending on the package, embOS can be integrated as a library or as source code, allowing source-level debugging and application-specific compiler settings. The RTOS is not tied to a specific IDE and supports established environments and toolchains such as GCC, IAR, Keil MDK, and SEGGER Embedded Studio. This allows teams to introduce multitasking and real-time capabilities while retaining their existing hardware, application code, compiler, and development workflow.

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