Real-time Operating Systems - Memory Allocation

Memory Allocation

Memory allocation is more critical in an RTOS than in other operating systems.

First, speed of allocation is important. A standard memory allocation scheme scans a linked list of indeterminate length to find a suitable free memory block. This is unacceptable in an RTOS since memory allocation has to occur within a certain amount of time.

The simple fixed-size-blocks algorithm works quite well for simple embedded systems because of its low overhead.