From the course: Introduction to FreeRTOS and Basic Task Management

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Understanding context switching in RTOS

Understanding context switching in RTOS

From the course: Introduction to FreeRTOS and Basic Task Management

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Understanding context switching in RTOS

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- [Instructor] Let's look at context switching, a critical concept in operating systems. Context switching refers to the process of saving the state of the currently running thread and restoring the state of the next thread that the CPU will execute. Context switching is essential because it allows the RTOS to efficiently manage multiple threads by pausing one thread and switching to another, depending on priority or time slice scheduling. Let's walk through the process. Let's say the RTOS is currently executing Thread 1, and it wants to execute Thread 2. This is what happens. First, it saves the execution state of Thread 1, and then it restores the execution state of Thread 2, and then it executes Thread 2. Now, what if it wants to go back to executing Thread 1? Then it would save the execution state of the currently running thread, which is Thread 2, and then restore the execution state of Thread 1, and then it would run Thread 1. This cycle allows multiple threads to share CPU time…

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