eCos—which means the "Embedded Configurable Operating System"—is an open-source RTOS for deeply embedded applications. Deployed in a diversity of markets and devices, eCos' popularity is a result of a variety of commercial and technical advantages over competing RTOS offerings.

The developer of eCos, eCosCentric Limited, recently announced the latest 4.1 release of eCosPro, the stable, fully tested and supported version of the operating system and RedBoot bootstrap firmware. The new 4.1 release of the eCosPro Developer's Kit includes the latest Eclipse Neon IDE, provides improvements to the eCosPro Eclipse plugin and development tools and integrates a variety of runtime enhancements.

Complementary to the major upgrade to Eclipse Neon.3, enhancements were added to the eCosPro Eclipse plugin that improve the eCos developer experience, such as multiple eCos Application and Configuration projects per workspace and a new hardware debug launcher.

Meanwhile, the eCosPro 4.1 eCos Configuration tool boasts further refinements that aid developer productivity, such as locally installed documentation that is fully searchable. Runtime enhancements include support for Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A7 SMP, Raspberry Pi target platform and ST's low-power STM32L series and its enhanced on-chip peripheral feature set, among other upgrades.