SystemView

SEGGER SystemView provides real-time recording and visualization of embedded system runtime behavior, giving developers an X-ray view into RTOS task scheduling, interrupt service routine execution, and application-defined events as they happen on the target hardware. Unlike traditional debuggers that halt execution to inspect state, SystemView captures continuous behavioral data with minimal target intrusion, typically less than 1% CPU overhead, preserving the real-time characteristics that matter most.

Features

Feature	Description
Task Timeline	Visualize when each RTOS task runs, blocks, yields, and resumes
ISR Profiling	Measure interrupt frequency, duration, nesting depth, and CPU load
Custom Events	Instrument application logic with user-defined event markers
Event Correlation	Unified timeline combining tasks, ISRs, and custom events
CPU Load Analysis	Real-time and statistical CPU utilization per task and ISR
Context Switch Timing	Measure exact context switch duration and overhead
Stack Usage	Monitor per-task stack high watermark and detect stack overflow risk
Streaming Mode	Continuous real-time recording via J-Link RTT channel
Post-Mortem Mode	Record to target RAM and read out after an event or crash
Event Filtering	Focus on specific tasks or event types to reduce visual clutter
Export	Save recordings for offline analysis, team sharing, and regression comparison

RTOS Support

SystemView integrates natively with embOS for zero-configuration RTOS awareness. Additional RTOS support is available through instrumentation libraries:

• embOS: zero-config, native integration
• FreeRTOS: widely used open-source RTOS
• Micrium OS: commercial RTOS
• ThreadX / Azure RTOS: Microsoft ecosystem
• Bare-metal: ISR and custom event recording without an RTOS

Data Transport

Watch the SEGGER SystemView introduction

Combined with J-Link’s real-time transfer (RTT) channel, SystemView data streams continuously from target to host without consuming UART pins or requiring additional hardware. RTT provides bidirectional communication at speeds up to several MB/s with zero CPU overhead on the target when no data is pending. For teams building timing-critical embedded systems, motor controllers, audio processing, wireless protocol stacks, SystemView transforms guesswork into measurement.