When handling I/O, software must call functions that block program execution until the I/O operation completes. When running inside of an OS such as Linux, such functions generally transfer control to the kernel so that another task (known as a “thread”) can be executed if available, or the CPU can be put to sleep until another task is ready.
Because an OS cannot presume that threads will behave cooperatively, threads are relatively resource-intensive, and may be forcibly interrupted they do not transfer control back to the kernel within an allotted time. If tasks could be presumed to behave cooperatively, or at least not maliciously, it would be possible to create tasks that appear to be almost free when compared to a traditional OS thread.
In other programming languages, these lightweight tasks are known as “coroutines” or ”goroutines”. In Rust, they are implemented with async. Async-await works by transforming each async function into an object called a future. When a future blocks on I/O the future yields, and the scheduler, called an executor, can select a different future to execute.
Compared to alternatives such as an RTOS, async can yield better performance and lower power consumption because the executor doesn't have to guess when a future is ready to execute. However, program size may be higher than other alternatives, which may be a problem for certain space-constrained devices with very low memory. On the devices Embassy supports, such as stm32 and nrf, memory is generally large enough to accommodate the modestly-increased program size.
The link:https://docs.embassy.dev/embassy-executor/[embassy-executor] is an async/await executor that generally executes a fixed number of tasks, allocated at startup, though more can be added later. The executor may also provide a system timer that you can use for both async and blocking delays. For less than one microsecond, blocking delays should be used because the cost of context-switching is too high and the executor will be unable to provide accurate timing.
=== Hardware Abstraction Layers
HALs implement safe Rust API which let you use peripherals such as USART, UART, I2C, SPI, CAN, and USB without having to directly manipulate registers.
Embassy provides implementations of both async and blocking APIs where it makes sense. DMA (Direct Memory Access) is an example where async is a good fit, whereas GPIO states are a better fit for a blocking API.
The Embassy project maintains HALs for select hardware, but you can still use HALs from other projects with Embassy.
* link:https://docs.embassy.dev/embassy-stm32/[embassy-stm32], for all STM32 microcontroller families.
* link:https://docs.embassy.dev/embassy-nrf/[embassy-nrf], for the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52, nRF53, nRF91 series.
* link:https://docs.embassy.dev/embassy-rp/[embassy-rp], for the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller.
* link:https://github.com/esp-rs[esp-rs], for the Espressif Systems ESP32 series of chips.
NOTE: A common question is if one can use the Embassy HALs standalone. Yes, it is possible! There are no dependency on the executor within the HALs. You can even use them without async,
as they implement both the link:https://github.com/rust-embedded/embedded-hal[Embedded HAL] blocking and async traits.
The link:https://docs.embassy.dev/embassy-net/[embassy-net] network stack implements extensive networking functionality, including Ethernet, IP, TCP, UDP, ICMP and DHCP. Async drastically simplifies managing timeouts and serving multiple connections concurrently. Several drivers for WiFi and Ethernet chips can be found.
=== Bluetooth
The link:https://github.com/embassy-rs/nrf-softdevice[nrf-softdevice] crate provides Bluetooth Low Energy 4.x and 5.x support for nRF52 microcontrollers.
link:https://github.com/lora-rs/lora-rs[lora-rs] supports LoRa networking on a wide range of LoRa radios, fully integrated with a Rust LoRaWAN implementation. It provides four crates — lora-phy, lora-modulation, lorawan-encoding, and lorawan-device — and basic examples for various development boards. It has support for STM32WL wireless microcontrollers or Semtech SX127x transceivers, among others.
link:https://docs.embassy.dev/embassy-usb/[embassy-usb] implements a device-side USB stack. Implementations for common classes such as USB serial (CDC ACM) and USB HID are available, and a rich builder API allows building your own.
link:https://github.com/embassy-rs/embassy/tree/master/embassy-boot[embassy-boot] is a lightweight bootloader supporting firmware application upgrades in a power-fail-safe way, with trial boots and rollbacks.
For most I/O in embedded devices, the peripheral doesn't directly support the transmission of multiple bits at once, with CAN being a notable exception. Instead, the MCU must write each byte, one at a time, and then wait until the peripheral is ready to send the next. For high I/O rates, this can pose a problem if the MCU must devote an increasing portion of its time handling each byte. The solution to this problem is to use the Direct Memory Access controller.
The Direct Memory Access controller (DMA) is a controller that is present in MCUs that Embassy supports, including stm32 and nrf. The DMA allows the MCU to set up a transfer, either send or receive, and then wait for the transfer to complete. With DMA, once started, no MCU intervention is required until the transfer is complete, meaning that the MCU can perform other computation, or set up other I/O while the transfer is in progress. For high I/O rates, DMA can cut the time that the MCU spends handling I/O by over half. However, because DMA is more complex to set-up, it is less widely used in the embedded community. Embassy aims to change that by making DMA the first choice rather than the last. Using Embassy, there's no additional tuning required once I/O rates increase because your application is already set-up to handle them.
