A context switch is often one of the most expensive operation in an RTOS (Real Time Operating System). Hence, application developers should aim to minimize the number of context switches in order to minimize the RTOS overhead.

In a pre-emptive RTOS, both the choice of thread priority assignment and the order in which threads become available to run are key to minimizing the number of context switches that occur.

In a series of articles on context switching, William E. Lamie presents data which shows that context switching overhead is minimized when all threads are assigned the same priority. This means that by assigning the same priority to all threads, the system throughput will be maximized – i.e. the fewer the cycles that are spent on context switching overhead then the more that can be spent on application processing.

However, in real-time systems latency is often a concern. Where latency is a concern, the thread that runs the latency sensitive task should be assigned a higher priority.  This will introduce more context switches into the system which will impact throughput.

To achieve the best of both worlds, threads should be assigned an equal priority by default and only latency sensitive tasks should be assigned higher priorities.