681233f8ca492d2d9c974889 Bigdata Dreamstime L 39055802

Microcontrollers Host Real-Time Embedded Database

April 30, 2025

Equipped with a C/C++ interface that has its own query functions, ITTIA’s DB Lite takes on embedded real-time database challenges.

William G. Wong

Related To:

Electronic Design

What you’ll learn:

What’s the target platform for IITIA’s DB Lite?
How the database handles queries.

ITTIA’s DB Lite is a compact real-time database that uses less than 100 kB on a bare-metal system. Targeting microcontrollers like Arm’s Cortex-M series, it works with popular multitasking RTOSes like FreeRTOS, Eclipse ThreadX, and Zephyr (see figure).

ITTIA DB Lite database engine — ITTIA’s DB Lite is a database engine that runs on platforms like Arm Cortex-M.

DB Lite offers a C/C++ interface with its own query functions rather than SQL-style queries that have significantly more overhead. The SQL to DB Lite interface essentially turns these queries into function calls. This approach keeps the footprint small, which provides fast access. IT supports ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability) database operations.

Data can be used locally, including support for artificial-intelligence and machine-learning (AI/ML) applications. It’s also possible to ship off data using ITTIA Data Connect to link with higher-end ITTIA database hosts that run on 32- and 64-bit Arm Cortex hosts. Web browsers and REST API-based applications are able to access this data. ITTIA Analitica will work with these databases as well.

DB Lite can be used with flash memory. It provides its own wear-leveling and data-protection support. Furthermore, the platform conforms to the IEC/ISO 62443 secure development lifecycle (SDL).

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

You can send press releases for new products for possible coverage on the website. I am also interested in receiving contributed articles for publishing on our website. Use our template and send to me along with a signed release form.

Check out my blog, AltEmbedded on Electronic Design, as well as his latest articles on this site that are listed below.

You can visit my social media via these links:

I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence.