Precise Timing with Embassy & Rust on the Raspberry Pi Pico

Learn how to achieve precise timing in your embedded Rust applications using Embassy, from milliseconds down to nanoseconds.

This video explores the various timing mechanisms available in the Embassy framework for the Raspberry Pi Pico and Pico 2, comparing their accuracy, multi-tasking capability, and resolution. I’ll cover both the theory and practical implementation with real oscilloscope measurements to demonstrate how each approach performs in the real world.

This video covers:

An overview of different timing mechanisms in Embassy
Why timing precision matters in embedded applications
Comparing Timer::after(), Timer::at(), Delay methods, and assembly implementations
Performance differences between Raspberry Pi Pico and Pico 2
Achieving sub-microsecond timing precision
Real-world demonstrations with oscilloscope measurements
Practical recommendations for when to use each timing approach

If you need precise control over GPIO timing in your Pico projects, this video will help you understand which mechanisms best suit your application needs.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro
00:45 Embassy & async
05:16 Using embassy-time
10:30 Piers’s Top Tips
13:55 Timer::after_micros() demo
17:57 Delay.delay_us() demo
20:52 cortex_m::asm::delay() demo
22:19 Inline assembly demo
28:52 Wrap-up

Links:

Embassy-rs framework: https://embassy.dev
Embassy timing documentation: https://docs.embassy.dev/embassy-time/
Test code from this video: https://github.com/piersfinlayson/embassy-pico-test
Raspberry Pi Pico documentation: https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/microcontrollers/raspberry-pi-pico.html

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Precise Timing with Embassy & Rust on the Raspberry Pi Pico - Playing with the Pico ep4