A Framework for Automatic Generation of Configuration Files for a Custom Hardware/Software RTOS

摘要

In this paper, we propose a framework for user-directed automatic generation of configuration files for a custom hardware/software real-time operating system (RTOS) for System-on-a-Chip. The main goal of this research is to help the user explore which configuration is most suitable for his or her specific application or set of applications. This work leverages three previous innovations in hardware/software RTOS design: System-on-a-Chip Lock Cache (SoCLC), System-on-a-Chip Deadlock Detection Unit (SoCDDU) and System-on-a-Chip Dynamic Memory Management Unit (SoCDMMU). However, in spite of the excellent performance of these innovations, the user may not need or have the chip space for all three of them. In this case, our framework enables automatic generation of different mixes of hardware and software versions of the SoCLC, SoCDDU and SoCDMMU. We show how to generate configuration files for custom RTOSesfor two examples published previously. The average-case simulation result of a database application model with client-server pair of tasks on a four-processor system with SoCLC showed a 27% overall speedup in total execution time than that of the same system but with software synchronization. In the other example, the application execution time to end up in a deadlock state and then detect the deadlock showed a 38% speedup with the SoCDDU as compared to the same system but with a software deadlock detection implementation.