🚀 go-pugleaf

3:00 D-210 Hamerschlag Tuesday February 29

Automating Hardware to Software Migration for Real-Time Embedded Systems

Hardware to software migration helps embedded system designers meet
design goals by moving real-time functionality from dedicated hardware
to software running on a general purpose CPU.  Cutting hardware
improves cost, size, weight, component availability, reliability and
power consumption.  Using software increases flexibility and can cut
time to market. The central problem is sharing the CPU efficiently
among the multiple threads while ensuring that all real-time
operations execute on time.

Currently context-switching and busy-waiting are used to switch
threads and schedule operations; these methods slow down the developer
and use the processor inefficiently.  Tight timing constraints force
programming in assembly code, greatly complicating system development.
Context switches and busy-wait nops increase program run-time.
Despite these drawbacks, design pressures often force developers to
manually migrate functions, as evidenced by software implementations
of modems, communication controllers, and even video controllers.

This talk describes Software Thread Integration, a compiler-based
technique for automatically interleaving multiple real-time software
threads into one at the assembly language level, resulting in low-cost
or free concurrency.  The fine-grain concurrency of integrated threads
is ideal for implementing real-time functions which replace dedicated
hardware. The compiler follows timing directives to automatically
integrate assembly language threads while maintaining semantic and
timing correctness. This frees the user to program in a high-level
language yet keep the timing accuracy of assembly language. This talk
will describe the integration process and results for various systems,
including a high-temperature industrial prototype which was built and
tested.

Biographical Information: 

Alex Dean is finishing his Ph.D. on Software Thread Integration in the
ECE Department.  As an engineer in an industrial R&D lab he developed 
architectures and networks for embedded systems which control automobiles, 
jet aircraft engines, elevators and HVAC systems.