Abstract
Embedded hard real-time systems are often under severe pressure from a number of directions — limited processing capacity being a common issue. Having to handle a large number, or high rate, of external stimuli (interrupts) exacerbates the processor loading problem by compromising ideal processor behaviour through the disruption of performance enhancing features, such as of pipelines and cache memories. This paper reports on the use of Ada with a novel architecture that promotes the better utilisation of the processing resources for the “real” task of executing the application. The approach described in this paper is to use dedicated hardware facilities, a “Butler”, to assist the processor in the management of events and the scheduling of tasks. Allied with a cooperative (non-preemptive) approach to scheduling the application, this allows the processing capacity available to the application to be increased by a significant factor. Whilst the approach is largely language independent its integration with the Ada tasking features provides for a very powerful and sympathetic platform for demanding and high-integrity applications.
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White, R. (2010). Using Hardware Support for Scheduling with Ada. In: Real, J., Vardanega, T. (eds) Reliable Software Technologiey – Ada-Europe 2010. Ada-Europe 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6106. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13550-7_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13550-7_9
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