Identifying the sources of unpredictability in COTS-based multicore systems

Dakshina Dasari, Benny Akesson, Vincent Nelis, Muhammad Ali Awan, Stefan M. Petters
2013 2013 8th IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Embedded Systems (SIES)  
COTS-based multicores are now the preferredchoice for hosting embedded applications owing to their immensecomputational capabilities, small form factor and low powerconsumption. Many of these embedded applications have real-timerequirements and real-time system designers must be ableassess them for their predictability and provide guarantees (atdesign time) that they deliver the correct functional behaviorwithin predefined time bounds. However, the underlyingarchitecture of commercially
more » ... e multicores is extremelycomplex and non-amenable to straight-forward timing analysis.In this paper, we highlight the architectural features leading totemporal unpredictability, which mainly involve shared hardwareresources, such as buses, caches, and memories. We explore someof the existing work in timing analysis with respect to thesefeatures, identify their limitations, and present some unaddressedissues that must be dealt with to ensure safe deployment of real-timesystems.
doi:10.1109/sies.2013.6601469 dblp:conf/sies/DasariANAP13 fatcat:dg5rkpigebce7fkmpmbzry3fhm