A Hardware-Software Real-Time Operating System Framework for SoCs

with reconfigurable logic and multiple processing elements sharing a common memory, like that shown in Figure 1, is likely to become quite common in the near future. For example, programmable-logic companies are producing single chips containing millions of reconfigurable logic gate equivalents and full-custom VLSI processors. Designers can customize such chips by reprogramming the reconfigurable logic or the processors. We envision a scenario in which a few highly reconfigurable, reprogrammable SoCs appear in most embedded applications that demand rapid upgrades, fast time to market, and low cost. However, changing the SoC architecture and associated software can require significant re-porting or reconfiguration of the real-time operating system. Hence, our work focuses on custom configuration of hardware-software RTOSs for SoCs. This article introduces the δ hardware-software RTOS framework, a prototype hardware-software generation tool that aids in customized RTOS-SoC codesign.