Distributed Hardware-Based Microkernels: Making Heterogeneous OS Functionality a System Primitive

As chips have moved from homogeneous single core systems to much more complex, heterogeneous multi-core systems, the ability to create both uniform and efficient operating system services has begun to diminish. The importance of these services suggests that these primitives should no longer be virtu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:2010 18th IEEE Annual International Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines pp. 39 - 46
Main Authors: Agron, Jason, Andrews, David
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Published: IEEE 01.05.2010
Subjects:
Distributed computing
Field programmable gate arrays
Hardware
Heterogeneous computing
Multiprocessing systems
Operating systems
Parallel processing
Productivity
Real time systems
Systolic arrays
uniform programming model
USA Councils
ISBN:9781424471423, 0769540562, 9780769540566, 1424471427
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:As chips have moved from homogeneous single core systems to much more complex, heterogeneous multi-core systems, the ability to create both uniform and efficient operating system services has begun to diminish. The importance of these services suggests that these primitives should no longer be virtual, but rather physical services built into modern computing devices. In this paper we outline some of the challenges involved in building traditional OS services in heterogeneous computing systems. We present a hardware-based solution that provides basic OS primitives to heterogeneous systems that are both efficient and uniformly accessible to heterogeneous compute elements. A prototype system utilizing a hardware-based microkernel is demonstrated that allows programmers to target systems with ISA-level heterogeneity using a familiar, uniform multithreaded programming model.
ISBN:9781424471423
0769540562
9780769540566
1424471427
DOI:10.1109/FCCM.2010.15