A hardware/software kernel for system on chip designs

Abstract

As part of the SoC design process, the application is partitioned between implementation in hardware and implementation in software. While it is customarily the application that is subject to partitioning, it is also possible to partition the software kernel. In this paper, a uniprocessor real-time kernel that implements the Earliest Deadline First (EDF) scheduling policy is partitioned. It is partitioned by moving the EDF scheduler into a coprocessor. The coprocessor size and performance are analyzed. A metric is then proposed that measures a coprocessor's impact on application feasibility. This metric permits a unified comparison of kernel coprocessors and application coprocessors during design partitioning.