Partitioning and Task Transfer on NoC-based Many-Core Processors in the Avionics Domain

Abstract

Networks-on-Chip (NoC) based many-core processors can not only increase system performance but also allow he integration of multiple functions on a single hardware platform. To consolidate functionality on many-core systems in safety-critical domains software partitioning is required to avoid the propagation of faults due to the use of shared resources. In this paper we propose extensions to well established single-core partitioning mechanisms to take novel architectural characteristics of many-core processors into account. In addition to fixed partitioning, we present flexible partitioning as an approach to improve resource utilization and fault tolerance using dynamic reconfiguration. Flexible partitioning requires task migration between cores via a shared resource - the NoC - which may endanger the required predictability. Therefore we empirically analyze a variety of task transfer mechanisms on a Tilera TILEPro64TM many-core processor regarding their potential for deterministic reconfiguration during run-time.