Scheduling Mixed-Architecture Processes in Tightly Coupled FPGA-CPU Reconfigurable Computers

Abstract

The design and implementation of a multitasking run-time system on a tightly coupled FPGA-CPU platform is presented. Using a mix of CPU and FPGA programmable logic for computing, user applications are executed as mixed-architecture processes from the perspective of the OS. Context switching mechanisms with hybrid scheduling containing both blocking and preemption support were implemented to support concurrent execution of multiple mixed-architecture processes, and evaluated under a synthetic workload.