The complexity of embedded computing systems is increasing at a rapid rate due to both advances in technology and the increasing demand for complex applications. A wide variety of these systems employ multi-core architectures to keep up with the demand for performance under stringent power and thermal constraints. Adaptation to the dynamic changes in the application is critical to improve overall performance, energy efficiency as well as reliability.
Although dynamic adaptation (reconfiguration) techniques have received considerable attention from various domains, they are not employed in real-time System-on-Chip (SoC) designs. This is due to the fact that real-time systems may consist of critical tasks with soft or hard deadlines, and the dynamic reconfiguration overhead may adversely affect the critical tasks. Missing deadlines may lead to performance degradation or even catastrophic failures in these systems. The proposed research will develop automated tools and techniques to address three fundamental challenges in exploiting dynamic reconfigurations in real-time multitasking systems: i) lack of a comprehensive framework that can synergistically exploit the advantages of dynamic reconfiguration of computation, communication as well as storage, ii) lack of efficient real-time scheduling techniques in the presence of dynamic reconfigurations techniques, iii) lack of dynamic reconfiguration that considers a wide variety of design and optimization constraints. Rather than focusing on one optimization objective or specific domain, this research takes a comprehensive approach by considering synergistic effects of computation, communication as well as storage to optimize overall performance, energy and reliability without violating real-time constraints.
This project will make significant broader impact in several fronts. The proposed approaches can enable a wide range of energy-efficient and low-cost embedded systems. Reduction in energy consumption directly relates to significant improvements in operating lifetime for battery powered mobile devices. Similarly, reduction in temperature improves system reliability. Embedded systems with dynamic reconfiguration capabilities will have two major impacts. One being low-cost and high-quality everyday appliances for the public, and the other is improved efficiency of safety-critical devices such as biomedical and military equipment.
