Extending STI for demanding hard-real-time systems

Software thread integration (STI) is a compilation technique which enables the efficient use of an application’s fine-grain idle time on generic processors without special hardware support. With STI, a primary function (with real-time requirements on specific instructions) is automatically interleaved with a secondary function to create a single implicitly multithreaded function which minimizes context switching and hence both improves performance and also offers very fine-grain concurrency. In this paper we extend STI techniques to address two challenges. First, we reduce response time for interrupts or other high-priority threads by introducing polling servers into integrated threads. Currently integrated threads disable interrupts, delaying all other work until their completion. Second, we enable integration with long host threads, expanding the domain of STI. With current techniques, if there are frequent interrupts, only host threads which can finish execution before the next i...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: CASES
• Authors: Benjamin J. Welch, Shobhit O. Kanaujia, Adarsh Seetharam, Deepaksrivats Thirumalai, Alexander G. Dean
• Keywords: CASES 2003, Host Threads, Integrated Threads, Threads