Real-Time Kernel für Transputer

Abstract

Although the transputer is widely used in embedded systems, the lack of a traditional hardware interrupt mechanism presents a problem for real-time applications. All external I/O and interprocess communication are performed synchronously (rendezvous concept) via on-chip links or in-memory channels respectively. With this type of communication and the micro coded FIFO scheduler provided by the transputer it is not possible to guarantee the scheduling of a process within a known time interval. This shortcoming was realised by some software companies and with the beginning of 1991 powerful real-time kernels are available off-the-shelf. They provide pre-emptive scheduling, multiple priorities, and a general-purpose interrupt mechanism. Using the new real-time kernels for transputers allows you to design and implement high performance embedded real-time systems based on single or multiple transputers.