Greetings, members!
This Thursday, at 4:30 PM in MC 4021, the CSC will be hosting a talk
by professor Bill Cowan on Multi-processor Real-time Systems. Here's
an abstract:
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Programming systems that obey hard real-time constraints is difficult.
So is programming multiple CPUs that interact to solve a single
problem.
On rare occasions it is possible to mix two difficult problems to
create one easy problem and multi-CPU real-time is, on the face of it,
just such an occasion. Give each deadline its own CPU and it will
never be missed. This intuition is, unfortunately, incorrect, which
does not, however, prevent it being tried in many real-time systems.
For three decades, fourth year students have been exploring this
problem in CS452, using multiple tasks (virtual CPUs) running on a
single CPU. It is now time to consider whether modern developments in
CPU architecture make it possible to use multiple CPUs in CS452 given
the practical constraint of a twelve week semester.
This talk will describe the nature of computation typical of real-time
systems, architectural solutions currently employed in the course, and
possible architectures for multi-CPU systems.
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Drinks will be served; we hope to see you there!
Regards,
Marc Burns
President, University of Waterloo Computer Science Club.
