IDP Project: Porting Fiasco.

oc/L4RE to PowerPC architecture

A microkernel is an operating system kernel that provides minimal services such as Hardware Access, System-Call Interface, Inter process communication, scheduling, Threads and Address Spaces. Microkernels, in comparison to the monolithic kernels counterpart have the advantage of being less error prone due to their relatively smaller size. In addition, they are offer flexibility and customizability. In the context of modern embedded systems these properties are considered desirable as development and maintenance costs are reduced. Fiasco.oc [1] is a pre-emptible real-time microkernel supporting hard priorities. It was developed under the DROPS project (Dresden Real Time Operating System) at the Technical University of Dresden. At the moment, it supports the following hardware architectures IA-32, IA-64, ARM as well as Linux system-call interface [2]. PowerPC architecture initially developed by IBM, Motorola and Apple is commonly used in embedded systems for example in automotive industry. The project involves porting fiasco operating system to PowerPC Instruction Set Architecture. The goal is to support an MPC5xx Freescale microcontroller which is part of the overall project Hybrid Simulator for Testing of Automotive Systems (HySTAS) maintained by the chair of Operating Systems (F13). The HySTAS project tries to develop a novel in-car ECU platform, based on the principles of hardware-consolidation, virtualization and self-* related properties. In order to test the emerging unpredictable interdependencies, originating from self-* enhanced hardware/software interactions, an advanced hybrid simulator has to be conceptualize. The IDP project will be divided into stages, namely: Learn about Fiasco.oc (approx. 15000 lines of code), PowerPC specifications [3] and the technical documentation for the chosen hardware platform. Analyze existing PowePC emulators and identify suitable emulator for the project.

Set up a platform (emulator, compiler, debugger) for the purpose of testing the operating system on a host machine.

Learn about porting process in general and identify porting tasks. Design solutions for gradually porting individual components of fiasco.oc to PowerPC architecture

Implement the solutions. Test and evaluate the resulting system both on an emulator (if possible) and on freescale microcontroller.

Document the work for the project.

The background required for the project would include knowledge about the following: Operating Systems concepts such as: Inter process communication, address space, threading Computer architecture concepts such as: Instruction Set Architecture, Microprocessor functionality, memory systems, I/O Embedded Systems concepts: principles of embedded systems development, power management, handing interrupts in the context of embedded systems Embedded C programming skills Knowledge of using tools such as cross compilers, debuggers, testers

As part of completing the project the following courses will be taken in the next summer semester: EI0667 Real-Time and Embedded Systems 1 & 2

References [1] http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/fiasco/overview.html [2] http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/fiasco/features.html [3] http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/systems/library/es-archguide-v2.html