嵌入式CPU软硬件协同开发中的操作系统设计

为了满足高性能嵌入式CPU软硬件协同开发的需要,提出一个嵌入式Linux操作系统设计方案,在真正的硬件完成之前利用虚拟原型系统进行软硬件集成测试。该方案基于开放源代码软件,采用精简配置的Linux Kernel,以u-Clibc和Busybox为主构成根文件系统,特别选择加入必要的基准测试程序。该系统成功应用于清华大学THUMP系列CPU开发,保证了验证的完备性,提高了验证效率,为CPU的性能优化提供了有力的支持。实验结果表明:该方案满足了验证目的和虚拟环境对操作系统设计提出的严格要求,同时为目标CPU未来运行系统提供了基础。

Embedded Linux system design for hardware/software co-development

The development of high performance embedded CPU requires co-development of the hardware, the development kits and the operating system. This paper describes a design scheme for an embedded Linux system that provides co-design of all three parts and verification in a virtual hardware environment before the physical hardware is available. Based on open source softwore the scheme uses a simplified Linux kernel with an embedded root file system including uClibc, Busybox and some benchmark programs from SPEC2000. This system has been successfully applied to the hardware/software co-development of Tsinghua University's MicroProcessor (THUMP). The system improves the verification efficiency and optimizes the performance of the embedded CPU. Test results show that the system can correctly and efficiently perform co-verification on the cycle-accurate simulator, meeting the strict design constraints of simulatnion development enviroment and successful running of the target CPU.