CSC News

Mueller Receives NSF Award to Study Timing in Multi-Core Environments

Dr. Frank Mueller, associate professor of computer science at NC State University, has been awarded $390,000 from the National Science Foundation to support his collaborative research proposal titled “Providing Predictable Timing for Task Migration in Embedded Multi-Core Environments (TIME-ME).”

The award will run from September 1, 2009 to August 31, 2013.

Mueller will collaborate on the research with colleagues at the Pennsylvania State University and Southern Illinois University.

Abstract - Assuring deadlines of embedded tasks for contemporary multi-core architectures is becoming increasingly difficult. Real-time scheduling relies on task migration to exploit multi-cores, yet migration actually reduces timing predictability due to cache warm-up overheads and increased interconnect traffic. We propose a fundamentally new approach to increase the timing predictability of multi-core architectures aimed at task migration in embedded environments making three major contributions. (1.) We develop novel strategies to guide migration based on cost/benefit tradeoffs exploiting both static and dynamic analyses. (2.) We devise mechanisms to increase timing predictability under task migration providing explicit support for proactive and reactive real-time data movement across cores and their caches. (3.) We propose rate- and bandwidth-adaptive mechanisms as well as monitoring capabilities to increase predictability under task migration. Our work aims at initiating a novel research direction investigating the benefits of interactions between hardware and software for embedded multi-cores with respect to timing predictability.

For more information on Dr. Mueller, click here.

~coates~