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M3 – Microkernel-based system for heterogeneous manycores

peter_d_sherman 6y ago
Short description: http://www.microkernel.info/ http://www.microkernel.info/ >"M3: A microkernel-based system for heterogeneous manycores, that is developed as a hardware/OS co-design at the TU Dresden. It aims to support arbitrary cores (general purpose cores, DSPs, FPGAs, ASICs, ...) as first-class citizens. This is achieved by abstracting the heterogeneity of the cores via a new hardware component per core, called a data transfer unit." Longer description: https://github.com/TUD-OS/M3 https://github.com/TUD-OS/M3 >"M3 is the operating system for a new system architecture that considers heterogeneous compute units (general-purpose cores with different instruction sets, DSPs, FPGAs, fixed-function accelerators, etc.) from the beginning instead of as an afterthought. The goal is to integrate all compute units (CUs) as first-class citizens, enabling 1) isolation and secure communication between all types of CUs, 2) direct interactions of all CUs to remove the conventional CPU from the critical path, 3) access to OS services such as file systems and network stacks for all CUs, and 4) context switching support on all CUs. The system architecture is based on a hardware/operating system co-design with two key ideas: introduce a new hardware component next to each CU used by the OS as the CUs' common interface and let the OS kernel control applications remotely from a different CU. The new hardware component is called data transfer unit (DTU). Since not all CUs can be expected to offer the architectural features that are required to run an OS kernel, M3 runs the kernel on a dedicated CU and the applications on the remaining CUs. To control an application, a kernel controls its DTU remotely, because CU-external resources (other CUs, memories, etc.) can only be accessed via the DTU." PDS: A nascent, absolutely brilliant idea, in my opinion -- whose true full potential will only be completely realized in the future...

Short description: http://www.microkernel.info/ http://www.microkernel.info/ >"M3: A microkernel-based system for heterogeneous manycores, that is developed as a hardware/OS co-design at the TU Dresden. It aims to support arbitrary cores (general purpose cores, DSPs, FPGAs, ASICs, ...) as first-class citizens. This is achieved by abstracting the heterogeneity of the cores via a new hardware component per core, called a data transfer unit." Longer description: https://github.com/TUD-OS/M3 https://github.com/TUD-OS/M3 >"M3 is the operating system for a new system architecture that considers heterogeneous compute units (general-purpose cores with different instruction sets, DSPs, FPGAs, fixed-function accelerators, etc.) from the beginning instead of as an afterthought. The goal is to integrate all compute units (CUs) as first-class citizens, enabling 1) isolation and secure communication between all types of CUs, 2) direct interactions of all CUs to remove the conventional CPU from the critical path, 3) access to OS services such as file systems and network stacks for all CUs, and 4) context switching support on all CUs. The system architecture is based on a hardware/operating system co-design with two key ideas: introduce a new hardware component next to each CU used by the OS as the CUs' common interface and let the OS kernel control applications remotely from a different CU. The new hardware component is called data transfer unit (DTU). Since not all CUs can be expected to offer the architectural features that are required to run an OS kernel, M3 runs the kernel on a dedicated CU and the applications on the remaining CUs. To control an application, a kernel controls its DTU remotely, because CU-external resources (other CUs, memories, etc.) can only be accessed via the DTU." PDS: A nascent, absolutely brilliant idea, in my opinion -- whose true full potential will only be completely realized in the future...