High-Level Programming Model for Heterogeneous Embedded Systems Using Multicore Industry Standard Apis

Multicore embedded systems are rapidly emerging. Hardware designers are packing more and more features into their design. Introducing heterogeneity in these systems, i.e., adding cores of varying types, provides opportunities to solve problems in different aspects. However, those designs present several challenges to embedded system programmers since software is still not mature enough to efficiently exploit the capabilities of emerging hardware, gorgeous with cores of varying architectures. Programmers still rely on understanding and using low-level hardware-specific APIs. The approach is not only time-consuming but also tedious and error-prone. Moreover, the solutions developed are very closely tied to a particular hardware, raising significant concerns over software portability. What is needed is an industry standard that will enable better programming practices for both current and future embedded systems. To that end, in this dissertation, we have explored the possibility of using existing standards, such as OpenMP, that provide portable high-level programming constructs along with the industry-driven standards for multicore systems. We built a portable yet lightweight OpenMP runtime library that incorporates the Multicore Association APIs, making OpenMP programming model available to embedded-system programmers with a broad coverage of targeting embedded devices. In this dissertation, we also explore how to use industry standard APIs as the mapping layer of OpenMP onto heterogeneous-embedded systems. By adopting HIP as the plugin to our stack, we could portably map the applications to heterogeneous devices from different vendors with single-code space.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Science

Grantor

University of Houston

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Sun, Peng 1986-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Chapman, Barbara M.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Gabriel, Edgar
• Shah, Shishir Kirit
• Subhlok, Jaspal
• Chandrasekaran, Sunita

• OpenMP
• Embedded systems

Statement dc:rights

• The author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. UH Libraries has secured permission to reproduce any and all previously published materials contained in the work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10657/3535

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uh-ir.tdl.org:10657/3535