Advantages of heterogenous devices How to manage inter-processor communication How tools can simplify development and debug Summary

1. ©ARM 2017
Efficient software development with
heterogeneous devices
Stefano Cadario
Embedded World 2017 – Nuremberg
Product Manager – Keil MDK
March 16th , 2017

2. ©ARM 20172
Agenda
1. Advantages of heterogenous devices
2. How to manage inter-processor communication
3. How tools can simplify development and debug
4. Summary and Q&A

3. ©ARM 20173
ARM architecture for diverse computing needs
Cortex-A
Highest performance
Optimized for
rich operating systems
Cortex-R
Fast response
Optimized for
high performance,
hard real-time applications
Cortex-M
Smallest/lowest power
Optimized for
discrete processing and
microcontrollers

4. ©ARM 20164
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5. ©ARM 20175
Modern compute systems have diverse workloads
Power
Time
Sleep mode
Interactive mode
Ambient mode

6. ©ARM 20176
Why heterogeneous devices?
Cortex-A benefits
§ Feature rich OS
§ Complex applications
§ Sophisticated HMI
Cortex-M benefits
§ Low I/O latency
§ Low power standby
§ Fast system start-up time
Linux application RTOS system
Inter-processor communication
Combines best of both worlds: feature-rich Linux and MCU with deterministic RTOS

7. ©ARM 20177
Use cases of HMP systems in embedded
Cortex-A Rich UI and OS, high performance
Cortex-M Real-time control
and monitoring
Deterministic
sensor control
Real-time
monitoring
MedicalConsumerIndustrial

8. ©ARM 20178
Overview of software challenges
Developer
productivity
Usability,
portability,
debugging
Data
sharing
Is coherency
necessary?
Task
partitioning
How to optimally
partition tasks?

9. ©ARM 20179
Overview of software challenges
Developer
productivity
Usability,
portability,
debugging
Data
sharing
Is coherency
necessary?
Task
partitioning
How to optimally
partition tasks?

10. ©ARM 201710
Software development challenges
§ Running multiple operating systems
§ Debugging bare-metal code and Linux
applications at the same time
§ Controlling communication between Linux
application and bare-metal application
Linux application
MCU application
Common peripherals
Shared memory
ARM
Cortex-A7
Inter-processor
communication
ARM
Cortex-M4
Linux OS
Complexity increases with heterogeneous devices

11. ©ARM 201711
Software development challenges
§ Requires to write a Linux kernel module
§ Memory segmentation
§ Manage concurrency
§ Kernel mode to User mode communication
§ Bare-metal
§ Manage concurrency
§ Integration with RTOS
§ Handle interrupts and memory management
Shared memory
ARM
Cortex-A7
ARM
Cortex-M4
Linux OS
Kernel module
Linux application MCU application
Manually manage communication between Cortex-A and Cortex-M
Common peripherals
IPC

12. ©ARM 201712
Software development challenges
§ CMSIS adopting OpenAMP
§ CMSIS - Cortex Microcontroller Software Interface
Standard
§ Now open source on Github
§ OS support for HMP systems
§ Remote Processor Messaging (RPMsg) for inter-
processor communication
§ Management framework using remoteproc
Standardization of software interfaces
Shared memory
ARM
Cortex-A7
ARM
Cortex-M4
Linux OS RTX5
RPMsg module
Linux application MCU application
Common peripherals
RPMsg library

13. ©ARM 201713
DS-MDK for heterogeneous systems
Software development solution for Cortex-A and Cortex-MMDKToolsSoftwarePacks
MDK-Core ARM C/C++ Compiler DS-MDK
Device
µVision IDE
with Pack Management
ARM Compiler 5
with Qualification Kit
µVision Debugger
with Streaming Trace
Startup
Device HAL
CMSIS Driver
CMSIS
CMSIS-CORE
CMSIS-DSP
CMSIS-RTOS
DS-5 IDE
with Pack Management
DS-5 Debugger
with Streamline
Middleware
USB Host
File System Graphics
USB Device
IPv6 NetworkIPv4 Network
ARM Compiler 6
LLVMTechnology
mbed TLS
Encryption
mbed Client
IoT Connector
Eclipse CDT based with
CMSIS management
provides access to
documentation, CMSIS
framework and software
components.
Software Packs for NXP's
i.MX6 and i.MX7 are
available.
Support for other devices
in the future.

14. ©ARM 201714
Multiple simultaneous debug connections
Cortex-A Cortex-M
RTOS systemLinux kernel
Linux
application
JTAG
TCP/IP
CoreSight
Microcontroller
application
Debug
ü The Cortex-M application via ULINKpro and
analyse with RTOS awareness and peripheral
views.
ü The Cortex-A Linux kernel and Linux kernel
modules via ULINKpro and list kernel threads
and processes.
ü The Cortex-A Linux application via gdbserver
on the running Linux system using Remote System
Explorer.
Complete visibility to all software applications in the heterogeneous system

15. ©ARM 201715
Efficient software development on HMP
Combines best of both worlds
Feature-rich Linux and MCU with deterministic RTOS on same chip
Standardization of software interface
Speed-up your development with CMSIS
Multicore debug support
Simplifies software development on heterogeneous devices

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Copyright © 2016 ARM Limited
©ARM 2016